10 Sep 2014
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"219876","field_deltas":{},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"alt":"Last record of Sir John Franklin","height":492,"width":300,"class":"media-image size-full wp-image-2120 media-element file-media-large","data-delta":"1"},"fields":{}}]] Last record of Sir John Franklin's expedition in search of the North-West Passage
When the crews abandoned Erebus and Terror in 1848, they left a record in a cairn giving the coordinates of where they had been trapped in the ice and where they had left the ships. Captain McClintock, who found the record in 1859, drew a chart and plotted those co-ordinates on it: Beset: Lat 700 5’ N, Long 980 23’ W Abandoned: Lat 690 37’ 42’’ N, Long 980 41’ W
This year the Parks Canada team searched an area north-west of King William Island. We do not yet know the exact location of their amazing find but we wait with interest to see how far the ship has moved in the last 166 years. By Gillian Hutchinson, Curator, History of Cartography