Second Ship Found from Doomed 1800s Arctic Expedition
1836 watercolor painting by Admiral Sir George Back, then in command of the HMS Terror on a voyage to Hudson’s Bay, shows the ship and one of her boats beside an iceberg. (Courtesy: Canadian Museum of Civilization / Parks Canada)
Explorers have found the wreck of HMS Terror, the second of two British ships lost in the disastrous 1845 Franklin expedition to Canada's Arctic Northwest Passage, Britain's Guardian newspaper said on Monday.
The Arctic Research Foundation, a private group that sent a vessel to help look for the ship, found it in pristine condition at the bottom of a bay earlier this month, a spokesman told the paper.
Sir John Franklin and his 128-member crew in the Terror and HMS Erebus all died after the vessels became stuck in ice during a search for the fabled Arctic passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The fate of the ships remained one of the great mysteries in Canadian history for almost 170 years until a team found the wreck of the Erebus in September 2014.
Canada's federal parks ministry - which is coordinating the search for the Terror - said it was working to verify the report. Reuters was not immediately able to contact the foundation.
The expedition has become part of Canadian folklore, in part because of the crew's appalling fate. Tales handed down from the aboriginal Inuit people describe cannibalism among the desperate seamen.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
February 2024
