A team of researchers conducted 56 dives over 11 days in September on the wreck of the HMS Erebus from the 1845 Franklin Expedition near Gjoa Haven recovering more than 275 additional artifacts from the historic shipwreck. The newly retrieved artifacts included a corrective lens from a pair of eyeglasses, a leather portfolio with a quill still pressed inside as well as a decorative box for drafting, a piece of paper that may be infused with metal, and a box of officers’ epaulets.

In 2020, archaeologists from Parks Canada retrieved more than 350 artifacts from the wreck site, including epaulets from a lieutenant’s uniform, ceramic dishes, wine bottles, a hairbrush with strands of human hair, and a pencil case. 

All the artifacts recovered so far are jointly owned by the Inuit Heritage Trust and the Government of Canada, and many of them can be viewed online at the Parks Canada website.

Franklin’s lost expedition was a voyage in search of the Northwest passage led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed from England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The ships became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in the Canadian Arctic, in what is today the territory of Nunavut. The entire expedition of 129 men, including Franklin, was lost. The expedition is considered one of the worst disasters in the history of polar exploration. The wreck of HMS Erebus was discovered in 2014. HMS Terror was located in 2016.