Speaker 1: The Quest for the North Pole is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. The midnight sun rises
Speaker 1: over the vast expanse of ice as a group of
Speaker 1: Royal Navy sailors loads supplies onto a sledge. Food, tents
Speaker 1: and fuel for eight men are lashed down. While the
Speaker 1: men receive last minute instructions for their journey, they're preparing
Speaker 1: to leave their ships. The Erebus and Terror beset in
Speaker 1: solid ice off King William Island. They've been trapped there
Speaker 1: since the previous September, preventing the cruise from continuing their
Speaker 1: search for the Northwest Passage. The expedition, under leader Sir
Speaker 1: John Franklin, now bids farewell to the party consisting of
Speaker 1: Commander Graham Gore, Lieutenant Charles Frederick de Vaux, and six
Speaker 1: additional men. They are to scout the coast to the south.
Speaker 1: If the admiralties actions are correct, the last missing link
Speaker 1: in the passage should be a couple hundred miles to
Speaker 1: the southwest. Historian Richard Syriacs believed Gore and the men
Speaker 1: aimed to find out and claim the long sought prize
Speaker 1: for their country. Before setting off, Gore has handed a
Speaker 1: metal cylinder containing an Admiralty form and instructed to leave
Speaker 1: it on shore as a record of the expedition. They
Speaker 1: travel towards land over high hummocks of broken ice. They
Speaker 1: likely go some distance to the south along the windswept coast,
Speaker 1: hoping to confirm that Victoria's straight to the west of
Speaker 1: King William Island connected to Simpson straight to the southwest
Speaker 1: and proving the existence of the Northwest passage. On May,
Speaker 1: the men gather stones from the beach into a tall
Speaker 1: cairn before placing the metal cylinder and note in it.
Speaker 1: Gore records the Arabis and Terror's progress thus far and
Speaker 1: adds Sir John Inankland commanding the expedition all well. Two
Speaker 1: weeks later, Franklin is dead. The sea refuses to release
Speaker 1: the ships that summer. By April, the Terror's captain, Francis Krozer,
Speaker 1: makes the fatal decision to abandon the ships. The demise
Speaker 1: of the Franklin expedition remains the most compelling puzzle and
Speaker 1: Arctic exploration. What catastrophe had befallen Britain's best prepared polar
Speaker 1: expedition and what clues are still being uncovered from mental
Speaker 1: floss and I Heart radio you're listening to the Quest
Speaker 1: for the North Pole. I'm your host, Cat Long, science
Speaker 1: editor at Mental Floss, and this bonus episode is the
Speaker 1: Arctic's biggest mystery. In a few episodes of the Quest
Speaker 1: for the North Pole, we looked at the life and
Speaker 1: career of Sir John Franklin, the most famous of nineteenth
Speaker 1: century polar explorers. We mentioned how Franklin captained one of
Speaker 1: two British ships sent towards the North Pole to navigate
Speaker 1: a short cut to Asia through the alleged open Polar
Speaker 1: Sea in eight He didn't get very far. The ships
Speaker 1: ran into storms and had to turn back, but that
Speaker 1: was just the beginning of his polar career. The following year,
Speaker 1: the Admiralty put Franklin in charge of a grueling overland
Speaker 1: expedition in northern Canada. They mapped much of the region
Speaker 1: but ran out of food. They survived by eating lichen
Speaker 1: and their own leather boots. Multiple people were murdered, and
Speaker 1: there were suspicions of cannibalism. Only nine of the twenty
Speaker 1: members returned alive. You think Franklin would have been exiled
Speaker 1: after such a catastrophe. Instead, he became a hero the
Speaker 1: public celebrated him as the tough and resourceful man who
Speaker 1: ate his boots. His account of the three year expedition
Speaker 1: was an instant bestseller, and his bosses at the Admiralty
Speaker 1: actually sent him back to Northern Canada for another more
Speaker 1: successful trip. By almost all of the purported Northwest Passage
Speaker 1: had been charted. All that remained unknown was a relatively
Speaker 1: short stretch west of Cape Walker, where Lancaster Sound turned
Speaker 1: into Barrow Street. Sir John Barrow, the outgoing Second Secretary
Speaker 1: of the Admiralty, and polar veterans like William Edward Perry
Speaker 1: and James Clark Ross, believed it was only a matter
Speaker 1: of time until the mystery of the passage would be solved.
