by Paul Watson
Sir John Ross’s January 27, 1847, appeal to the Marquis of Northampton for support in the effort to go looking for Franklin and his men is reprinted in “Extracts of Letters Alluded to from Captain Sir John Ross,” Accounts and Papers: Twenty-eight Volumes: Army, Navy and Ordnance (Session 18 November 1847—5 September 1848, Vol. XLI, Arctic Expedition). Ross’s letter to the Marquis of Northampton is reprinted in Ross’s A Narrative of the Circumstances and Causes Which Led to the Failure of the Searching Expeditions Sent by Government and Others for the Rescue of Sir John Franklin.
Lady Franklin’s request to Moore is detailed in William James Mills’s “Moore, Thomas (1819–1872),” Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia, vol. 1. In 1850, William Scoresby turned his expert eye on failed search efforts, including the Rae–Richardson Expedition, in The Franklin Expedition: or, Considerations on Measures for the Discovery and Relief of our Absent Adventurers in the Arctic Regions. Eleanor’s 1849 praise for her stepmother’s perseverance is cited in Alison Alexander’s The Ambitions of Jane Franklin: Victorian Lady Adventurer (2013). Captain Francis Leopold McClintock detailed numerous items that the Franklin Expedition abandoned in the gripping 1859 book In the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and His Companions.
Lawrence A. Palinkas and Peter Suedfeld discuss research into polar madness in their article “Psychological Effects of Polar Expeditions,” published in The Lancet in January 2008.
Chapter 5: Lady Franklin’s Mission
The layman can get a quick understanding of how Arctic ice moves at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center’s “All About Sea Ice: Dynamics,” online at https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/processes/dynamics.html.
Lady Franklin’s respect for Scoresby is revealed in Constance Martin’s valuable look at the pioneer of Arctic science: “William Scoresby Jr. (1789–1857) and the Open Polar Sea—Myth and Reality,” Arctic 41 (March 1988). The Athenaeum reported that Lady Franklin’s pitch to whalers appeared in “Our Weekly Gossip” on June 9, 1849. Lady Franklin’s extraordinary letter to US President Zachary Taylor is reprinted in Erika Behrisch Elce’s As Affecting the Fate of My Absent Husband: Selected Letters of Lady Franklin Concerning the Search for the Lost Franklin Expedition, 1848–1860.
W. Gillies Ross presents a lengthy and intriguing study in “Clairvoyants and Mediums Search for Franklin,” Polar Record 39 (2003). The nineteenth-century debate between scientists and spiritualists plays out in Richard Noakes’s “Spiritualism, Science and the Supernatural in Mid-Victorian Britain,” Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture 42 (2004). Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance with the Practical Application of Mesmerism in Surgery and Medicine, by James Esdaile, MD, is an 1852 attempt to merge medicine with the paranormal. Frank Podmore reported details of how Mrs. M. contacted the clairvoyant Dawson in Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism, Vol. 1, published in 1902. Mrs. M. wrote her account in a letter reprinted by The Zoist: A Journal of Cerebral Physiology and Mesmerism, and Their Applications to Human Welfare VII (March 1849–January 1850). Caroline Roberts makes the link between diagnoses of hysteria and rejection of male authority in The Woman and the Hour: Harriet Martineau and Victorian Ideologies, published in 2002.
Ralph Lloyd-Jones takes a modern, scholarly look at the mysterious ghost story in “The Paranormal Arctic: Lady Franklin, Sophia Cracroft, and Captain and ‘Little Weesy’ Coppin,” Polar Record 37 (2001). A Victorian view of Weesy’s ghost story comes from M. A. in “Fate of Sir John Franklin Discovered by a ‘Revelation,’” which appeared in Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research IX (April 27, 1889). The description of the words said to have appeared on the wall, along with skepticism about gaps in evidence from Lady Franklin’s estate, comes from “How Sir John Franklin Was Not Found,” The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, LXVIII (May 4, 1889). W. Gillies Ross shows how well the Admiralty was apprised of paranormal tips in his extensive and entertaining “False Leads in the Franklin Search” Polar Record 39 (2003). John Rae’s discovery of Victoria Strait, and the first chart showing a waterway through the archipelago with that name in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1852), is noted in John Rae’s Arctic Correspondence, 1844–1855, with a foreword by Ken McGoogan.
