WEBVTT - From the Vault: Fire From the Rocks, Part 1 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:07.960 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:09.160 name is Robert. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.000 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Rob and I are 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.160 out this week, so we are bringing you some episodes 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.120 from the vault. This one originally published April twenty sixth, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.840 twenty twenty two. This is part one of our series 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:28.200 called Fire from the Rocks. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.920 Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.239 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.400 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. When we think 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.640 about fire, and we do think about fire a lot 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:46.680 on this show, it's come out time and time again. 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.600 Are you confessing something that we love. 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.720 Fire, that we worship fire, that we delight in its 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.800 growth and its consumption. No, but it is be fed, 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:00.240 It must be fed. But it is an import an 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.839 aspect of Earth. You know, as we've discussed on past episodes. 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.080 You know, Earth is the only planet known to have fire, 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:10.800 and there was a time when there was no fire 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.920 on Earth because it wasn't possible yet. You know, fire. 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:17.760 When we think about fire, we think about its fleeting nature, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.360 but also its potential. It's tremendous power provided conditions are 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:26.000 just right. It's always interesting to think about how fire 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:28.399 is in many ways more an event than a thing. 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.559 For it to happen, you need heat, fuel, and oxygen, 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.839 and the fuel and the oxygen were not always present 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.039 on our planet. Fire is more or less an aspect 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.840 of the New Earth, and the earliest evidence of charred 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.679 vegetation dates back a mere four hundred and forty million years. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.840 Right, So today natural forest fires are just part of 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:50.960 the cycle of life on the surface of Earth. But 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.400 there was a time when Earth had its first forest fire. 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.120 Can you imagine that, like the first time that ever happened. 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.240 Yeah, yeah, it's crazy to imagine. And so this is 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.240 this has been an aspect of life under the Earth 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:09.360 ever since. And yeah, with fire, it's interesting too because 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.440 there's this trifecta obviously that's necessary for it to exist, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.400 but it is a delicate tripod. Remove one of the 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.520 legs of the fire tripod and the fire will perish. 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.839 So yeah, our relationship with fire is sometimes like whoa, 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.160 this is out of control, and other times it is 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:28.839 you know, I can't get this thing to light at all, 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:31.240 you know, So I think we're all familiar with that 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:36.200 with the dual nature of fire. So for today's episode, 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.200 and this will spill into into the next episode as well, 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:41.440 I thought we might start with just what I thought 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.000 was just a really tantalizing question because I'd never really 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.760 thought about it before, not until you brought up this topic, 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.160 And that is what is the longest that a single 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:55.160 fire has raged? And I guess there are all sorts 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.160 of sort of artificial parameters we might throw in, you know, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.960 what constitutes a single fire versus multiple fires spread out 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.760 over time. I guess we kind of have to take 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:09.880 the human scenario of like a hearth or a campfire 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.560 and imagine that is sort of our basic principle, like 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.639 a single a single flame that keeps eating things, keeps consuming, 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.959 maybe it moves. But what is the longest that such 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.000 a fire has raged without snuffing out completely and having 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.000 to be reset one way or another. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:25.960 Great question. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.320 Yeah, so of course you know the answer that I 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.160 know the answer to now, But putting ourselves in the 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.960 mindset of someone who doesn't know the answer, you might 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.000 likely turn to a few different categories to start off, 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.360 And the first would be what we just talked about, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:46.920 forest fires. So as long as we've had forests and fire. 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.960 This has been a possibility here on Earth. Many of 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.800 the worst forest fires in history, though, are measured in 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:58.040 terms of acres, destruction, and fatality rather than in time. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.520 But if you dig down you can start seeing some 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.960 time stamps on things. Many of the worst are dated 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:10.080 to just a single day in human history. Others last longer, though. 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.800 Some of the consist of multiple blazes, so it becomes 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:14.640 perhaps a little more of a challenge to think of 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.000 a continuous fire in these cases, though in many of 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.320 the cases I think it does fit. Some wildfire seasons, 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.880 of course, span many months, and then you have particular 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.360 fires that have raged for a period of time. There's 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.240 the Coyote Fire of nineteen sixty four in Santa Barbara, California, 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.919 which lasted from September first to October first. So it 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.080 seems we might think if we're thinking about modern forest fires, 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.719 we're going to probably look at something lasting days, months 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:49.360 somewhere in that range. Now, as for wildfires of yesteryear, 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.400 as well as blazes caused by prehistoric extinction events, I 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.680 couldn't find many stats on this, but I suppose it's 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.839 worth thinking about. But it's also worth thinking about the 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.599 fact that when you have a particularly large energetic fire, 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.479 it can ultimately become something entirely different. You've become this 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.640 fire storm which creates and sustains its own wind system. 