So Matt, I don't think I told you this, but a friend of ours, she was pregnant, she's having a boy,
and she went into labor. So she jumps in the car with her husband, they take off to the hospital,
well on the way to the hospital, she has the baby in the vehicle. No kidding. Yep, so the dad
looks over and goes, well, we're naming him Carson. Man, for that setup I was expecting more.
Yeah, well. This is life, Matt. Now you build you up thinking it's going to be great, and then
nope, it's not. Good evening everybody and welcome to the graveyard. Thank you for joining us
tonight. My name is Adam, and my name's Matt. Now we'll have a tombstone or settle into your
casket and get comfortable because this is graveyard tails.
All right, everybody. Here we are again, Matt. How you doing tonight, brother? Man, I'm good.
Excellent. Excellent. So preface all of this by saying, if you hear loud thundering,
I apologize. We got a crazy freak thunderstorm here in Texas, and it is louder than I've heard
a thunderstorm in a couple of years. So I'm probably not going to be able to cut it all out, but
you'll know what's happening. It'll add some ambiance to the story. That's what I was fixed to say.
It'll give us a little ambiance. It's too bad. It's not like a super scary story. But before we
get into it, say go check out the podbelly network at podbelly.com. We're proud members of the pod
podbelly network, and you can find a list of shows that we're associated with, and I promise you
you're going to find something on there that you enjoy. We also want to thank tonight's sponsor
Lomi. We will talk more about them coming up. We love Lomi. Yeah. While you're on the interwebs,
doing your clickety-clackin and buying stuff, go over to patreon.com slash graveyard tales.
You can sign up to become a patron, and we've got three different levels. Our $10 a month patrons,
they get the video versions of recording these episodes. They get ad-free audio versions,
plus they get the bonus episodes that we try to do every week, even if we're dark. We try to
put out a Patreon episode just so you've got something over there. Yeah. And Matt and I are
working on brainstorming different things that we can do for our patrons. So we haven't added
a new thing in a while. So we're trying to come up with something, but go over there patreon.com slash
graveyard tales. Speaking of putting out a Patreon episode when we're dark, wonder to let you all
know because I remembered before we started doing this episode. Normally I don't, but I happen
to look at the calendar. The next two weeks after this episode drops are our dark weeks. We've got
one of those double dark weeks. But as you'll know, Matt, I don't like being dark for two weeks. We
we're kind of afraid y'all will forget about us. So we like to keep putting our voices in your earholes.
So what we're going to do is one of those two dark weeks. We're going to do a short bonus
episode. We haven't decided what yet because we record these a little early. So we'll figure that
out between when we record this and the double dark weeks. But just want to let y'all know, don't expect
of a long main episode. It'll be a shorter, more like our Patreon episodes. Yep.
All right, Matt. So let's take a second and let's talk about one of our sponsors, Lomi. Now,
I think y'all have heard us discuss Lomi before and you know how much Matt and I and our families
love our Lomis. And the thing is, it's summer now. I mean, it's warm. So our garden is going strong.
And as soon as I love to garden and you know, you have to put a nutrients back into the soil
because these plants take it out. Well, we were, we have been composting with very little success
up to this point because usually you've got this big bin outside, you can throw crap in there,
you got to turn it, all that. Not with the Lomi. As soon as we got the Lomi, our garden looks
better. I've sent you pictures, Matt. Our garden is looking great because of the soil that we
get out of our Lomi. And it actually makes composting fun because we can fill it into this thing.
And they even have a clear top now. So you can watch the composting happen. I love that. It's
amazing. I like magic, man. Well, I got to say when we first got ours and we had done it five or
six times, I said, I want, I want to clear lid. I want to see this thing working. And then sure
it off. Yep. Bam, you get a clear lid. You get to see this magic happen. And it is like magic.
I mean, it Lomi actually turns your garbage into gold with just the push of a button. It is
incredible. I mean, a countertop electric composter that will take your food scraps and turn it into
dirt that you can use. And I'm a, I'm a big plant guy. You know, we got plants in the house. We got
plants out on the patio out by the pool. We've got a garden. So we're all the time working on
stuff like this and having the Lomi. It's just been incredible because we're not spending a bunch
of extra money on fertilizer, you know, or pre-packaged soil. I come in there and I get the dirt out
of the Lomi and I'm putting it in my house plants. We're putting it out in the garden. It's
fantastic. And I'll tell you this. Our trash does not stink. Oh, isn't that great, dude? I love that.
That was an unexpected perk when I started realizing that my garbage can didn't smell like
rotting food. It was amazing. It's exactly it. And, and one thing we, we have a problem with
animals want to get in our trash because they can smell the food or we don't have that problem
anymore because our food scraps go into the Lomi. Right. And you can put meat and dairy products,
not just vegetables like you would in normal composting bins. You can put your meat scraps,
no bones. You can put your dairy products, you know, cheese and stuff like that. Don't pour
glass of milk in there. That's just silly. And you can put bread and it will turn all of that
into dirt. Then, like Matt said, just go throw it in your garden and your plants are going to love
you. Your neighbors are going to love you because your trash won't be drawing flies anymore.