Speaker 1: All they had to do was navig gate this blank
Speaker 1: space and link the known areas to the west with
Speaker 1: those to the east, then the Northwest Passage could finally
Speaker 1: be claimed. Barrow devised a plan that would allow Britain
Speaker 1: to close the book on its Arctic quest. Two ships,
Speaker 1: HMS Arabis and HMS Terror were fixed up for another
Speaker 1: round of polar service. Three years worth of provisions were ordered,
Speaker 1: including more than thirty six thousand pounds of ship's biscuit
Speaker 1: thirty two pounds of beef and pounds of scurvy averting
Speaker 1: lemon juice for the cruise comfort. There were custom made
Speaker 1: wolfskin blankets, a full library for each ship, religious volumes
Speaker 1: donated by various Bible societies, and a hand organ that
Speaker 1: played fifty different songs. And Sir John Franklin, Arctic Hero,
Speaker 1: would lead them to victory. According to history Rian Richard Syriacs,
Speaker 1: the expedition was the best equipped that the Admiralty had
Speaker 1: ever sent to the polar regions. Let's take a break here,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Franklin was to sail south and
Speaker 1: west from Cape Walker and chart a navigable route towards
Speaker 1: bearing Straight. If he found himself blocked by permanent ice
Speaker 1: or land, he was to sail northwest through Wellington Channel,
Speaker 1: around Cornwallis Island, and toward Alaska. Barrow expected Franklin's expedition
Speaker 1: to emerge triumphantly in Bearing Straight in a year, maybe
Speaker 1: even less. There can be no apprehension of loss of
Speaker 1: ships or men. Barrow wrote confidently to the Admiralty lords.
Speaker 1: I confess this expedition is an object I have long
Speaker 1: had at heart, and the present time of bringing it
Speaker 1: forward appeared to be a suit of but one a
Speaker 1: time of profound peace and the finances of the country
Speaker 1: in a flourishing state. The Admiralty having done so much,
Speaker 1: it would be most mortifying and not very creditable to
Speaker 1: let another naval power complete what we had begun. On May,
Speaker 1: the Arabis and Terror left green hythe Kent and sailed
Speaker 1: towards Baffin Bay before entering Lancaster Sound, the eastern end
Speaker 1: of the supposed northwest passage. Franklin's men met two whaling vessels. Then,
Speaker 1: as far as the Admiralty and their loved ones knew,
Speaker 1: the Franklin expedition vanished. The Arabis and Terror failed to
Speaker 1: show up in bearing straight. By early eighty Franklin's old
Speaker 1: friend John Ross began arguing for a rescue mission, but
Speaker 1: the Admiralty wasn't worried. They had sent the expedition off
Speaker 1: with at least three of provisions and everything they need
Speaker 1: for success. Ross's nephew, James Clark Ross, said there was
Speaker 1: no cause for concern because he and his uncle had
Speaker 1: once spent four years in the Arctic and survived. But
Speaker 1: by November, with no further chance of receiving, news that year,
Speaker 1: Franklin's wife, Lady Jane Franklin, began pushing for a search party.
Speaker 1: Three squadrons of rescuers approached the missing piece of the
Speaker 1: passage from the east, South and west, sanguine that they
Speaker 1: would locate the Arabis and terror. All three returned within
Speaker 1: two years having found no trace of Franklin's men. Lady
Speaker 1: Jane Franklin didn't give up. She wrote letters and asked
Speaker 1: the advice of polar experts and whalers, including William Scoresby Jr.
