The Franklin Conspiracy

by Jeffrey Blair Latta

  PEMMICAN AND CHOCOLATE

  Moreover, the question of cannibalism is intrinsically linked with another issue: starvation. The expedition’s survivors would only have resorted to “the last resource”, if indeed they had run out of other foods. When the bodies were found on King William Island and the Victory Point record proved how the ships had been deserted so early in the year, starvation seemed the only explanation. And yet, there was a problem.

  The Franklin expedition had entered the Arctic with at least three years worth of provisions. This could have been stretched to four years if necessary. By the time the ships were abandoned, barely three years had passed. While Crozier should certainly have been concerned, he should not yet have been desperate. Thus, efforts were made to explain what had gone wrong. The 700 cans left at Beechey Island were held up as proof that the food had spoiled. We have suggested that the large number of cans was the result of two winters spent at Beechey Island, rather than one. But, even apart from this, there is more direct evidence that the crew was not starving during that final march. When McClintock discovered the two bodies in a boat, he also noted forty pounds of chocolate, plus an empty pemmican-can which had contained twenty-two pounds of meat. Though the pemmican-can was empty, it must have contained meat up to that point in the trek; yet the boat was headed back to the north, indicating it had almost certainly been deserted sometime late in the march, when the crewmen were retreating back the way they had come — presumably after the atrocities at Terror Bay (to the south) had already occurred. As for the chocolate — while sweets would hardly have kept them alive, the crew would surely have eaten this before resorting to human flesh.

  Then there was the claim made by the Inuit that food had been found on board the stranded ship. Hall had also been told that food had been found with the bodies on the Todd Islets, the farthest point reached by the expedition. Pooyetta assured Hall that a two-pound can of meat had been discovered: “The can was opened by the Innuits and found to contain meat and much toodnoo with it. No bad smell to it. The contents eaten by the Innuits — the meat and fat very sweet and good.”12

  Finally, there is the evidence of the encounter at Washington Bay when, as the Inuit assured Hall, they had seen nothing to make them think the men were starving. These same points were made by Woodman, who noted that “evidence shows that they [the crewmen] did not lack food in early 1848, and full tins of meat were found along their retreat. . . . The natives also invariably stated that the men did not die from starvation but because they were ‘sick’.”13 Added to this is yet another piece of evidence which has never been remarked upon.

  Everyone from Hall to Berton has had something to say about the Inuit who supposedly left the men to starve at Washington Bay. Hall was horrified to think the Inuit could be so heartless (refusing to believe their claim that they hadn’t known the men were starving), while Berton properly pointed out that the Inuit had their own lives to worry about in a land where game was scarce. What has not been wondered at is how remarkably complacent Crozier apparently was when, according to the Inuit, he watched his meal ticket slowly wander off down the coast. Crozier’s men were heavily armed; the Inuit were not. Surely, faced with starvation, having already “supped on the brains” of fallen crewmen, Crozier would have tried to force the Inuit to hunt some seal for his starving crew. Instead, the entire encounter was civil, with Crozier receiving some seal meat from the Inuit, then calmly watching them as they left the next day. Crozier was said to have repeated the Inuit word for “seal” as the natives departed; a final desperate plea for sustenance. Yet, his behaviour suggests he was simply thanking the Inuit for the seal meat they had already given, rather than begging for more. The simple fact is, Crozier had the firepower; he didn’t need to beg.

  BODIES UNDER BLANKETS

  The questions we have raised are vitally important. For, if the crew was not starving during that final march, they would not have resorted to cannibalism. But, if they did not cut up and eat their dead, how do we explain all the other evidence which says they did? What caused the knife marks on their bones? Why had hands been cut off, limbs dissevered, flesh cut away?

  We can’t help but think of the body of John Hartnell buried on Beechey Island. In the descriptions of the Inuit, there is sometimes the subtle feel of an autopsy room. The handless bodies at Starvation Cove were neatly covered with a blanket. One woman told Gilder (with Schwatka) about the bodies found at Terror Bay: “There were dead bodies in the tent, and outside were some covered with sand. . . . One of the bodies had the flesh on, but this one’s stomach was gone.”14 Is it possible, what the Inuit took to be evidence of cannibalism was really evidence of something else? Could it be, the bodies of the dead crewmen were mutilated for a purpose other than food? As unlikely as this may seem, how else can we explain what was found, given all the evidence which shows that the crewmen were not starving during that final trek?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Of a Sickness

  For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

  And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d.

  Lord Byron,

  Destruction of Sennacherib

  LEAD POISONING?

  But to return to our initial question: how did they die?

  Even after so many years, the standard answer to this question remains remarkably vague. From the beginning, starvation was presumed to be the prime culprit. But, given the problems with that hypothesis, scurvy was also invoked as a possible cause of death.

  Then, in 1981 and 1982, Owen Beattie recovered bones from King William Island and made a startling discovery. The bones showed extremely elevated levels of lead. Encouraged by this unexpected evidence, Beattie went on to exhume the three bodies buried on Beechey Island. These too showed high levels of lead. From this discovery arose the theory that lead poisoning from improperly soldered meat cans had contributed in some way to the Franklin tragedy and to the death of the crewmen both on Beechey Island during that first winter, and on King William Island two years later.

