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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Lost Worlds | Finding Franklin
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Lost Worlds | Finding Franklin

The story of how one Victorian explorer braved the chilly Arctic to discover the fate of another

An artist’s illustration of the lost expedition. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.Premium
An artist’s illustration of the lost expedition. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In 1845, an expedition to the last unexplored areas of the Arctic Northwest Passage left England and never returned. It was captained by famous naval explorer Sir John Franklin, who had the good fortune to be married to the resolute Lady Jane Franklin, thanks to whose efforts search parties went looking for the Franklin expedition for years. After an 1850 expedition came back with testimony that helped locate the final resting place of some of the Franklin crew, Lady Franklin privately financed an expedition—it was her fifth such—to go find any remains.

Target sighted: Captain Francis Leopold McClintock of the Fox . Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
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Target sighted: Captain Francis Leopold McClintock of the Fox . Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

McClintock was pretty hard core as explorers go. His book is worth reading for its clean, brisk style, of the sort that, were we to encounter it in a celebrity memoir today, would make us wonder about ghostwriters. All that Victorian paternalism and talk about “Esquimaux" gets old, and McClintock has a pair of the most regrettable sideburns of any writer ever profiled in this column. But we cannot help but admire his eye for detail, and his rather moving sense of duty to the Franklin expedition. Edited excerpts:

Click here to read The Voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic Seas

••••••••••••

Lady Franklin advises Francis McClintock

Lady Jane Franklin. Photo: Hulton Archives/Getty Images.
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Lady Jane Franklin. Photo: Hulton Archives/Getty Images.

As to the objects of the expedition and their relative importance, I am sure you know that the rescue of any possible survivor of the ‘Erebus’ and ‘Terror’ would be to me, as it would be to you, the noblest result of our efforts.

To this object I wish every other to be subordinate; and next to it in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably precious documents of the expedition, public and private, and the personal relics of my dear husband and his companions.

And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm, directly or inferentially, the claims of my husband’s expedition to the earliest discovery of the N.W. passage, which, if Dr. Rae’s report be true (and the Government of our country has accepted and rewarded it as such), these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at their last extremity, after five long years of labour and suffering, if not at an earlier period.

I am sure you will do all that man can do for the attainment of all these objects; my only fear is that you may spend yourselves too much in the effort; and you must therefore let me tell you how much dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation of the valuable lives of the little band of heroes who are your companions and followers.

Sharks steal Francis McClintock’s dinner

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Francis McClintock finds the Franklin expedition

Lost at sea: Sir John Franklin. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
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Lost at sea: Sir John Franklin. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

The position of this abandoned boat is about 50 miles—as a sledge would travel —from Point Victory, and therefore 65 miles from the position of the ships; also it is 70 miles from the skeleton of the steward, and 150 miles from Montreal Island: it is moreover in the depth of a wide bay, where, by crossing over 10 or 12 miles of very low land, a great saving of distance would be effected, the route by the coast-line being about 40 miles.

...Whether it was the intention of this boat party to await the result of another season in the ships, or to follow the track of the main body to the Great Fish River, is now a matter of conjecture. It seems more than probable that they fully intended to revisit the boat, not only on account of the two men left in charge of it, but also to obtain the chocolate, the five watches, and many other small articles which would otherwise scarcely have been left in her.

...After leaving the boat we followed an irregular coast-line to the N. and N.W., up to a very prominent cape, which is probably the extreme of land seen from Point Victory by Sir James Ross, and named by him Point Franklin, which name, as a cape, it still retains.

I need hardly say that throughout the whole of my journey along the shores of King William’s Land, we all kept a most vigilant look-out for any appearance of the stranded ship spoken of by the natives; but our search for her was utterly fruitless.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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Published: 11 Jan 2013, 06:43 PM IST
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