WEBVTT - Franklin's Lost Expedition 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:13.920 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.800 I'm Katie Lambert and joining me today is Sarah Dowdy. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.959 How are you, Sarah. I'm good, Katie good. We keep 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:23.959 getting emails requesting more about Canadian history and I have 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.720 something close to Canadian history today, kooky Arctic mystery. So 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:30.920 we're gonna go ahead and say that counts. We're talking 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:35.680 about Sir John Franklin's Lost Expedition. John Franklin was one 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.480 of twelve kids and his parents wanted him to become 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.560 a clergyman, but he loved the sea and he was 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.240 absolutely sure that was his destiny from a young age. 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.600 So he entered the Royal Navy at fourteen, where he 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.960 had a varied career. He took part in expeditions to Australia, 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:57.240 he fought in the Battle of Trafalgar, and he commanded 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.480 the Trent on an eighteen eighteen Arctic expedition in an 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.520 attempt to reach the North Pole. And from eighteen eighteen 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.800 to eighteen twenty two he conducted an overland expedition from 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.080 Hudson Bay to the Arctic. I think and surveyed part 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.960 of the coast, the parts that people had never seen before, 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.520 a large swath of the coast, and published a book 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:21.880 about it, the Narrative of a Journey to the Shores 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.320 of the Polar Sea, and did another narrative a few 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.199 years later after a second overland expedition in the same region. 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:33.360 And during this time it was post Napoleonic Wars. The 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.880 British Navy really needed something to do, basically, and they 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.880 needed a purpose. Yeah, And so largely thanks to Sir 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.760 John Barrow, they decided their purpose was going to be 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:49.920 to navigate the Northwest Passage. And the Northwest Passage has 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:54.680 been an idea floated around since Elizabethan times even but 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.480 it was essentially that there was a way to take 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:05.200 a ship from the Atlantic to the Pacific, going above Canada, 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.480 and they knew it was there somewhere, they just didn't 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.360 know where. Somewhere in all that ice between all those islands, 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.160 they knew there was a way, but it took a 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.680 very long time to find it, and even longer to 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:23.919 actually navigate it. So in eighteen forty five they decide 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:28.320 they're going to launch another expedition, and Franklin is not 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:32.320 their first choice. Because he's older. He's fifty nine, and 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:34.680 they think that might be too old for someone who's 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.840 going to be in such strenuous conditions. Yeah, it's basically 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.800 seemed like his naval career was over. He's been the 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:46.720 governor of Tasmania for several years, he's been knighted. It 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.600 doesn't seem like he's the man to choose for your 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.560 Arctic expedition. But he's convinced that he's the right one. 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:55.600 And I think someone said something to him about being 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.760 sixty and he said, no, no, I'm fifty nine, with 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.359 to make that clear. So it's a go, and Franklin 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.040 is their choice. And the ships they were going to 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.560 take were state of the art at the time. They 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:15.320 had iron reinforced halls and steam engines. They were very 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.040 well equipped. Yeah, they have three years worth of canned 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.480 food on board, which partly ends up being a problem, 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.160 but we'll get to that. Um. So they dock in 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:31.800 Greenland in July of eight and they sent home a 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.840 few men and a batch of letters. If you were 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:36.680 one of the men to be sent home there, you 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:41.600 were very lucky because things didn't go well from there 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.520 on out. The last sighting of them is by British 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.800 whalers north of Baffin Island at the entrance to Lancaster 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:52.000 Sound in July of eighteen forty five, and then they 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:56.600 disappear and go completely off the map. So what happened? 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.800 Search parties were sent in eighteen forty seven to and 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.400 through that exact question, because two years was too long. 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.800 They should have heard something by now, and the searches 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:10.440 keep going. Yeah, by eighteen fifty as many as fourteen 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.800 ships were in the area at the same time looking 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.280 for them. This turned out to be kind of the 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:20.479 romantic adventure of the age searching for Franklin and his 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.760 lost crew, and consequently a lot of information about the 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:29.200 Northwest Passage was discovered during these rescue attempts. But we're 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.359 going to kind of give the overview of what happened 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.039 to Franklin and his men during this time. This was 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:40.200 all pieced together over years and years. But I'm something 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.280 like thirty expeditions to find them. They each came back 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:48.039 with a little pieces. Yeah. So by in eighty five 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.640 to six they winter at Beechey Island and three crewmen 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.440 die there and they started with a dred and twenty 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:00.960 nine people. Yeah, so the numbers are are dwindling slowly. Yeah. 