01.09.2023 Franklin Expedition and Beechy Island
This morning Carol Frances the on board Historian gave a fact filled talk about the ill fated Franklin Expedition of 1845. There was so much to take in so the Missus missed quite a few facts. We were mind boggled by the time she finished. We hadn't realised just how many follow up expeditions there had been to find out what had happened. Franklin had set off with two ships the Erebus and Terror, there was 24 officers and 104 men. There were two supply ships which were were sent ahead. They had 10 cows and 8000 tins of food, sealed with lead solder. The ships got caught in the ice and it sounds as though things went down hill from there. Franklin died on 11 June 1847. They overwintered at Beechy island t 1845/46. One of the most credible reports of the loss of the Franklin Expedition came from Dr John Rae from Orkney. He worked for the Hudson Bay Company and had a good rapport with the Inuit. He discovered that the Inuit were trading Franklin artifacts and he asked about them. They told him they had seen people dragging a ship and they were looking for Caribou. The next year they had found 30 corpses and there was signs of cannibalism on them. Dr. Rae believed them of course.
When Franklin was on Beechy Island they buried 3 of the crew who had died. We are going to Beechy Island today. It had been thought that the 3 men had died of lead poisoning. The bodies were exhumed in the 1980s and returned in 1990 after autopsies. It was found that they had no more lead in their systems than most people in UK at that time. The broken grave markers have been replaced with new oak ones and Bronze Plaques with the names etc. There is also a 4th grave of someone who was in one of the subsequent search expeditions. We were surprised at the amount of things to see there. One impressive area, was were the Franklin Expedition had created a storage for all the provisions, brought from the ships to the land to over winter. There were Bearded Seals coming round the Zodiacs at Beechy Island and earlier we had see 3 magnificent Gyrfalcons flying round the RA. They were scary for a bear like me so I hid in the cabin.
After Beechy island the Captain turned the RA left up Radstock inlet, this put us at our most northerly point of the cruise. N74deg 52' W90deg 49'. We were treated to seeing a large polar bear eating something on the shore immediately in front of the ship. Wayne informed us that it was a male bear. We saw several on the opposite shore plus a mother Polar Bear and 3 cubs tucked into a hollow in the hill side. There were hundreds of Fulmar, Black Guillimots and Harp seals by the dozen. It also started to snow. It is noticeable how much colder it is on the East side of the NW Passage. A raw bitter cold.
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