by Paul Watson
Cameron Treleaven recalled in an interview his trip with Ernest Coleman, his chance meeting with Louie Kamookak, and their friendship. Coleman’s 1992 expedition is briefly described in Alan Day’s Historical Dictionary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Northwest Passage. Coleman told the Lincolnshire, England, newspaper Market Rasen Mail, in a report published September 17, 2014, that he had told Canadian officials where to find a Franklin wreck, to no avail.
Sheila Nickerson quotes Queen Victoria’s diary on Her Majesty’s meeting with Tookoolito and Ebierbing in Midnight to the North: The Untold Story of the Inuit Woman Who Saved the Polaris Expedition.
Chapter 11: Operation Franklin
The Canadian military’s Operation Franklin was reconstructed from documents in the file obtained under the Access to Information and Privacy Act, with additional details learned in an interview with former army diver Bob Shaw.
Chapter 12: The Hunt Goes Underwater
Peter Adams and Maxwell J. Dunbar provide an overview of the “Arctic Archipelago” in The Canadian Encyclopedia, online at http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/m/article/arctic-archipelago/. Pioneer George F. Bass recalled the profession’s founding years in his introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology, edited by Ben Ford, Donny L. Hamilton, and Alexis Catsambis.
Walter Zacharchuk described his life and role in founding marine archaeology in Canada in several interviews with the author. For the history of “Fort Lennox National Historic Site of Canada,” Saint-Paul-de-l’Île-aux-Noix Nautical Capital, see http://www.ileauxnoix.com/eng/tourisme/lieu-historique.html. Gagnan’s move to Canada is explained in Bradford Matsen’s Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King (2009). Archaeologist James A. Tuck’s excavation of the Basque whalers’ graves is described in “Unearthing Red Bay’s Whaling History,” National Geographic 168 (July 1985). The international Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage is outlined in Robert Grenier, David Nutley, and Ian Cochran, eds., Underwater Cultural Heritage at Risk: Managing Natural and Cultural Impacts.
Lydia Dotto profiled MacInnis in “Joe MacInnis, Pioneer in the Underwater World,” Canadian Geographic 100 (June/July 1980). Bill Mason’s thoughts on his friend, along with scenes and dialogue leading up to the discovery and exploration of the Breadalbane, come from the documentary film The Land That Devours Ships, directed by Bill Mason, 1984, National Film Board of Canada / Undersea Research. Other details come from MacInnis’s 1982 book on the shipwreck hunt and discovery, The Breadalbane Adventure.
Douglas L. Hicks describes the development of Sublimnos in “‘Bargain Basement’ Habitat,” Popular Mechanics, April 1971. MacInnis’s full speech, “Diving Under the North Pole,” an address to The Empire Club of Canada, Toronto, February 26, 1976, is available online at http://speeches.empireclub.org/61998/data. Dome Petroleum’s interest in the “industrial applications” of MacInnis’s work on Breadalbane was reported in New Scientist 98 (June 23, 1983).
Robert Grenier expressed his views about the effect of the binnacle crashing onto Breadalbane’s deck on the parties’ agreement about how the dive was supposed to proceed in an email exchange with me in February 2016.
Chapter 13: Skull Island
Kamookak expressed his disinterest in personally searching underwater to Ashleigh Gaul in “If Any Living Inuk Knew,” Up Here magazine, December 2014. Rachel Ewing wrote about the discovery of the fish fossil, and the scientists’ decision to honor Martin Bergmann, in “New Fossil from a Fish-Eat-Fish World Driving the Evolution of Limbed Animals,” available online at http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/March/Fossil-Species-from-Fish-Eat-Fish-World/.
In interviews with me, David Woodman recalled life highlights and his relentless search for the Franklin wrecks. Woodman’s seminal 1991 book, Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony, was also a guide. Further details on Woodman’s search efforts, and those of other modern expeditions, come from Parks Canada’s annual reports, “Erebus and Terror National Historic Site: Remote Sensing Search,” for the years 2010 through 2014.
The 1999 report for Parks Canada by Kamookak and Darren Keith, “Franklin Oral History Project,” was obtained under Canada’s Access to Information and Privacy Act.