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.360 In eighteen forty six, these ships which are named Erebus 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.360 and Terror not a good name. Four ships leave Beechy 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.080 Island and they sail down Peel Sound to King William Island, 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.400 and then by September of eighteen forty six, the ships 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.880 get trapped in the ice off of King William Island 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.839 in Victoria Street, um and so they winter there. And 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.840 there's a note that was found later, uh from May 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.279 forty seven saying that things were okay, you know, they 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.160 were stuck in the ice still, but it was going 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.720 all right. But on June eleven, eighteen forty seven, as 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.800 close as we can tell, Franklin died. And he is 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.839 the head of everything of the whole expedition, and he's 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.239 one of very few men and the crew who actually 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:53.080 has Arctic experience. And things get bad then because that's 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.400 when the ice from the winter should have thought and 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.919 they should have been able to move on, and it doesn't, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:04.520 so they winter again on King William Island. Obviously, there 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.240 are questions of food that are going to come up soon, 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.359 so they have to start making difficult decisions in the 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.920 next year about what they're going to do, and they 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.400 abandoned their ships on April eighteen forty eight and decide 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.240 to try to make a go of it, and in 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:26.440 a note that was later found um, by April four 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.680 men had died and the survivors were marching south to 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:36.800 the Black River, and things got very messy there. Uh 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:41.480 they resorted to cannibalism and a lot of them were 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:46.480 addled by what later looked like lead poisoning um. And 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.800 some people say the lead poisoning as a result of 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:55.360 poorly tinned foods. The foods were apparently supplied by kind 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.680 of a cut rate dealer and lead was supposed to 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:04.080 have really dripped into the cans from the soldering. But 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.839 an author of ice Blank Scott Cookman, actually has a 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.840 different theory and he thinks that botuli is um in 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.280 the cans caused all of the mental and physical issues 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:20.320 that happened and was responsible for why these men died 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.280 on the ice, not on the ship, on the ice 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:28.360 when they were away from reliable cooking sources, because proper 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.640 heating will that kills the cluster dam spores that if 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:34.840 they don't have a stove head on the ice, and 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.320 maybe you have a dinky little stove or not a 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.400 stove at all, and so he kind of thought that 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.880 explained why they all die out there and not on 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.320 the ships. And there were there was also evidence of scurvy, 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:49.480 which is what happens when you don't get enough vitamin C, 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.720 and scurvy and lead poisoning lead to the same kinds 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.520 of weakness that make you unable to do the hard 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:03.760 work that's necessary to do. And they weren't. They weren't 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:09.720 adopting Inuit ways of dealing with the weather, and they 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.560 were carrying lots of unnecessary supplies with them, so it 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:18.120 was not they weren't equipped for an overland expedition. The 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.160 list of their supplies I wish I had it on 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.720 me is just so strange. It wasn't at all survival stuff. 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.960 It was things like books. Silver, Yes, you don't need 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.400 silver if you're trapped in the Arctic, for future reference 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.240 for all our listeners, don't bring the silver. The first 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:38.080 search for Franklin goes out in eighteen forty seven. The 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.240 first official search isn't until eighteen forty eight, and over 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.080 the years a lot of the expeditions get very close 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.880 to where Franklin ships were actually abandoned, but there's a 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.840 lot of delay, and one of the reasons is when 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.920 ships were over there looking at Peel Sound where the 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.000 boats went, it seemed impos possible that they could have 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.600 gone in that direction because the ice cover was so heavy, 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.079 so they just skipped over it. And of course there 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.120 was a huge cold snap going on in the Arctic 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.920 at this time too, so these weren't normal conditions for 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:17.000 that area. The early searches turned up some accounts from 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:22.120 Inuit who had seen the explorers and had stories about 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:26.120 starving men. There's even one account that was taken much 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:31.360 much later from an Inuit in nine saying that, uh, 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.680 some of the boats were remainned, and they knew of 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:40.199 large vessels that lay on the other side of the island, 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.520 basically far away from where they're supposed to have been. 