Speaker 1: She buttonholed members of Parliament and her correspondence soliciting donations
Speaker 1: was published in newspapers. She got Charles Dickens to lend
Speaker 1: his support. She even enlisted supernatural help. Lady Jane met
Speaker 1: with a shipbuilder from Northern Ireland who claimed that the
Speaker 1: ghost of his three year old daughter Louisa, had spoken
Speaker 1: from beyond the grave to indicate Franklin's location. Little Wheezy,
Speaker 1: as she was called, supposedly drew, among other things, the
Speaker 1: initials P, R, I and b S on the wall
Speaker 1: of her sister's bedroom. The logical message was that Franklin
Speaker 1: was lost somewhere around Prince Region Inlet and Barrows Strait,
Speaker 1: and finally, Lady Jane was not above publicly shaming the
Speaker 1: Admiralty lords into action. It worked, according to historian Pierre Burton,
Speaker 1: between eighteen forty eight and eighteen fifty nine, more than
Speaker 1: fifty expeditions set out to search for Franklin. They attacked
Speaker 1: the icy maze of islands and channels from every navigable direction,
Speaker 1: dispatching dozens of sledge teams to search every whole in hummock.
Speaker 1: Some of the ships sank or were abandoned. Men died
Speaker 1: of scurvy and exhaustion. Many times the rescuers had to
Speaker 1: be rescued themselves, but slowly they began to unearthed clues.
Speaker 1: By eighteen fifty, searchers discovered Franklin's camp on Beechey Island,
Speaker 1: a tiny speck on the north side of Barrow Strait.
Speaker 1: Among the remains of buildings and empty food cans, they
Speaker 1: found the graves of three young crew members who had
Speaker 1: died in January and April eight placing Franklin's expedition on
Speaker 1: the island during their first winter, but there were no
Speaker 1: notes to reveal where they had gone. The next big
Speaker 1: break came in eighteen fifty one, when Hudson's Bay Company
Speaker 1: surveyor John Ray found pieces of a ship on the
Speaker 1: west coast of Victoria Strait. The possible area of Franklin's
Speaker 1: fate narrowed again in eighteen fifty four when Ray met
Speaker 1: Inuit carrying silver spoons and other relics from the Arabis
Speaker 1: and terror. One of them told Ray that about forty
Speaker 1: white men had died on King William Island four years earlier.
Speaker 1: Ray relayed this information to the Admiralty, writing, from the
Speaker 1: mutilated state of many of the corpses and the contents
Speaker 1: of the kettles, it is evident that our wretched countrymen
Speaker 1: had been driven to the last dread resource cannibalism as
Speaker 1: a means of prolonging existence. The Admiralty leaked his letter
Speaker 1: to the press, shocking Lady Jane, Charles Dickens and the
Speaker 1: rest of Victorian England. Dickens even suggested, without a hint
Speaker 1: of evidence, that the Inuit had murdered the men. The
Speaker 1: findings seemed to prove that Franklin and all of his
Speaker 1: men had perished in the Arctic, but it didn't explain
Speaker 1: what caused the disaster. Lady Jane was bent on finding out.
Speaker 1: She bought a steam yacht called the Fox. She hired
Speaker 1: naval Captain Leopold McClintock, a sledging champ and veteran of
Speaker 1: three earlier Franklin search expeditions, and Lieutenant William Hobson as
Speaker 1: his second in command. They left Britain in July eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven with orders to inspect the last parcel of
Speaker 1: land that hadn't been thoroughly searched by the dozens of
Speaker 1: earlier efforts, the shores of King William Island. By September
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight, sledge parties fanned out from the ship
Speaker 1: anchored on the Boothia Peninsula. McClintock and Hobson headed south
Speaker 1: to King William Island, then split up, with hobson covering
Speaker 1: the north and west side and McClintock's team continuing to
Speaker 1: the east and south. It wasn't long before Hobson stumbled
Speaker 1: upon the truth. At Victory Point, he found the metal
Speaker 1: cylinder left by Gore's party back in May eighty seven,
Speaker 1: with the crew all well, but a second note, dated
Speaker 1: April had been written around the first and told a
Speaker 1: much darker story. Terror and Arabis were deserted on the
Speaker 1: twenty April five leagues north northwest of this having been
Speaker 1: beset since twelve September eighteen forty six, The Arabis's Captain
Speaker 1: James fitz James wrote John Franklin had died on June eleven,
Speaker 1: eighty seven, just two weeks after Gore left the original note.