Chapter 14: Fast Ice
Events and conversations have been reconstructed through my extensive interviews with those involved, principally Peter Mansbridge, Douglas Stenton, Tom Zagon, Jim Balsillie, and Oksana and Adrian Schimnowski. I am especially grateful that Martin Bergmann’s widow, Sheila McRae, shared memories, both joyful and painful.
The final report of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s investigation into the crash of First Air flight 6560 is available online at http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/enquetes-investigations/aviation/2011/a11h0002/a11h0002.asp.
Chapter 15: “That’s It!”
Paul Allen’s visit to the Northwest Passage, with John Geiger aboard the superyacht Octopus, was reported by Jane George from Cambridge Bay in NunatsiaqOnline’s “Private Yacht Visitors to Nunavut Create Mixed Impression in Cambridge Bay,” October 1, 2012, available online at http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674private_yacht_visitors_to_nunavut_create_mixed_impression_in_cambridge/. A senior source in the Royal Canadian Navy discussed privately the military’s observations of the yacht’s movements.
Chapter 16: Terror Bay
Details of the discovery of HMS Terror come from satellite-phone interviews and e-mail exchanges with Arctic Research Foundation Operations Director Adrian Schimnowski and other MV Martin Bergmann crewmembers, in the days before news of the historic find broke in my exclusive report for The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt.
CBC reported the Inuit dispute with the federal government over the wreck of HMS Erebus in “Parks Canada juggles competing claims to Franklin wrecks,” published online March 8, 2016, at http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/parks-canada-franklin-wrecks-artifacts-1.3479595.
Parks Canada’s effort to cooperate with Inuit on a Gjoa Haven facility is reported in “Feds announce money for Nunavut-based centre to house Franklin relics,” Nunatsiaq Online, March 18, 2016, http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674feds_announce_money_for_nunavut-based_centre_to_house_franklin_relics/.
In our interview, Sammy Kogvik attempted to spell his hunting buddy Uncle Jimmy’s surname phonetically as Qingniacktok. In a report on the discovery for MacLean’s magazine, Chris Sorensen spells it Klungnatuk, http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/how-trust-led-to-hms-terror/.
William Henry Gilder reported Ahlangyah’s account in The Search for Franklin: A Narrative of the American Expedition Under Lieutenant Schwatka, 1878 to 1880, published in London by T. Nelson and Sons in 1882.
Francis McClintock explained the naming of Terror Bay, and various other spots along King William Island during his search for the Franklin Expedition, in a letter to fellow searcher US Army Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, dated October 2, 1880, and posted online at http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/franklin/archive/text/McClintockSchwatka_en.htm.
Chapter 17: An Offering to the Dead
I obtained the private e-mail exchange between John Geiger and the Parks Canada vice president under Canada’s Access to Information and Privacy Act.
The discovery of the submerged wreck of HMS Erebus was reconstructed through numerous interviews, over many months, with many participants, most notably Captains Andrew Stirling and Bill Noon; archaeologists Marc-André Bernier, Ryan Harris, Jonathan Moore, Douglas Stenton, and Robert Park; and hydrologist Scott Youngblut.
Afterword
Louie Kamookak described his summer 2016 expedition in “Searching the Arctic for Traces of the Sir John Franklin Expedition,” Canadian Geographic, http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/searching-arctic-traces-sir-john-franklin-expedition.
CREDITS
Fig. 1 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 2 National Mari
time Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 3 Illustrated London News / Getty Images / Hulton Archive
Fig. 4 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 5 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 6 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 7 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 8 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 9 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 10 Getty Images / DEA Picture Library / De Agostini Editorial
Fig. 11 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Fig. 12 Courtesy of the Library and Archives Canada / Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development fonds/a099666
Fig. 13 Sgt Ronald Duchesne, Rideau Hall © OSGG, 2015. Reproduced with permission of the OSGG, 2016
Fig. 14 Courtesy of Walter Zacharchuk
Fig. 15 David Holland
Fig. 16 Parks Canada
Fig. 17 Thierry Boyer/©Parks Canada
INDEX
_______
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
Page numbers in italics refer to maps.
