Lost Franklin ship found

[Codes]

Being part of a federal research institution, I can't help but wonder where the funding came from for this. In a time where a majority research departments are experiencing fairly severe reductions, Parks Canada somehow had the funds to deploy a fairly lengthy field expedition with some very fancy toys.

I have similar sentiments as Homestead. Major press conferences, huge news stories, which is in direct contrast to nearly all other science happening now in Canada.

I'm happy for the discovery, but certain aspects don't pass the smell test.

[para transit fellow]

Every time I see this thread title, I hear the following news headline in my head:

"Lost Franklin ship found... ...participating in North Atlantic fleet exercises as Canada's contribution to NATO"




(the old Royal Canadian Air Farce radio show was a big influence on me)

[Puppet Guy]

Bump from the bottom of the sea!

The Terror has been found!

The long-lost ship of British polar explorer Sir John Franklin, HMS Terror, has been found in pristine condition at the bottom of an Arctic bay, researchers have said, in a discovery that challenges the accepted history behind one of polar exploration’s deepest mysteries.
HMS Terror and Franklin’s flagship, HMS Erebus, were abandoned in heavy sea ice far to the north of the eventual wreck site in 1848, during the Royal Navy explorer’s doomed attempt to complete the Northwest Passage.



All 129 men on the Franklin expedition died, in the worst disaster to hit Britain’s Royal Navy in its long history of polar exploration. Search parties continued to look for the ships for 11 years after they disappeared, but found no trace, and the fate of the missing men remained an enigma that tantalised generations of historians, archaeologists and adventurers.
Now that mystery seems to have been solved by a combination of intrepid exploration – and an improbable tip from an Inuk crewmember.
On Sunday, a team from the charitable Arctic Research Foundation manoeuvred a small, remotely operated vehicle through an open hatch and into the ship to capture stunning images that give insight into life aboard the vessel close to 170 years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...assage-attempt

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Wreck of HMS Terror found in Terror Bay

Well now that's just too convenient.

[surferguy]

We named our son after Franklin.

/nerdy Cool story bro

[Locke]

Originally Posted by surferguy

We named our son after Franklin.

/nerdy Cool story bro

A likely story.

#idontbelieveyou

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by surferguy

We named our son after Franklin.

/nerdy Cool story bro

I assume you're exploiting that for as many parenting references as you can?

"Dad, I'm hungry!"
"Did Sir John Franklin complain about being hungry when he was stranded in the arctic, when he and his crew had to choose between, rancid, lead-poisioned food or cannibalism?"

"Dad, how much further?"
"How much further was it when the Erebus and the Terror were stranded in ice? How much further, when they could not even say that the thing they searched for even existed? How much further can you say that it is when you're in the seeming eternal darkness of the long arctic night, when you're too close to the magnetic pole for your compass to be any good, and week-long blizzards obscure the stars? Huh? How much further was it for Sir John Franklin then?"

Because I'd be doing that every chance I got.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by surferguy

We named our son after Franklin.

/nerdy Cool story bro

Well I hope you named him after Franklin. Dude died like 150 years ago. Not sure how you'd name him before Franklin.

[MoneyGuy]

Now if they'd find that Nazi gold train I'd be so happy. Both are very cool stories.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Now if they'd find that Nazi gold train I'd be so happy. Both are very cool stories.

I doubt even the Nazis would make a train entirely out of Gold. Just from an engineering standpoint it seems wildly impractical...

[mikephoen]

I find the Franklin stuff fascinating. Some books I'd highly, highly recommend on the subject are Unraveling the Franklin Mystery and Strangers Among Us, both by David C. Woodman. Unraveling has a new 2nd edition published since the finding of Erebus, but Stangers is out of print and when I got mine copies on Amazon were $100+. Both explore the Inuit accounts of the expedition and I thought were fascinating.

I've read some of the other books on the subject as well, but in my opinion these two are the best.

I'd also highly recommend The Terror by Dan Simmons. This is a fictionalized account of the Franklin expedition (it has a horror/supernatural element to it), but it's very well researched and was excellent in my opinion. The Terror is coming to AMC as a miniseries in 2017 I believe, and should make a great show if done right. surferguy might not like The Terror as much, as Franklin is made out to be a bit of a fool in it, and Crozier is the main hero in the story, but for everyone else it's a great read!

