The fortunes of the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition changed on September 1 when Scott Youngblut, a hydrographer with the Canadian Hydrographic Service offered Stenton and Park a seat on the coast guard helicopter that he shared with the archaeologists.
View of Inuit tent ring near entrance to Sherman Inlet.
Youngblut needed a land site to set up his GPS in order to improve the accuracy of his seabed mapping and he wasn’t particular as to which island in the South Search Zone it was located on. “We selected an island near O’Reilly Island in the eastern end of Queen Maud Gulf since it had (Inuit) cultural features and because it was also suitable for a GPS station”, said Stenton. During 2008 Stenton and Park had conducted surveys nearby where a few artifacts thought to be associated with the Franklin expedition had been found in the 1990’s. Shortly after landing it was Stirling who located both the iron fitting from a davit and the two halves of a wood deck hawse plug, which were used to cover the hole on a ship’s deck through which the anchor chain ran into a locker below deck.
Robert Park (University of Waterloo) and Douglas Stenton (Government of Nunavut) on board the
CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier with the two artifacts that led to the discovery of HMS Erebus.
Back on the Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Stenton showed Parks Canada underwater archaeologists Ryan Harris and Jonathan Moore the items in the ship’s forward lab. “When Doug (Stenton) showed it to us, we were understandably very, very excited, not just the context of the find and identifying broad arrow marks, but getting a pretty good feeling from what it was,” said Harris. Taking advantage of the warm weather and ice-free, calm conditions in the Queen Maud Gulf, Harris and Moore, working off Parks Canada’s Investigator, began surveying the near-by seabed.
AUV tenders from One Ocean Voyager in Victoria Strait.
Working in shallow waters, there was a great deal of concern regarding maintaining the altitude of the sonar towfish above the seabed. Harris and Moore were both watching the sonar monitor at the precise moment that the wreck of one of Franklin’s ships scrolled down the screen. “I don’t think it was even halfway onto the monitor when I shouted out, ‘that’s it, that’s it’ and that’s when a lot of excitement broke out in the Investigator and high tens and hugs all around and a lot of shouting and arms held up in triumph,” recalled Harris.
The side-scan sonar produced stunning imagery of a 19th century wreck 11 metres underwater, one that was intact and in pristine condition, but needed further verification before it could be announced to the world. On September 7th with bad weather moving in, the Investigator and its crew returned to the wreck site with an ROV to capture the first film of what was subsequently identified as Erebus. It is on the basis of those images that Marc-Andre Bernier, UAT’s Manager and Senior Underwater Archaeologist, confirmed that one of Franklin’s ships had been found.
AUV being recovered from Victoria Strait by Voyager.
On September 9, Bernier, Harris and Moore along with Geiger, Balsillie and other senior partners of the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition appeared at a press conference in Ottawa to announce to the world that one of Franklin’s ships had been found. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, “This is truly a moment for Canada. Franklin’s ships are an important part of Canadian history given that his expeditions, which took place nearly 200 years ago, laid the foundations of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.”
Jonathan Moore (left), Ryan Harris, Joe Boucher, Chriss Ludin after Erebus was found.
The following day Bernier and his team returned to the wreck site to start diving but extreme weather closed the Parks Canada diving operations down after only two days. Ice like that which had filled Victoria Strait was returning to Queen Maud Gulf. The expedition’s window was closing. Filippo Ronca, a Parks Canada underwater archaeologist, described the condition of Erebus: “The hull itself is amazingly intact. … Sections of the main deck are missing and or have collapsed. In particular several large beams that would have supported the deck are now exposed along the port side, which allowed for unobstructed viewing inside the hull and to the deck below.”
Click thumbnails for larger images.
What is inside that hull has the potential to clear up the unknowing around the expedition’s destruction, says Geiger. “Because there were no survivors, the ships themselves have the last word. Erebus, and Terror when she is found, represent the last chance we have to better understand the expedition’s final months, and ultimate destruction. We may finally know the fate of Franklin.”
Photo Credits
View of Inuit tent ring – By Dr. Douglas Stenton – All Rights Reserved
Robert Park and Douglas Stenton on board the CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier – By Dr. Douglas Stenton – All Rights Reserved
Douglas Stenton examines the wood deck hawse plug. – By Dr. Douglas Stenton – All Rights Reserved
U-shaped iron fitting from ship’s davit in situ. – By Dr. Douglas Stenton – All Rights Reserved
AUV tenders from One Ocean Voyager in Victoria Strait – By Joseph Frey – All Rights Reserved
AUV being recovered from Victoria Strait by Voyager – By Joseph Frey – All Rights Reserved
Jonathan Moore (left), Ryan Harris, Joe Boucher, Chriss Ludin after Erebus was found – By Parks Canada – All Rights Reserved
Diving photos – by Thierry Boyer, Parks Canada – All Rights Reserved
Is it not obvious that the name ” Terror Bay” is named after the fact that somebody knew the HMS vessel “Terror” sank in that particular bay…
bwills04 at live.com
and if Sir John Franklin is /was a relative of mine I want to dive (with regular scuba gear) and Cornelius Koolhof of Lindsay Ontario, on the Terror to see how well the boat is doing after all these years.
Joe, it’s great to get a snapshot of the discovery from the perspective of an on the spot reporter with a background in both history and journalism. I enjoy all your articles.
Dave Woodman is a personal friend – His work is also first class.
Thanks for the post – a great read.
Regards
JR Richard
Hi Robert, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting David Woodward or Louie Kamookak but hope to do so. David’s book is a great read, “Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony”. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991.
Cheers, JF
This is a very well-written and engaging piece on this year’s search — but it doesn’t really give the bigger picture. Searchers have been seeking Franklin on land and sea for more than 160 years, and in the two decades or so before Parks Canada became involved, there were more than two dozen organized searches. Many of these were based on David C. Woodman’s book, Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony, which was the first comprehensive account of Inuit testimony given to early searchers. It’s Woodman’s work, the testimony of Inuit, and modern-day historians such a Gjoa Haven resident Louie Kamookak who did the essential work that made this year’s find possible; the only reason that the helicopter went where it did is that this had already been identified by Woodman and others as a key search area, one that had been substantially narrowed by Woodman’s earlier side-scan and magnetometer surveys in the early 1990’s. I would add that I disagree somewhat with my friend John Geiger — the ship will write an amazing chapter, it’s true, but it’s what happened to Franklin’s men after the ship was abandoned that will constitute the last chapter.
Dear Dr. Potter,
Your comments regarding David Woodman and Louie Kamookak are correct and do round out the story. I would like to point out that there is an excellent article on Louie Kamookak in the current issue of “up here” http://uphere.ca/post/104084927753/if-any-living-inuk-knew
Kind regards,
Joseph Frey
Hi Joseph, thanks for your reply. I do appreciate that your piece here just covers this year’s search — and it does so quite well. The greatest discoveries always seem strange at first — the sheer happenstance of it all is a bit mind-boggling! — but you capture that excitement.
It has been quite a ride, as you may imagine, for those of us who have been at it for decades; I suppose we all feel just a wee bit crestfallen that our famously “lost” ship is found, as excited as we are!
Thanks also for the link to the piece in which Louie was named ‘Northerner of the Year’ — we all wish him well after his 2nd open-heart sugery and hope that he’ll be make it back home to Gjoa in time for Christmas!
George, Thanks for your kind words. It was a great expedition and it highlighted to the world the professionalism of Canadian field scientists. Cheers, Joe