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.400 So I mean, I guess that's one of the reasons 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.680 when we start looking at some of these big blazes, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:21.360 they do tremendous damage, they can cover a pretty large area, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.400 but they're still not lasting that long in time because 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.039 they're just eating through all of that fuel in a 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.680 relatively short period of time. And of course, with when 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:32.600 we're talking about wildfires, we also have to think about 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:37.440 the fact that, you know, the human civilization has an 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:42.040 impact as well on just how wildfires will play out 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.040 through a given forest scenario, you know, and to a 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.000 certain extent, you know, we've been able to jump in 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:55.039 with with orchestrated burns, control burns to try and simulate 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.279 sort of the natural cycle of fires that would normally occur. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.520 But another area where you have to factor in human 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.400 civilization is of course, when you're dealing with urban fires, 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.359 where the trees and various other aspects of the natural 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:13.320 world have been remade into an artificial environment a city, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:17.120 and then what happens when that catches fire. Well, I 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.200 think a lot of the same practicalities are involved here 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.880 as well. Some of the great fires to ravaged cities 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.960 are often measured to a single date and time, though 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.400 there are some exceptions. There's the one forty six BCE 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:37.120 burning of Carthage, which reportedly took seventeen days, but this 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.800 was also said to be a systematic burning of the 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:41.839 city by the Romans, So I'm not sure that would 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.320 count so much because it was one of these situations obviously, 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.200 where the Romans are like, let's burn the city down, 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.680 let's make sure everything burns through. There are some other 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.320 fires that are worth mentioning. There's the Great Fire of 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.400 Utricht in the Netherlands that lasted nine days reportedly in 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.680 twelve fifty three. There's the eighteen eighty nine first Great 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:08.160 Fire of Lynn, Massachusetts, reportedly last two weeks, destroying roughly 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.960 one hundred buildings. So it looks like if we were 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.119 going to say, look to the world of like urban 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.560 fires for some sort of a candidate for longest fire, 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:18.320 you're going to be looking at something in the realm 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.000 of days to weeks. But figures beyond that seem kind 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.040 of doubtful. All right, The next area to think about, though, 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:29.840 would be, of course, human sustained fires. What about situations 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.480 in which a human cultivated flame, a flame that's kept 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.840 and fed more or less like a pet, either for 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:40.200 technological purposes, say like a forge or a pilot light, 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.560 or something that's more religious or secular, or a secular 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.040 symbol in nature, you know, something like a holy fire 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.080 that's kept going, or some sort of a monument that 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.640 has an eternal flame hooked up to it. 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.520 I was shocked to discover how many monuments there are 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.040 that have so called eternal flames on them because I 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.280 don't know, maybe it's just my morbid brain, but it 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.800 seems like calling a flame eternal is just tempting the fates, 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.200 Like you know, this is not this flame will not 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.960 burn forever. It's like settled down. You can't call it eternal. 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:14.960 I was trying to think what you should call it instead. 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:16.760 I can't come up with them. You think, I don't know, 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.120 maybe the long burning flame or something, or the attempted 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.280 eternal flame. It's just eternal is not going to happen. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.000 Right, Yeah, I mean I guess to a certain extent, 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:27.880 I guess this is obvious, Like they're getting into the 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.920 idea of like the fire is something that is that 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:32.959 it can go out and it has to be cultivated. 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.600 And you know a lot of these are tied to 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.480 to causes and memories with the with the idea of 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.880 saying like, hey, let's let's let's make a point of 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.840 remembering this individual or remembering this cause, and we'll use 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:52.040 the fire as a symbol. But that Yeah, there have 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.079 been a number of these that that have sprung up 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.000 just at the end of the twentieth century and even 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.960 you know, in the twenty first century, and it's certainly 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.040 with the older ones it gets more difficult to really 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.040 figure out, Okay, has this been truly a perpetual eternal 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.319 fire or has it gone out at least once, if 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.400 not multiple times over the span of time that is 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:14.240 attributed to it. 