Introduction - 001
During the 1840’s the explorer Sir John Franklin lost his life in the Arctic while trying to unwrap the icy cover of the North West Passage, the fabled short cut to Asia and her exotic treasures, hidden behind the shroud of the frozen shores of northern Canada.
Twelve years had now passed with no news of the stricken expedition. The two ships H.M.S. Erebus, H.M.S. Terror and their crew of one hundred and twenty-nine God fearing souls had vanished, apparently eaten up by the arctic and its icy climate. Over the anxious years that followed, Naval and private expeditions were sent out by land and sea. Some never returned, the mystery remained, haunting the most powerful sea going empire ever to conquer the world.
It took until 1852 before pressure from Lady Franklin, backed by the general public, forced the Admiralty into sending the newly formed “Arctic Searching Expedition”. This mercy mission lead by Captain Sir Edward Belcher, consisted of five ships; Resolute, Intrepid, Assistance, Pioneer and The North Star plus over two hundred and twenty men.
The Arctic Squadron left southern England on the 21 April 1852 with George Frederick McDougall as the sailing master of Resolute, along with the Admiralty orders to unlock the puzzle of the North West Passage and to locate the missing seamen that had so far eluded mortal man.
The Squadron made its way north, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, before arriving at Beechey Island to the west of Greenland. Here they followed the orders laid down by Admiral Sir John Barrow to split the search into three groups: H.M.S. The North Star (a depot ship) was to be stationed as a floating refuge to the south of the pack ice limits. H.M.S. Assistance and H.M.S. Pioneer were to sail north up the Wellington Channel, while H.M.S. Resolute with her steam tender H.M.S. Intrepid were to continue west.
During the short Arctic summer the crews of the Resolute and Intrepid explored the northern coast of Melville Bay searching for any clue that may give light to the whereabouts of the stranded sailors and their blocked ships. On the 12 th October 1852 while in Winter Harbour they recovered a Naval metal cylinder that had been carefully placed on a sandstone boulder. Opening the weather beaten tube, they found it contained the Journal of Proceedings and Charts up to April 1852 of another British expedition lost in the Arctic lead by Captain McClure from H.M.S. Investigator. This frozen distress beacon give more evidence to the existence of the North West Passage and that they had fellow countrymen close by, stranded in the ice to the north of their present position. It was now the end of October and the low sunlight was disappearing, the moving ice flows had refrozen, blocking the Resolute and Intrepid in their tracks for the long glacial winter months…( continue )