  Beattie’s lead findings were the first real new evidence to be unearthed since the recovery of the Victory Point record itself. Yet, his theory has had remarkably little impact. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, the effects of lead poisoning are poorly understood and are dependent on so many factors — such as the period over which the lead accumulated in the individual — that we can only make vague guesses as to what effect the lead poisoning might have had on the crews of the Erebus and Terror. Moreover, Beattie made it clear he was not suggesting the lead poisoning itself had killed the crewmen, but rather that it might have weakened their systems, making them more susceptible to other diseases. The autopsy report concluded that “the significance of the elevated lead levels in determining the course of the expedition remains uncertain.”1

  Given the conflict between the indisputable evidence of lead poisoning and the difficult to define nature of its effects, it isn’t surprising that lead poisoning has taken on something of the nature of a wild card in reconstructions. Barry Ranford wrote, “The almost inescapable conclusion is that when they left the ships, they would have been malnourished, weak, racked with scurvy, suffering from varying degrees of lead poisoning, and otherwise terribly dispirited.”2 On the other hand, David Woodman was less convinced, concluding, “Although lead poisoning may have been an overall contributing factor to the debility of Franklin’s men, we must agree with the autopsy report’s opinion that the ‘findings do not illuminate the events that led to the loss of the remaining members of the expedition in 1847 and 1848.’”3

  Apart from its ability to render victims more susceptible to other diseases, there is another reason the lead poisoning has provoked such interest. “It is the effects on the mind,” observed Beattie, “that may have been of greatest importance in isolating the impact of lead on the expedition.”4 Beattie noted that along with colic, weakness, fatigue, and loss of appetite, lead poisoning can also cause �
�disturbances of the central and peripheral nervous systems, producing neurotic and erratic behaviour and paralysis of the limbs.” David Chettle, the director of medical physics and health physics at McMaster University, (as quoted by Ranford) argued that the rapid build up of lead in the human body “ ‘could give rise to the classic neurological and behavioral symptoms of lead poisoning’, including anorexia, fatigue, irritability and irrationality.”5

  And yet, what precise behavioural effects there might have been remains irritatingly vague. Was the crew quite literally insane by the time they abandoned the ships? Or were they just a little less on the ball than they should have been? Beattie hardly helped the matter by observing, “Only clear minds in control of situations can hope to make correct decisions.”6 The Franklin tragedy wasn’t a drunk driving accident. If we are to blame the disaster on the neurological effects of lead poisoning, we require something more concrete than that the officers lacked “clear minds”.

  Perhaps more importantly, what evidence we have gives every indication that Fitzjames’ mind at least was perfectly clear as he sat down to write out his final message at Victory Point. If he had suffered three years of brain damage, could he have so precisely recorded so much information, from the date of Franklin’s death the year before to the longitude and latitude of his present position, the number of men dead (divided into officers and men) and the number still remaining? Nor does his handwriting give any hint of neurological damage. We are even able to compare his handwriting in 1848 with his handwriting the year before — there is no evidence of any deterioration during the intervening months.

  While there can be no denying the evidence of high levels of lead poisoning, we simply have no way of knowing whether or not the lead had an appreciable effect on the health or behaviour of the crewmen.

  SCURVY?

  But what about scurvy?

  Almost certainly many, if not most, of the crew suffered from its dreadful effects. But men suffering from scurvy is not the same thing as the entire crew of 129 dying of the disease. Scurvy was a common problem during the Arctic expeditions and men did on occasion die from it; but never had scurvy spread so thoroughly as to immobilize an entire crew.

  The disease was not really a disease as we think of the term; it was the result of a lack of vitamin C from fresh meat. Its most obvious symptoms were black and bleeding gums, loose teeth, swelling joints and internal bleeding. All expeditions suffered its effects except John Ross’ Victory, where the disease was prevented through the fresh meat procured by the Inuit. Bones recovered from King William Island showed evidence of scurvy, but this is only to be expected. Whether the men actually died of the disease is another matter entirely.

  Hall was told by the Inuit that the men died of a “sickness”, and this sickness was presumed to be scurvy. But surely the Inuit would have known scurvy when they saw it. When Jacques Cartier’s men suffered from scurvy, the Iroquois taught him how to make a concoction of herbs to cure the disease. . The Inuit had encountered Arctic expeditions before; from time to time they must have seen examples of its effects.

  We must also consider the descriptions of the men given by the Inuit. Some of the men at Washington Bay were said to have had hard, dry, and black lips. Was this a description of the soft, black gums characteristic of scurvy?

  When Too-shoo-art-thariu encountered Crozier and the three survivors near Boothia Peninsula, the three men were said to be “fat” because they had been eating human flesh, while Crozier was thin because he had not. But how did Too-shoo-art-thariu know the men had eaten their comrades; are we really to imagine Crozier would have told him this? More importantly, even if the men had resorted to cannibalism, could they really have grown “fat” on human flesh? Is it possible Too-shoo-art-thariu only thought the men had been feeding on human flesh because of something he saw, an aspect of the men’s appearance that convinced him they were cannibals, but which the Inuit, who were horrified by cannibalism, could not bring themselves to detail for Hall?

