Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed 4 October
18:00 - 19:30
Location
Museum of Wellington City and Sea
In 1845, Sir John Franklin and his men sailed from England on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, hopeful to find the final link of the Northwest Passage. Both ships were abandoned in 1848, and it was believed that the crews walked to their deaths across the Arctic. In the decades that followed, search expeditions brought back relics, some written documents and numerous accounts from the Inuit giving some information on the grim fate of the Franklin Expedition crews. However, the recent discoveries of HMS Erebus in 2014 and of HMS Terror in 2016 re-open the interpretation of what happened to Franklin’s men as they tried to escape the Arctic. Both wrecks are extremely well-preserved in the cold waters of the Canadian Arctic, rising from the sea floor up to the upper-deck. This presentation will showcase the search efforts lead by Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team and some of the findings following more than 250 hours of diving on the wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in one of Canada’s most challenging environments.