Speaker 1: In total, nine officers and fifteen men had died, and
Speaker 1: the remaining one five crew under Captain Crozer's command, were
Speaker 1: headed to the mouth of Back's Fish River on the mainland.
Speaker 1: Finally the voices of the lost expedition had been heard.
Speaker 1: Then Hobson discovered Skeleton's bow and previous camps. McClintock came
Speaker 1: upon other remains, identifiable by their uniforms and the papers
Speaker 1: they carried near backs Fish River, confirming the expedition's route
Speaker 1: described in fitz James's note. Both officers returned home in
Speaker 1: September eighteen fifty nine with concrete evidence of the expedition's fate,
Speaker 1: but the mystery didn't end there. In the eighteen seventies,
Speaker 1: American explorers like Charles Francis Hall, Elisha Kent Cain, and
Speaker 1: Frederick Schwatka, with the Inuit guides Tukulit took Pyrvic and
Speaker 1: many others combed the last known roots of the Franklin Expedition.
Speaker 1: They found numerous relics and recorded testimony from Intuit who
Speaker 1: knew of the expedition's demise from their oral histories. Following
Speaker 1: Schwatka's findings, explorers lost interest in mounting long and arduous
Speaker 1: expeditions to find further clues to an old disaster. Instead,
Speaker 1: they turned their attention to the national race for the
Speaker 1: North Pole. We'll be right back. The next glimpses into
Speaker 1: the Franklin mystery were gathered by Danish explorers Canude Rasmussen
Speaker 1: and Peter Freakin in the nineteen twenties. They traveled from
Speaker 1: their base camp at the Tuley Trading Post in Greenland,
Speaker 1: just across Baffin Bay from Lancaster Sound to the Inuit
Speaker 1: communities in Arctic Canada. Though his purpose was ethnographic research,
Speaker 1: Rasmussen's expedition did collect further Intuit accounts of Franklin. By
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, modern science met up with the Franklin Expedition.
Speaker 1: Canadian physical anthropologist Owen Beatty and a team from the
Speaker 1: University of Alberta applied forensic investigative techniques to the mystery.
Speaker 1: Beatty's team traveled to King William Island in n and
Speaker 1: discovered numerous skeletal fragments likely belonging to Franklin's crew. They
Speaker 1: showed pitting and scaling, indicating scurvy, as well as parallel
Speaker 1: knife marks suggesting cannibalism. Lab tests revealed that they also
Speaker 1: contained extremely high levels of lead. Beat He believed the
Speaker 1: preserved food supplied to the expedition may have absorbed lead
Speaker 1: from the cans, fatally poisoning the crew, but to really
Speaker 1: confirm his theory, he'd need to analyze soft tissue in
Speaker 1: His team began exhuming the three frozen bodies of Franklin
Speaker 1: crew members John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Brain buried
Speaker 1: on Beechey Island. Autopsy results showed super high lead levels,
Speaker 1: supporting Beattie's theory. However, recent molecular research has thrown the
Speaker 1: lead can theory into question. A twenty sixteen analysis of
Speaker 1: John Hartnell's nails found that for much of the expedition,
Speaker 1: his lead levels were within a normal range, but he
Speaker 1: had a severe zinc deficiency, which might have come from
Speaker 1: poor preservation of the food the crew was eating. The
Speaker 1: high lead levels may have emerged as Hartnell was dying.
