Zodiacs near shore of Beechey Island. Devon Island in back. (Photo: Zygmunt Malinowski)
The Book Haven’s roving reporter-photographer Zygmunt Malinowski made this trip to the Arctic last September, but we thought it was more than usually timely now given the heat wave that is currently smothering the West. Here’s his latest from our New York City colleague, who recommends Gore-Tex (and you can read about his earlier adventures here and here and here):
During a voyage through the Northwest Passage on Ocean Endeavour in late September, I heard an astonishing announcement on the speaker system: the HMS Terror had been discovered in Terror Bay, south of the Nunavut archipelago’s King William Island. It was Sir John Franklin’s ship. The polar explorer made an ill-fated expedition to find the North West passage in 1848. None of his 129 men survived. Franklin’s flagship, HMS Erebus, and the Terror were abandoned far north of the wreck site.
Through a fortunate coincidence during my voyage, Adventure Canada was nearby. The official travel partner of Explorers Club, specializing in remote Arctic trips, was going north with a Zodiac stop at Beechey Island, also in the archipelago. At 3 a.m. in bone-chilling night I and several others walked up to the upper deck so that when we crossed the intersection line at 3:15 a.m., we could acknowledge the somber discovery of the vessel whose fate had been unknown for 168 years.
An Inuit crew member of Gjoa Haven, a hamlet in Nunavut, was onboard the Arctic Research Foundation’s research vessel Brigmann, and he told them a story: Several years prior he saw part of a wooden mast sticking out of the sea ice which led to the discovery of the shipwreck. The well-preserved ship standing upright in 80-feet of water appears to have been winterized (operationally closed down) with hatches and windows closed when it was abandoned in 1848. Canadian archeologists confirmed the discovery when measurements were compared against original plans, and found the smokestack from a steam engine that was especially installed for the voyage, as well as a wheel and ship bell similar to the Erebus’ bell were identified. The other ship, HMS Erebus, was found in 2014 further south in Queen Maud Gulf.
You can read more about the discovery of the HMS Terror here.
Beechey Island. Burial site for three of Sir John Franklin’s men. (Photo: Zgymunt Malinowski)
Jacobshavn Ice Stream, Ilulissat, Greenland. (Photo: Zygmunt Malinowski)
Tags: Zygmunt Malinowski