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.720 I'm sorry that Roger Korman is invading my brain right now, 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:19.480 but I'm thinking of a line and Attack of the 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.479 Crab monsters where the giant psychic crab they are assaulting 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.160 it with different types of weapons. The humans are trying 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:28.160 to defeat it, and at some point they use a 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.680 fire based weapon and the crab counters by telling them 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.680 he says something like that was quick thinking, Dale. But 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.840 the pity is that all fires must one day burn out. 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:43.720 True, it's true. But by the way, more fairly recently, 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.280 someone was asking, I think in the discord for stuff 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.480 to blow your mind, what are all the episodes in 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:52.840 which Joe has mentioned attack of the crab monsters. No 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.120 one had a clear answer, but a few episodes were 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.559 brought up in which people remembered you mentioning it. We'll 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.280 add this the list. Okay, So, out of the various 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.240 examples that come up, one that I thought was pretty 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.480 interesting is that of the Dasho in Temple complex in 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.360 Japan that has a flame that is said to have 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:16.359 been burning for about twelve hundred years. Obviously, it's impossible 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.160 to say one hundred percent with something like this, and 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.400 ultimately I guess it's the idea of the continuous flame 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.920 that is most important here. But still, this is an 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.760 example of one that has supposedly been burning for over 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.800 a thousand years. Now, this is not quite a flame, 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:36.840 but I ran across this as well, and I thought 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.319 i'd mentioned it just because it's amusing, and maybe we 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.640 have some listeners who can report on this first hand. 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.080 But there is something known as the Centennial light bulb 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.040 in Livermore, California, specifically in the firehouse there. It's been 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:55.480 burning there the bulb since nineteen oh one, though this 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.040 has not been continuous. There have been power outages and 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.560 electrical issues, etc. So I'm not sure exactly like what 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:06.840 the ratio is between the time during that century plus 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.680 that the light has been out versus on, but it's 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.120 certainly a very old light bulb that still lights up. 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.960 And there is a webcam you can like check in 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.840 on its status at centennialbulb dot org. 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.480 So this is same filament, no replaced parts, it's the 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.520 same bulb and it still works. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.080 Still works, yeah, and you can go visit it like 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.679 on the website. It has information about how you can 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:33.800 see this bulb for yourself. 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.679 That is very impressive because obviously this is not an 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.920 LED bulb or something. This is Lord knows how they 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:41.880 were making light bulbs in nineteen oh one, but this 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:46.000 was in some form an incandescent filament based light bulb. 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.280 Yes. Now, now getting back to the idea of fire 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.800 and technology, I will say that I don't have an 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.840 answer regarding things like pilot lights or you know, forge fires, 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.400 industrial flames so there might be a really good example 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.760 out there that I just couldn't find a of a 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.600 verified long burning pilot light or long burning forge fire, 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:09.839 that sort of thing. But if listeners out there have 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:20.320 something to submit on that count, let us have it. Yeah. So, 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.600 based on everything I've mentioned here and then this very 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.240 much reflects my mindset going into this. I was thinking, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.079 you know, before we did any research, before we brought 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:29.720 up the idea of the episode, I would have guessed, well, 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.200 the longest raging fire. You know, maybe maybe it's gone, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.040 you know, a few weeks, a few months, and you know, 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.280 if the conditions are just right. But beyond that, I mean, 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.360 how how long can a fire rage? Joe, would you 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.640 like to get into one of the answers that we're 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.040 going to discuss in these episodes. 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.800 Well, for the rest of the series, we wanted to 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.160 talk about naturally fueled flames, Flames that can burn for 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.800 a long long time because humans weren't e been necessary 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:04.600 to create them that there, they can arise in various ways. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:06.800 We're going to talk about some major categories, I think 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.319 more in the next part of this series, but there 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:15.800 are various kinds of burning and ignition processes that it 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.840 turns out have been going on on the surface of 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:23.880 the Earth for hundreds or even thousands of years. 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:28.600 Which of course absolutely just dwarfs everything that I've mentioned 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:32.960 so far. It really puts things on an entirely different timescale. 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.920 Right, So I wanted to talk in this episode about 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.600 one example that really struck me when I was reading 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.959 up for this that's sort of an odd man out. 