Speaker 1: His body may have released lead he had absorbed throughout
Speaker 1: his life, making it seem as though he had been
Speaker 1: exposed to massive amounts of the element. Two of the
Speaker 1: biggest Franklin expedition relics were still missing when Beattie was
Speaker 1: doing his work. No one knew exactly where Franklin ships,
Speaker 1: the Arabis and Terror had sunk, or if they'd been
Speaker 1: crushed to pieces by ice. Beginning in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: the government agency Parks Canada and Inuit organizations and knowledge
Speaker 1: holders renewed efforts to locate the ships. To guide their search,
Speaker 1: They used Inuit testimony collected by Hall and Schwat in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, plus oral history is gathered by Inuit
Speaker 1: historian Louis Camucock and others on the ground. Investigations were
Speaker 1: limited to a few weeks each summer when the sea
Speaker 1: was clear of ice. For several years, the team combed
Speaker 1: underwater areas with sidescans, sonar, and surveyed the coast, but
Speaker 1: came up empty. Like the Franklin search parties of the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, they succeeded in discovering where the ships weren't,
Speaker 1: which narrowed their target to an area south of King
Speaker 1: William Island, and Innok had told Charles Francis Hall that
Speaker 1: a ship had sunk there. By early September, a chance
Speaker 1: discovery of some parts from a British naval ship on
Speaker 1: shore allowed the team to zero in on an area
Speaker 1: about eighty miles south of King William Island, where sidescans
Speaker 1: Sonar revealed the final resting place of the h M
Speaker 1: s arabis Lar vitually intact and preserved by the icy environment,
Speaker 1: and just two years later, a local hunter named Sammy
Speaker 1: Kovic led the archaeologist to another site in a sheltered
Speaker 1: bay where he'd seen wood sticking through the sea ice.
Speaker 1: When they dropped an r o V into the water,
Speaker 1: it's sent back the first full images of the HMS
Speaker 1: Terror the world had seen in more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years. Since then, Parks Canada and Intuit partners
Speaker 1: have made detailed surveys of the shipwrecks and retrieved hundreds
Speaker 1: of naval and personal artifacts, from the arabiss bell to
Speaker 1: a hair brush with hairs still in it. For now,
Speaker 1: the recks raise more questions than they answer about the
Speaker 1: Franklin mystery. Unfortunately, the COVID nineteen pandemic canceled this summer's
Speaker 1: dive season, but more research is expected next year. One
Speaker 1: of the most exciting scientific discoveries happened this past May.
Speaker 1: For the first time, skeletal remains excavated from King William
Speaker 1: Island were identified through DNA and genealogical analyzes. Since archaeologist
Speaker 1: Douglas Stenton and his team have been creating DNA profiles
Speaker 1: of bones excavated from King William Island and asking anyone
Speaker 1: who might be related to a Franklin crew member for
Speaker 1: a DNA sample. They announced the first match in May,
Speaker 1: identifying a set of bones as belonging to John Gregory,
Speaker 1: an engineer on the Arabas, confirmed through his direct descendant,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Gregory's DNA. The researchers are hopeful that this is
Speaker 1: only the beginning the biggest mystery, and Arctic exploration continues
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy six years after the Arabis and
Speaker 1: terror left England. While professional archaeologists and Inuit guardians investigate
Speaker 1: the physical evidence, amateur archivists are pouring over manuscripts and
Speaker 1: library collections, literally piecing together clues. Franklin is long gone,
Speaker 1: buried at sea or resting in an unmarked grave, but
Speaker 1: his legacy lives on. The Quest for the North Pole
Speaker 1: is hosted by Me cat Long. This episode was researched
Speaker 1: and written by Me, with fact checking by Austin Thompson.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy and Tyler Klang. The
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. The show is edited by
Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan. For transcripts, a glossary, and to learn more
Speaker 1: about this episode, visit Mental flaws dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 1: The Quest for the North Pole is a product of
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