The numerous transformations of London’s Spring Gardens neighborhood are detailed by British History Online, at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol20/pt3/pp58-65. Ken McGoogan quotes Sophy’s defense of her aunt in Lady Franklin’s Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession and the Remaking of Arctic History (2005).
Chapter 6: The Arctic Committee
David Woodman provides the figure for the massive cost of the Franklin search, just in the period 1848 to 1854. William Parker Snow wrote a compelling account of the expedition in Voyage of the Prince Albert in Search of Sir John Franklin: A Narrative of Every-day Life in the Arctic Seas, published in 1851. A compelling nineteenth-century profile, which detailed Snow’s troubled life and tormenting regret at not being allowed to follow up his clairvoyant vision in the Franklin search, appears in “Character Sketch—April: William Parker Snow,” The Review of Reviews VII, January–June 1893. Roland Pietsch provides a fascinating look at the Royal Navy’s child sailors in “Ships’ Boys and Youth Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The Navy Recruits of the London Marine Society,” The Northern Mariner XIV, no. 4 (October 2004).
The Dane Carl Petersen’s account appears in Samuel M. Smucker’s 1858 book Explorations and Discoveries During the Nineteenth Century, Being Detailed Accounts of the Several Expeditions to the North Seas, Both English and American, which includes a letter from Captain Sir John Ross, sent from the discovery yacht Felix, off Admiralty Inlet, Lancaster Sound, to Admiralty Secretary W. A. B. Hamilton, dated August 22, 1850.
Secretary of the Navy William Ballard Preston’s instructions to US Navy Lieutenant Edwin J. De Haven, dated May 15, 1850, are reprinted in Elisha Kent Kane, MD, The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin: A Personal Narrative (1856). Captain William Penny detailed his discovery in a letter dated April 12, 1851, from HMS Lady Franklin to the Secretary of the Admiralty, reprinted in Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Inquire into and Report on the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search of Sir John Franklin XLVII (1852). Captain Horatio T. Austin expresses the conclusion that some of Franklin’s men had camped at Bowden Point in a July 14, 1851, letter from HMS Resolute to Secretary of the Admiralty, reprinted in Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Inquire into and Report on the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search of Sir John Franklin XI (1852). Clive A. Holland writes about the enmity between Penny and Ross in “William Penny, 1809–92: Arctic Whaling Master,” Polar Record 15 (1970). Holland’s “The Arctic Committee of 1851: A Background Study,” Polar Record (1980), gives an essential account of the Royal Navy’s investigation and testimony to the tribunal.
The extreme cold in February 1851 was described the following year in Peter C. Sutherland, MD, Journey of a Voyage in Baffin’s Bay and Barrow Straits in the Years 1850–51 Performed by H.M. Ships “Lady Franklin” and “Sophia,” Under the Command of Mr. William Penny, Vol. 1. Austin’s remark urging Penny to go up Wellington Channel comes from testimony to the Arctic Committee, as quoted in Clive Holland, “The Arctic Committee of 1851: A Background Study (Part 2),” Polar Record 20 (1980). Penny’s concerns about the fierce tide in Wellington Channel are expressed in the 1852 “Report of the Arctic Committee,” Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Inquire into and Report on the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search of Sir John Franklin. Criticism of Austin’s slight against Penny the whaler appeared in “The Arctic Expeditions,” Athenaeum, January 3, 1852. A transcript of Rear-Admiral Sir John Ross’s testimony to the Arctic Committee on October 31, 1851, was published in Report of the Committee Appoi
nted by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Inquire into and Report on the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search of Sir John Franklin.
Scoresby expressed his doubts that both of Franklin’s ships could have been lost in a letter to Mr. Frederick James Fegen, secretary to the Arctic Committee, dated November 14, 1851, and reprinted in Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Inquire into and Report on the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search of Sir John Franklin. A good summary of McClintock’s accomplishments, including the arduous sledge search in 1851, is online in “McClintock, Sir Francis Leopold,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mcclintock_francis_leopold_13E.html. The surgeon Bradford’s recommendations for improving Arctic clothing and equipment are in a letter to Mr. Fegen, secretary to the Arctic Committee, dated November 5, 1851, and reprinted, along with other experts’ views, in Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Inquire into and Report on the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search of Sir John Franklin.
