![]() To read more about the Franklin Expedition and the discovery of Erebus, go to “ Franklin’s Last Voyage. ![]() Both wrecks are remarkably well preserved and, in recent years, underwater archaeologists have explored the ships’ cabins and retrieved hundreds of objects, which are helping experts piece together the final days of Franklin’s fateful voyage. Logic dictated that the other ship might be closer to the site where the crew had abandoned the ships: northern Alexandra Strait. When their two ships - HMS Erebus and HMS Terror - became trapped in the ice, the crew vanished into the frozen. Logic dictated that the other ship might be closer to the site where the crew had abandoned the ships: northern Alexandra Strait. The expedition was a disaster, ending in the deaths of all 129 crew members. Two years later, Terror was found around 45 miles away. Inuit had told of a ship sinking near where HMS Erebus was found. In 2014, Canadian authorities announced that researchers had finally located Erebus at the bottom of Wilmot and Crampton Bay. Before the Franklin expedition, the Terror and Erebus were bomb ships designed to carry heavy mortar and cannon to bombard shore targets from sea. Search parties sent to northern Canada occasionally happened upon ominous clues: items left behind by the expedition, grim testimonies from Inuit witnesses, and even a note left by a crewman on King William Island in 1847 stating that the two ships had become trapped in the ice. The crews of two whaling ships that sighted the expedition that August were the last Europeans to see Franklin and his crew alive, sparking a nearly 170-year maritime mystery. Captain John Franklin set sail from England in May 1845 with 133 men and two ships-HMS Erebus and HMS Terror-in search of the Northwest Passage. When the Erebus was discovered in 36 feet of water off King William Island in 2014, it had been 169 years since it set sail. In 1845, Arctic veteran Sir John Franklin departed Britain in command of two ships, the HMS Terror and Erebus, to seek the fabled Northwest Passage in the Arctic.
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