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.760 It's not exactly fitting into the other categories that we're 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:46.640 going to be talking about in part two, so I 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:48.440 figured it'd be good to start with this one. So 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:54.320 in the Northwest Territories of Canada, there is a stretch 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:59.319 of seaside, cliff faces and hills along the eastern coast 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.760 of a place called Cape Bathurst, where the earth and 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:09.439 the rocks themselves seem to be perpetually burning, and they 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:14.520 have been that way, probably for thousands of years. In English, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.520 this place is known as the Smoking Hills, or sometimes 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.160 the Smoky Mountains, not to be confused with the ones 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:26.120 along the Tennessee North Carolina border. Different smoking mountains literally 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.000 smoking in this case, but in the language of the Inuvialuit, 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.360 and these are the people native to the western Canadian 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.680 Arctic region. It is known as ingnir Yuat, which means 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.600 big fire, and I was poking around for good historical 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:43.960 resources on this place. A lot of the articles I 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.440 dug up actually seemed rather confused, offering contradictory details about 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.640 early observations. So the best thing I found was a 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:57.160 piece in a magazine called tusai Osat, which is a 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.560 publication devoted to the language, culture in history of the 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.280 inuvialu It. This article is by Charles Arnold and it's 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.160 called ing near yat the Smoking Hills of Franklin Bay. 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.720 So Arnold identifies the earliest written account of the Smoking 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.080 Hills as one tracing back to a Scottish naturalist, explorer 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.880 and naval surgeon named Sir John Richardson, who wrote about 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:26.200 the hills in the eighteen twenties while documenting an expedition 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.680 that he made to chart the coastlines of northern Canada. 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.360 And as a side note, this mission was actually organized 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:38.000 in cooperation with another Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, who 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.960 many years later, in eighteen forty five, would head up 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:45.120 the infamous Lost Franklin Expedition, the goal of which was 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.720 to fully chart a Northwest Sea passage through Canada. They 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:50.760 were hoping to find a way to get around the 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.720 northern part of the continent by water. Obviously, this is 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:56.640 even though you know, if you look at a map 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:58.920 you'll see a lot of gaps between the islands of 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.200 northern Canada. This is more difficult than it might sound 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:06.000 because often these waterways are choked with ice. So when 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.280 Franklin got lost in the eighteen forties, he was trying 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.760 to find this Northwest passage. And if you want to 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.600 know more, you can look up what's known and unknown 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.240 about the voyage of the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.920 If you want some good hair raising mystery with hints 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:21.800 of cannibalism. 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.160 Yeah. Yeah, it's a fabulous story, you know what we've 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.840 been able to piece together over the years through the 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.640 original history and then the finding of the wreckage and 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.040 so forth. Dan Simons wrote a fictional take on the 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:40.000 Terror and the Arabis titled The Terror, which was a 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.160 brick of a book that was then made to an 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.400 excellent AMC mini series a few years back. In this 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:51.280 Franklin is played by the actor Kieran Hines. But I 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.160 highly recommend this series. It's a wonderful mix of detailed 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:59.440 historic depiction as well as fantasy and horror. Jared Harris 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.360 and Tobias Menzies also star in that. 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.480 It's really good, Rob, can you do a short version 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.840 of what we actually do know about the Lost Franklin Expedition. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.919 Well, there's a killer monster that shows up. No, No, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.159 that's the that's the that's the miniseries I'm thinking of. 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:17.760 I mean, it's really really sorry. We could get into 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.800 the full episodes really, but but basically, you have these 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.640 two vessels that were that were seeking the Northwest Passage 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.679 and they went missing, and you get into like what 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.000 happened to the crew? Like how long were they marooned 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.520 out there in the ice and there's ships locked in 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:38.080 frozen in Where where did they get to? Did anybody actually, 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.560 you know, make it out. It's presumed, I think still 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.640 that they all died, but you know, there's a lot 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:48.280 of there's been a lot of analysis over the years about, 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.439 you know, what happened to them and then and then 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.440 later on we actually found the wreckages. 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.240 There's a famous painting I think that has to do 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.800 with this, with this lost voyage called It's Got a 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.640 real Metal album name is called something like Man proposes, 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:08.159 God disposes or something, and it's the painting is just 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.160 of polar bears fighting over scraps of the wreckage. 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.159 Yeah. Yeah, for the longest the wreckage was was just 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.520 lost entirely, but it was yeah. Twenty fourteen. In September 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:23.160 of twenty fourteen, an expedition by Parks Canada discovered first 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.960 the Arabis and then two years later they found the 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:26.840 terror as well. 