Chapter 7: Ghost Ships
George Calder tells of Franklin tutoring a young William Kennedy in The William Kennedy Story, published by the Bruce County Historical Society. Kennedy’s grueling overland expedition by dogsled is summarized in Mark Nuttall, ed., Encyclopedia of the Arctic. Kennedy published his 1853 account, which includes such gripping details as snow blindness in the painful Arctic wind, in A Short Narrative of the Second Voyage of the Prince Albert, in Search of Sir John Franklin. Sir Edward Belcher’s hard-nosed temperament comes through in his own words in the 1855 book The Last of the Arctic Voyages. The profile “Belcher, Sir Edward,” in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, provides more background online at http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/belcher_edward_10E.html.
Jonathan M. Karpoff covers the tribulations of McClure and HMS Investigator in “Robert McClure: Essay Prepared for The Encyclopedia of the Arctic, available online at http://faculty.washington.edu/karpoff/research/McClure.pdf. Ship’s surgeon Alexander Armstrong’s regrets come from Andrew Cohen, Lost Beneath the Ice: The Story of HMS Investigator (2013). Pim is profiled in “Pim, Bedford Clapperton Trevelyan,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/pim_bedford_clapperton_trevelyan_11E.html. George F. McDougall chronicled Kellett’s heroic efforts aboard HMS Resolute in the 1857 book The Eventful Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ship “Resolute” to the Arctic Regions.
Fawckner recounted Breadalbane’s demise in the Illustrated London News, October 22, 1853, which was reprinted in Doug Payne’s “Technology Lights up an Arctic Shipwreck,” New Scientist, January 15, 1981. Belcher defended his character in testimony quoted by Elizabeth Matthews in From the Canadian Arctic to the President’s Desk: HMS Resolute. The remarkably good state of the abandoned Resolute when discovered by American whalers was described in the Illustrated London News, December 27, 1856. Lady Franklin’s request was recorded in 1861 by Leone Levi, ed., Annals of British Legislation, Vol. VIII. A complete history of the Resolute Desk and the presidents who sat behind it is available online at http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/furnishings/resolute-desk.htm.
Chapter 8: Starvation Cove
John Rae’s account of the discovery of wooden pieces in August 1851 was reprinted nine years later in University Magazine: A Literary and Philosophic Review 55 (January–June 1860).
Kenn Harper reported Ouligbuck’s contribution, and paltry compensation, in “William Ouligbuck, John Rae’s Interpreter,” NunatsiaqOnline, November 27, 2008. He is profiled by Shirlee Anne Smith in “Ooligbuck,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
John Rae’s account of his fateful meeting with the Inuk hunter In-nook-poo-zhee-jook comes from rough notes written on April 21 and 22, 1854, in John Rae’s Arctic Correspondence, 1844–1855. Rae described the officers’ initials scratched on their abandoned silverware in a letter to the secretary of the Hudson’s Bay Company, dated September 1, 1854, as reprinted in John Rae’s Arctic Correspondence 1844–1855. In another letter from the same volume, he informs governors of the Hudson’s Bay Company on December 20, 1854, of his disgust over the pay dispute. C. Stuart Mackinnon describes the Anderson–Green Expedition in “James Anderson (1812–1867), Arctic Profiles,” Arctic 38 (1985). Lady Franklin expressed her extreme disappointment with the Admiralty’s decision to send the poorly equipped Anderson–Green Expedition in A Letter to Viscount Palmerston, K.G. from Lady Franklin, published in 1857. In the same letter, she cited Kane’s view that a search by dogsled was the best option, which he explained in a letter to his friend Henry Grinnell.
David Murphy provides details of Lady Franklin’s purchase of the Fox in The Arctic Fox: Francis Leopold McClintock, Discoverer of the Fate of Franklin. McClintock wrote a riveting account of the turning point in the early Franklin search in his 1881 book Fate of Sir John Franklin: The Voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic Seas in Search of Franklin and His Companions. Snow’s attempt to have Franklin Expedition artifacts placed in Lincoln’s coffin is recalled in the New-York Historical Society’s Lincoln and New York, edited by Harold Holzer. Lady Franklin’s trip to Alaska with Sophy is detailed in Lady Franklin Visits Sitka, Alaska 1870: The Journal of Sophia Cracroft, Sir John Franklin’s Niece, edited by R. N. DeArmond.