Abou-Gosh (“Prince of Robbers”), 76
Abram (whaler), 88
Adams, John, 67, 95
Adelaide Peninsula, 84
Admiralty, see British Admiralty
Advance, 116, 118
Age of Discovery, xxviii
Aglooka (Inuit legend), 197–98
Aglooka “He Who Takes Long Strides” (British seaman), 53–54, 211, 332
Aglukkaq, David, 208
Ahlangyah, testimony of, 333
Akademik Sergey Vavilov, 311–13, 320
Aksoolak, Saul, 284
Aladoongà (Inuit boy), 114
Alaska, sale of, 173
Albert, Prince, 63, 228
Allen, Paul, 308–9
Amundsen, Roald, 180, 222
Anderson, James, 158
Angulalik (fur trader), 236, 237
Appert, Nicolas, 58
Aqilriaq, Judas, 216–18
Aqua-Lung, invention of, 249, 253
Aquila Books, Calgary, 223
Arctic, M/V, 293–94
Arctic Archipelago:
channels through, 17
climate change effects in, 288, 290–91, 292, 303, 311–14, 344, 345
expeditions to, 13, 316; (1850), 109-10, 117; (1852–54), 136–45
government controls in, 290–91, 303
research in, 288–89, 291
route sought through, xxiv, 80, 125
searchers in, 128
ships in danger in, 58
shipwreck divers in, 261–62; see also SCUBA; underwater archaeology
vicious weather in, 248
see also High Arctic
Arctic Explorer (robotic sub), 310–13
Arctic Research Foundation, 300–301, 323, 324, 325
Armstrong, Alexander, 137
Assistance, HMS, 113, 114, 118, 137
Assistance Bay, 120, 123
Athenaeum, The, 66, 88, 121
Austin, Horatio T., 107, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119–21, 126, 129, 130
Aviluktoq (seal hunter), 29
Back, Sir George, 73, 119–20, 302
contact with Inuit, 213–15
and Great Fish River, 51, 153, 167, 194, 195, 213
and Terror, 19–20, 84
Baffin Bay, xxvi, 43, 44, 60, 61, 78, 109, 143
Baird, John, 291, 292
Balsillie, Jim, 298–303, 305–6, 307–8, 327–28, 335
Barnum’s American Museum, New York, 229
Barretto Junior, 17, 22, 23
Barrow, Sir John, 6, 7, 29, 73, 232
Arctic exploration urged by, xxv, xxviii, 60, 106, 148, 149, 291
death of, 106
Barrow Strait, 13, 44
Bass, George, 254
Bass, William M., 212
Bastiaanz, William, xxv
Beck, Adam, 115–16, 121–23, 125–26, 132
Bedford, HMS, 5
Beechey, Frederick, 77, 119, 125, 136, 160
Beechey Island, 45–46, 48, 49, 118, 120, 121, 122, 137, 139, 141, 231, 299
Belcher, Edward, 136, 137–39, 141, 143
Bellerophon, HMS, 4
Bennett, James Gordon Jr., 173
Bergmann, Martin, 287–90, 298–300, 303–6
Bernard, Yves, 328, 331
Bernier, Marc-André, 318, 320
Bertulli, Margaret, 282–83, 284
Blanky, Thomas, 36–37
Booth, Sir Felix, 29
Boothia Peninsula, 29, 119, 149, 212, 233, 239, 242
Boston Tea Party, 67
botulism, 58–59
Boucher, Joe, 318
Bowlby, John, 228
Bowles, William, 119, 122, 126
Bradford, A. R., 130–31
Braine, William, 47, 118
Breadalbane, 139–41, 145, 264–72, 280
Briggs, Matt, 329
British Admiralty:
Arctic Committee board of inquiry, 118, 119–26, 128–29, 132
and Belcher court-martial, 143
blame assigned to, xxxi, 3, 59–60, 121
conquests sought by, xxiv, 148
delays in Franklin search, 62, 64, 66, 70, 71, 72–73, 75, 77, 78, 81, 88, 106–7
Franklin Expedition declared lost by, 156
Franklin search as headache for, 109, 124
Franklin search missions ordered by, 78–82, 108, 113, 132
and ghost ship sighting, 128
lessons from previous expeditions, 14
Lords Commissioners of, xxxi, 10, 69, 77, 87, 103, 132
orders from, xxv, 12–13, 14, 16, 31, 38, 44, 48, 70–71, 72, 120, 143, 146–47, 218