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.480 Well. Anyway, coming back to the story, sorry, so, doctor 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.600 John Richardson, the author of the account on about to site, 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.000 was not involved in the lost expedition. He just was 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.400 an early collaborator with Franklin. So turning back to his 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:44.000 survey several decades earlier, in traveling along the shore of 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.760 the place that would come to be known as Franklin Bay, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:53.720 Richardson made some observations of something marvelous cliffs that themselves 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.520 appeared to be quote on fire giving out smoke, and 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:02.160 where the ground appeared to consists of quote, burnt clays 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:07.000 variously colored yellow, white, and deep red. I found another 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:11.240 source quoting one of Richardson's accounts, where he says, quote 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:15.520 at Cape Bathurst, the northern end of Franklin Bay, bituminous 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.800 shale is exposed in many places, and in my visit 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.760 there in eighteen twenty six was in a state of ignition, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.760 and the clays which had been thus exposed to the 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.840 heat were baked and vitrified, so that the spot resembled 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.960 an old brickfield. And I will say I understand what 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.320 Richard is getting at here. Of course, brickfields are places 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.600 where bricks are manufactured. You can look these up on 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.159 the Internet and you can see the resemblance with the 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.640 unnatural look of the baked earth. But when I look 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.240 at pictures of the smoking Hills, my computer ruined brain 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.040 sees these landscapes, and unfortunately, the first place it goes 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:54.800 is that it looks like a level in doom. 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:59.639 Yeah, it does. It. Also, I have to say it 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.680 kind of delicious, like I'm also reminded of I don't 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.560 like red velvet cake. It's like red velvet cake emerging 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:06.160 from the earth. 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:06.800 Yeah. 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:07.200 Yeah. 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:11.159 And it's very interesting the way they produce these protruding 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:15.920 rock formations. They're very jagged, and they seem to be 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:20.600 rather resistant to weathering compared to the unbaked rock all 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:22.359 around them, which is more smoothed over. 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.479 Yeah, very jagged, very and very bloody looking in some cases. 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:28.880 So yeah, it looks like some sort of rock formation 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.600 that has just gouged into the flash of a titan totally. 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.639 So that's what Richardson saw in the eighteen twenties. He says, Hey, 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:37.919 you know, we went past these cliffs. They appeared to 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.320 be on fire. They're giving off smoke. We see a 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.600 lot of burnt clay. It's yellow, white and deep red, 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.040 very weird. Looks like an old brickfield. But then the 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.520 written history of the Smoking Hills continues after the disappearance 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.920 of the Franklin expedition in the eighteen forties. So Franklin, 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:55.879 the two ships Franklin, and the crews go missing, and 0:20:55.920 --> 0:21:00.000 in the year eighteen fifty, a ship called the HMS Investigator, 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.400 under the command of Captain Robert McClure, was searching for 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.040 survivors of the Franklin party in the area around Franklin 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.400 Bay once again, when the crew of this ship came 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.560 across the same weird site cliffs by the sea that 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.600 were strangely covered and were giving off plumes of smoke. 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.960 And at first they thought these might be campfires or 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.520 signals from the Franklin survivors, so they sent out a 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.040 small boat to check it out, see what's going on. 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.679 But no, it was not survivors of the Franklin mission. 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:37.760 Arnold in his article identifies testimony left by a Moravian 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:42.080 missionary named Johann Mirtsching, who was a member of the 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.720 shore party. And this is one where I really wanted 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.480 to find the original text, but I don't. I can't 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.240 if this has been digitized anywhere, I could not find it. 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.760 It appears to be from what's called the Arctic Diary 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:58.000 of Johan Mirching eighteen fifty to eighteen fifty four, that 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.920 those published in print form in Toronto in nineteen sixty seven, 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:05.800 but I couldn't find the digital version, So I'm relying 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.520 on Arnold's summaries of what Merching says. But he says 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:12.520 that when they got to the source of the smoke, 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.119 they found no human life alive or dead. Only quote 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:19.520 a thick smoke emerging from various vents in the ground, 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:22.480 and a smell of sulfur so strong that we could 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.400 not approach the smoke pillar nearer than ten or fifteen 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.760 feet flame there was none, but the ground was so 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:32.359 hot that it scorched the soles of our feet. Arnold 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:36.600 says that Mirching compared the landscape to a huge chemical factory. 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.680 He says that water from nearby ponds had been fouled 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:44.639 by something from the earth, and that the water tasted sour, 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.160 and they brought back samples of rocks from the smoking hills, 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.840 brought them back to the ship where Merching apparently claims 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.639 that they ended up burning a hole in the mahogany 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.679 table where Captain McClure kept them. So they took some 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.000