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

I find the Franklin stuff fascinating. Some books I'd highly, highly recommend on the subject are Unraveling the Franklin Mystery and Strangers Among Us, both by David C. Woodman. Unraveling has a new 2nd edition published since the finding of Erebus, but Stangers is out of print and when I got mine copies on Amazon were $100+. Both explore the Inuit accounts of the expedition and I thought were

Thanks I am going to have to find these books.

[Puppet Guy]

There's another great book that was published by the Royal Canadian Geographic Society last year called Franklin's Lost Ship, by John Geiger and Alanna Mitchell. It's about the discovery of the Erebus, along with all the historical info. The photos alone are worth the price of the book.






After reading the book my imagination went haywire again and I got inspired to try modeling the Erebus wreck. I ended up doing the equivalent of an artist's sketch. I intend to try a full-on version somewhere down the road.

Spoiler for size:

Spoiler!

[Slanter]

I wouldn't necessarily trust John Geiger's account of how the Erebus was discovered:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/paulwatson/...NWM#.pfEGN5EL7

(note, author of this article is the same author who broke the Terror story yesterday in the Guardian).

[mikephoen]

A note on The Terror by Dan Simmons that I recommended above. Don't get this as an audiobook! It is a terrible abridged edition, and really cuts a lot of important stuff from the print version.

[Fuzz]

"Oh yeah, I heard a lot of stories about Terror, the ships, but I guess Parks Canada don't listen to people," Kogvik said. "They just ignore Inuit stories about the Terror ship."
Schimnowski said the crew had also heard stories about people on the land seeing the silhouette of a masted ship at sunset.
"The community knew about this for many, many years. It's hard for people to stop and actually listen ... especially people from the South."
He said he's learned that the Inuit know the land better than anyone else.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/...klin-1.3763653

WTF? Who was running this expedition? Didn't think that maybe the people that live around there might be able to help? I hope these guys don't give themselves to many pats on the back for "finding" the Terror. Good grief.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/...klin-1.3763653

WTF? Who was running this expedition? Didn't think that maybe the people that live around there might be able to help? I hope these guys don't give themselves to many pats on the back for "finding" the Terror. Good grief.

Well the people who found Terror actually did listen for a change. If you get a chance to check out the books I recommended earlier you'll see that most of the investigators have been ignoring the information provided by the Inuit pretty consistently for 165 years. Baffling.

David C Woodman basically showed that the Inuit stories had a lot of truth to them in the early 90s and it still took 25 years to really start looking in the right places for the ships.

[Locke]

Canada hands over all HMS Erebus Artifacts to Britain.

After lengthy negotiations, Canada handed over to Britain in April every historical artifact that Parks Canada divers had retrieved from the wreck of HMS Erebus, the long-lost ship of 19th-century Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin.

That concession — all 65 objects, some of them mere scraps of metal and cloth — was broader than the terms Canada agreed to when it signed a 1997 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the United Kingdom about future ownership of the Franklin wrecks and artifacts.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ottawa-end...080000830.html

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Locke

Canada hands over all HMS Erebus Artifacts to Britain.



https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ottawa-end...080000830.html

"Canada and Britain finally signed a new MOU, as well as a legal transfer document, on April 26 of this year, agreeing that the U.K. would retain all 65 Erebus artifacts without compensating Parks Canada for conservation costs.
Asked why Canada conceded all of the objects retrieved so far at no cost to Britain, a Parks Canada spokesperson said negotiators took into account the trade-off."

what trade off? the Brits got everything and didn't have to pay a dime. I don't see where there was any trade off going on.

I also don't see how the Nunavut can lay claim to anything, as they said in the article "International maritime law says military shipwrecks remain the property of the originating country"

you'd think that would overrule an agreement the Canadian government may have made with Nunavut.

[CorbeauNoir]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Well the people who found Terror actually did listen for a change. If you get a chance to check out the books I recommended earlier you'll see that most of the investigators have been ignoring the information provided by the Inuit pretty consistently for 165 years. Baffling.

David C Woodman basically showed that the Inuit stories had a lot of truth to them in the early 90s and it still took 25 years to really start looking in the right places for the ships.

Supposedly even the masts have been prominently sticking out of the pack for much of this time, it's odd that it wouldn't have been spotted and reported by a bush pilot at any point if that's accurate.