PART III: THE DISCOVERY
Chapter 9: An Inuk Detective
Louie Kamookak spoke with me, over a period of several months, about his great-grandmother Hummahuk. These lengthy interviews are also the basis for details of his research into oral history covered elsewhere in this book.
Jens Peder Hart Hansen, Jorgen Meldgaard, and Jorgen Nordqvist discuss ancient Inuit tattoos in The Greenland Mummies, which American explorer Charles Francis Hall also discussed in Life with the Esquimaux: The Narrative of Captain Charles Francis Hall of the Whaling Barque “George Henry” from the 29th May, 1860, to the 13th September, 1862, vol. 2. Danish explorer and anthropologist Knud Rasmussen reports Inuit accounts of their encounters with the Ross Expedition in The Netsilik Eskimo: Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921–24: The Danish Expedition to Arctic North America, vol. VIII, which also provides essential insight into traditional life and beliefs. Background on Rasmussen is from Terrence Cole’s introduction to Rasmussen’s Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition. In addition to quoting directly from Rasmussen’s report, I relied on quotations in Asen Balikci’s The Netsilik Eskimo. Erhard Treude, “The Work of Knud Rasmussen in the Canadian Arctic as Described by RCMP Inspector Stuart Wood,” Études/Inuit/Studies 28 (2004), was also helpful.
The government of Manitoba’s Hudson’s Bay Company Archives provides a résumé of Louie Kamookak’s grandfather, William “Paddy” Gibson. Gibson’s colorful career is described online at https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/biographical/g/gibson_william-paddy.pdf. Gibson’s obituary appeared in The Globe and Mail, March 20, 1942, in “William Gibson Rites Saturday: Well Known Arctic Trader Will Be Buried Here.” Inuit elders’ memories of Gibson are included in Kitikmeot Heritage Society, Angulalik: Kitikmeot Fur Trader, http://www.kitikmeotheritage.ca/Angulalk/hudsons/hudsons.htm.
To understand the Inuit tradition of conjugal swaps, I relied on scholars’ research, mainly Michael J. Kral’s PhD thesis, “Transforming Communities: Suicide, Relatedness, and Reclamation among Inuit of Nunavut,” submitted to Department of Anthropology, McGill University, in January 2009, and anthropologist Arthur J. Rubel’s “Partnership and Wife-Exchange among the Eskimo and Aleut of Northern North America,” 1961.
Gibson wrote of seeing the cairn in “The Dease and Simpson Cairn,” The Beaver, September 1933, while a contemporary account of the explorer’s astounding efforts to map the Canadian Arctic is in Alexander Simpson, The Life and Travels of Thomas Simpson, Arctic Traveler, published in 1845, the same year the final Franklin Expedition departed for the Arctic. L. H. Neatby provides more details in “Arctic Profiles: Thomas Simpson (1808–1840),” Arctic 40 (December 1987).
The history of the airc
raft Gibson died on is Norduyn Aviation Limited, The Aircraft: A Brief History of Each Individual Norseman, available online at http://www.norsemanhistory.ca/Aircraft.htm. The official crash details are online at Flight Safety Foundation, Aviation Safety Network, ASN Wikibase Occurrence #122253, http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=122253. The Franklin link to the site of Gibson’s death is established by background in the Northwest Territories Education, Culture and Employment’s Gazetteer of the Northwest Territories.
Gibson’s colleague Lorenz A. Learmonth wrote about “The Curse of Neovitcheak” in The Beaver, September 1946.
Chapter 10: He Who Takes Long Strides
Sarah Bonesteel gives an expert’s assessment of “Canada’s Relationship with Inuit: A History of Policy and Program Development,” online at https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/DAM/DAM-INTER-HQ/STAGING/texte-text/inuit-book_1100100016901_eng.pdf. Peter Collings focuses on Matchbox Houses in “Housing Policy, Aging, and Life Course Construction in a Canadian Inuit Community,” Arctic Anthropology 42 (2005). The complete report of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is online at http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=890.