plans for Franklin’s 1845 expedition, 6–12
and psychic phenomena, 104–5
and Rae’s discoveries, 155–59
and Resolute, 143, 144
rewards offered by, xxx, 71, 89, 158
and Ross Expedition search, 213
and Royal Navy, see Royal Navy
and search for Northwest Passage, xxii, 91
semaphore network of, 10
at Whitehall, 9–11
British East India Company, 48
British Empire, geomagnetic observatories in, 16
Brooklyn Navy Yard, 144
Buddington, James, 144
Burk, Scott, 301
cairn, use of term, 194–95
Cameron, James, 259
Campbell, Andrew, 300, 320–21
Campbell, Ivan, 283
Canada:
bureaucratic inertia in, 299–300
centennial of, 232
children torn from families in, 204–8
DND Centennial Project, 231–37
Franklin’s ships ceded by Royal Navy to, 344–45
and Inuit, 188–90, 202–10, 211
nationalism in, 291
propaganda in, 208, 291
territorial claims of, 279, 291, 292
Three Oceans Program, 288
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 205
see also Parks Canada
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), 289–90
Canadian Ice Service, 294, 296
Canadian Infantry Brigade Group, 234–35
Canadian Space Agency, 299, 310
candles, spermaceti, 26
Cape Farewell, Greenland, 40
Cape Felix, 49, 239, 247, 299
Cape Jane Franklin, 225, 239
Carmack, Eddy, 288–89
Center for International Governance Innovation, 300
Charles, Prince, 259, 262
Chartrand, “Frenchy,” 198
Chidley, Gerry, 329, 338–39
Choctaw Indians, 5
Churchill, Manitoba, polar bears in, 289
Clayton, John M., 92
Coleman, Ernest, 223–25
Collinson, Richard, 160
compasses, 14–15
Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, 258
Coppin, Ann, 100, 102
Coppin, Louisa “Weesy,” 99–103, 104, 135
Coppin, William, 99–103, 104, 134–35
Cornwallis Island, 44–45, 61, 120, 123, 293, 294
Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, 249, 252, 253, 256, 257
Cove, HMS, 68
Coward, Edward, 128
Cracroft, Sophia (Sophy), 33, 87, 88, 89, 95, 98, 104, 106, 134, 146, 164, 172–73
Cree people, 301
Crimean War, 148
Critchley, J. G., 242, 246
Croker, John W., 28–29
Croker Mountains (mirage), 28–29, 69
Cronkite, Walter, 259
Crozier, Francis, 33, 331
and abandonment of ships, 51, 52, 54, 167
and Aglooka nickname, 54, 211, 332
and expedition survivors, 52, 117, 201, 334
and memorials, 226, 263
notes left in cairns by, 51, 167
property found, 155, 166
and Sir John’s death, 51, 167
Cumberland Sound, 63–64
Daeschler, Edward, 288
Daguerre, Louis, camera invented by, 27
Daily Ice Chart, 294
Dannett, Captain, 43
Darwin, Charles, 87
Date, John, 250–51
Dawson, Ellen, 95–99
Dease, Peter, 44, 194–95
declination, 14–15
Defense Research Establishment Pacific, 278
De Haven, Edwin, 116–17, 118
desalinators, 18
Des Voeux, Charles F., 49, 51
DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line, 237–38, 239
Dickens, Charles, 66, 67, 103, 107, 157–58
Disney Company, 289
Disraeli, Benjamin, 66
Dix, John A., 171
Dome Petroleum, 259, 266, 267
Domville, William T., 138
Dumas, Pierre, 196
Dunlop, Miss, homing pigeons donated by, 123–24
Ebierbing “Eskimo Joe,” 228–29
Eco-Nova Productions Ltd., 280–81, 282
Eenoolooapik (hunter and trader), 63–64, 228
Eleehetook, Michael, 345
Elizabeth I, queen of England, xxvi
Elizabeth II, queen of England, 314
Emma L. (psychic), 103–4
