Canadian archaeologists hunt long-lost Arctic explorers

It has been more than 150 years since Capt Sir John Franklin and his 128 men perished in the Canadian Arctic, their ships lost in one of the greatest disasters of British polar exploration.

Now, a Canadian archaeological team is en route to the Arctic in a fresh hunt for Franklin's ships.

Relying on 150-year-old testimony of indigenous Inuits and 21st-Century methods like sea-floor surveying, the team hopes to find HMS Terror and HMS Erebus and discover once and for all the fate of the men - who are believed to have succumbed to scurvy, hypothermia and even cannibalism before they perished in the frozen Arctic.

The expedition by Parks Canada, a Canadian government agency, comes amid Canada's increasing efforts to assert sovereignty over the waters of the Northwest Passage, which is increasingly navigable for longer periods during the summer.

This sea route is the same one Franklin and his men set out to find in 1845.

The expedition will also be the first to search for the ship sent to rescue Franklin, HMS Investigator....

comments powered by Disqus