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.640 And they also said that because the winter was so cold, 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.360 they too were having a really hard time finding food 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:52.240 and hunting. So if the crew was depending on the 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.959 locals for food, they didn't have any to give well, 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.679 and it's likely that the crew wouldn't ask for help 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.240 to they there were sales sufficient. British men and the 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.080 Royal Navy men exactly in the process of the search, 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.920 the Northwest Passage is actually completed, although it's by several 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.760 ships and led it's not completed by the way one 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:20.440 ship until the twentieth century, I believe. UM. But in 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:25.120 eighteen fifty nine there is a very important search mission 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.520 sent out. The Royal Navy was effectively done with this 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.320 after getting looking for years. Yeah, and then they felt 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.640 like they had gotten a gotten back enough information about 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:41.360 the men. But Franklin's widow wasn't satisfied. Jane Lady Franklin, 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.880 was the first woman to receive the Founder's Medal of 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.520 the Royal Geographical Society because of everything she'd done to 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.880 organize these expeditions. She was determined that they would at 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.680 least find some concrete proof that the men were dead. 0:10:55.160 --> 0:11:00.720 So she hires Captain Francis Leopold McClintock, who had actually 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:06.560 been on several earlier search missions UM and during some 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.280 of those had really developed the art of sledging across 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:15.319 the land and learned a lot of the Inuit customs 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:20.560 and helped prepare future Arctic explorers for conditions. And he 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.080 was very effective because he used all of these other 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:30.079 resources and his crew found skeletons of the Franklin expedition. 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.880 I think only four of them. Yeah, But most importantly 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:38.040 he finds that note UM, which has the first message 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:42.120 message saying that everything is okay, and then the later 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:48.840 message abandoning ship, lots of people dying were walking. Um 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.520 finds it in a pile of stones on the icy island. 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:57.120 It's very creepy it is, and I we'll never know 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.600 entirely what happened. These are just again what historians and 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:03.920 scientists are able to piece together from the evidence that 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:05.880 they had. So there are things were sure of, like 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.040 there was too much lead in the bodies, there was 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.720 evidence of scurvy. There was definitely cannibalism from what they 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.040 can tell from the bones. But some of it will 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.960 never quite know. And very strange thing to think of 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:23.960 today is um icebreaker luxury cruises go right up by 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:29.080 the island where they all died. Now, Um, it's strange 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.640 to think how accessible all that is. And actually the 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:36.600 Northwest Passage is open. Uh. It first opened in two 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:40.800 thousand seven enough ice had melted that it was considered 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.320 fully navigable, and it happened again in two thousand eight 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.480 along with the northeast passage, which made the North Pole 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.319 circumnavigable for the first time in hundred and twenty five 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.040 thousand years. That's insane. See, that's why we need your 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:00.040 green knowledge on the podcast. And I'll end with a 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.559 memorial by Tennyson, who was a kinsman through marriage to Franklin. 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.040 And he said, not here the white North has thy bones, 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.480 and the heroic sailor soul aren't passing online happier voyage 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.160 now towards no earthly pole. And you had mentioned a 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.160 rather ironic fact that happened from that memorial poem. Yeah, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:24.280 another ill fated polar explorer, the American Adolphus Greely, became 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:28.120 fascinated by the Arctic by a visit to London where 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.480 he read those words. So does it happens when you 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.520 were mentioning tragedy? So if you like to learn more 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.440 about survival, we've got all kinds of survival articles on 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.120 the website. And check out the Stuffy missed in History 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.800 blog at www dot how stuff works dot com. For 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.440 more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.520 stuff works dot com. 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