  Could it be that the men had fresh blood on their mouths from their bleeding gums — blood which Too-shoo-art-thariu took to be the blood of the flesh they had eaten? In the same way, the hard, dry, and black lips seen on some of the men at Washington Bay could have been dried blood. Scurvy causes such oral bleeding, but so too does another sort of disease, one which the Inuit could not have been familiar with — which they could only have characterized as “a sickness”.

  Radiation sickness can result in a drop in the number of blood platelets, without which blood won’t clot properly and hemorraging results, primarily from the intestines and the mouth. This is the third stage of radiation sickness, the first being a period of vomiting, fever, and intense thirst, the second being a latency period when the patient appears to have gotten better. This third stage may only be reached weeks after initial exposure to a high dose of radiation, following which the patient will either recover or die. Of course, given the choice between scurvy and radiation sickness to explain oral bleeding among the Franklin crewmembers, scurvy seems the more likely alternative. But the Inuit told Hall that Crozier’s three companions were “fat”. Another symptom of radiation sickness is gastro-intestinal distension — a distended abdomen. Could this be why Too-shoo-art-thariu thought the men were “fat”(because their stomachs were distended?

  Other symptoms characteristic of radiation poisoning are lung fibrosis, a susceptibility to disease (caused by a loss of white blood cells — an important part of the immune response), and a rapid loss of hair. Evidence for any of these would be difficult to recover after all these years. Yet, we might recall that “adhesions” or scarring around the lungs of all three men buried on Beechey Island led to the tentative theory that their deaths had been caused by pneumonia. Other evidence had suggested their immune systems had been weakened, making them susceptible to other diseases.

  Finally, as for the question of hair loss, we can never know for certain, but, as with so much about the Franklin mystery, the devil is in the details. One detail in particular stands out, not proof in and of itself, but quietly suggestive, as if hinting at a terrible, long hidden truth. Beside the corpse of Steward Peglar, which McClintock first discovered on King William Island, there was a clothes brush and a horn pocket comb in which, after ten years of exposure to the Arctic gales, “a few light-brown hairs still remained.”7

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The Shaman Light

  I have reached these lands but newly

  From an ultimate dim Thule –

  From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of Space – out of Time.

  Edgar Allan Poe,

  Dreamland

  A BATTLE?

  “One of the enduring myths of the Franklin expedition,” observed David Woodman, “is that the survivors of the Erebus and Terror may have fallen in battle with natives.”1 No sooner had John Rae returned with his story of cannibalism than reflexive accusations were levelled at the Inuit. Charles Dickens, renowned champion of the underdog of England, labelled the Inuit as “covetous, treacherous and cruel” and accused them of killing, though not eating, Franklin’s crew.2 Others quickly picked up the cry and, as Peter Newman observed, “In the popular press, the spectre of an Arctic tribe of man-eaters proved irresistible.”3

  The discoveries made on King William Island did little to prove or disprove this theory. What evidence was found, then and later, proved only that the bodies of the crewmen had been mutilated. Whether the mutilations were the result of cannibalism or something far stranger, whether the damage was done after death or before, these questions could not be answered.

  But a strong argument against an Inuit massacre lies in the observation made by McClintock that there was no evidence the natives had even discovered some of the corpses. In the barren, treeless Arctic, the vast profusion of relics left at Victory Point and other sites represented a veritable Eldorado of metals, wood, and items capable of being altered to serve other purposes. The quantity of item
s found in the possession of the natives showed how quick they were to make use of whatever they could find (except, apparently, books and papers). Hall learned that the occasional Inuk had visited sites such as Terror Bay, Starvation Cove, and the Todd Islets. Yet, the fact that so much remained to be found, even years later, suggested that the Inuit had avoided the area of the crewmen’s retreat like the proverbial plague. Later searchers learned that the northwest coast of the island had always been avoided by the Inuit of King William Island long before the Franklin expedition met with disaster there. Any attempt to lay the blame on the Inuit must also explain why the natives seemed so reluctant to make off with the spoils of the massacre.

  Ironically, though, it was the Inuit stories themselves that furnished the most damning evidence against them. It was the Inuit who related the grisly stories about mutilated bodies. It was Too-shoo-art-thariu’s cousins who told how Crozier, during his winter spent on Boothia Peninsula before vanishing forever down the Great Fish River, spoke of a battle with “Indians”. But even before John Rae raised the spectre of violent death, the possibility of a massacre had been bandied about as a result of another Inuit story. This was the story which John Ross’ Inuit translator, Adam Beck, claimed to have learned from the Greenland natives in 1850. As we have seen, Adam Beck’s story was dismissed after only one day’s search at Wolstenholme Island on the Greenland coast. In spite of the remarkably specific details of the story, Beck’s tale was cast aside with astonishing alacrity, purely because nothing was found to support it at Wolstenholme Island.