It'll be great. Right. Nutrient, rich dirt from the scraps from your table. And you're not only
saving money. You're not only keeping your trash from having all those food scraps.
You're helping the planet because all of that, all of that scrap that you throw in the Lomi and
get usable dirt would go to a landfill. You can put it to use. All you have to do is get a Lomi.
So, if you want to start making a positive environmental impact, if you want to have a great
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So, Matt, that's all the housekeeping that I've got. That was probably more than half the people
wanted to hear. But why don't you tell us what are we talking about tonight, brother?
So, tonight we're going to look at a famous maritime mystery. But the cool thing about this one is
we've somewhat solved it in the last several years. But when you consider how long this went
without any real solid idea of what happened to these guys, you're going to see why this is
one of the one of the biggest mysteries to have to do with the sea and the navy, all that stuff.
And it's Franklin's Arctic expedition. John Franklin was one of the captains that
led an expedition in search for a northwest passage, you know, a way to get from Europe to Asia
without having to go overland or without having to go all the way around the bottom of South
America. Right. Right. Because that took a long time. Sure. Yeah. A lot of people don't realize that
before modern day methods of travel, how long it took for anything to be shipped or for you to
take a trip. And like you said, if you were going to sail, think of where you had to go. I mean,
this was before the Panama Canal and all that stuff. So you literally had to go down around
everything. Well, think about it this way too. In the late 1700s into the 1800s,
the upper class in Europe's western coast, you know, London, France, these areas of high culture.
At the time, you would hear these things where someone so had a gown that was made from
some type of Chinese silk. Right. Or, you know, somebody had these, these shoes that were from
the Orient. You hear it called that a lot in the language of that time. And if they were able to
get that kind of material, it wasn't because they went down to their local tailor. Sure. And
said, I want this, I want a scarf made of this, you know, Chinese silk. They didn't have it.
And they really didn't have much of a way to get it. And for the people that did have that stuff,
it means that somebody had to get on a ship and go from Europe all the way down around South America.
And into Asia, make all of those purchases and then ship all that stuff back.
It may, it could have taken six months to a year. Right. Right. To get this stuff because it wasn't
exactly easy to make this trip. So, in an effort to make that trip shorter to improve commerce,
because this stuff, because it was so hard to get, it was, it was extremely valuable and desired.
And not just clothing, not, you know, tea number one. I mean, you know, teas from, you know,
the Asian nations. Oh, they were the absolute top of the line. And people in Europe, they wanted it.
They wanted it. They wanted silk. They wanted all of these other things that came from Asia. And
they just, there was no way for them to get it. So, there was, I mean, there was, it was for more
than just, hey, we got it, we got to set out and explore the rest of this map, because understand,
at this time, the map was pretty well set. Right. Right. By the mid 1800s, you know, they had a
pretty good idea of, of where everything was with the exception of the Arctic.
You know, and, and the area that, you know, we would say is north, north of Canada.
You know, there's something north of Canada going up there. Not much.
Just a seal or two, but so you got an idea about what we're discussing tonight. But we're
going to talk about Franklin's expedition and why it was such a mystery and what happened to
these people. Right. And, and it's the mystery of this and how it stayed a mystery is the fascinating
part to me. But the other fascinating part, which is going to be cool to talk about is just these
people and what they put themselves through to do this. So as we always say, go check our sources
down on the bottom of the show notes. You can find where we found all this information. You can
continue the research if you would like, because we're not going to be able to get to all of it.
It's just, there's so much information. We're going to do our best, but we won't get to all of it.
Now, the Franklin Arctic expedition or the lost Franklin expedition will probably refer to it
as both throughout the episode, but it was a British voyage led by Sir John Franklin in an
attempt to discover the northwest passage in in the Arctic, like Matt was saying. The expedition
was set to sail in 1845 with two ships, the HMS Aerobus and the HMS Terror and a crew of 129 men.
As we're talking, remember that number of men. That's a lot of people. Now, this comes from actually
that the US Naval Institute and their historical information on this says when Sir John Barrow took
up the position as second secretary of admiralty of the United Kingdom in 1804. He inherited a legacy
of European naval exploration that spanned back centuries during his 41 year tenure in his position.
Barrow advocated for the discovery of a northwest passage over Canada,
providing an efficient means of traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
So over the ensuing decades, various noted explorers included the famed William Edward Perry
set off for the Canadian Arctic in an attempt to map its myriad mysteries.
So one such explorer, Royal Navy officer Sir John Franklin found himself on several of these
expeditions. In 1818, he served as second in command of an expedition in the area on board the ships
Dorothea and Trent and went on to lead two further expeditions in 1819 to 1822 and 1825 to 1827.
So this this was not his first his first rodeo in the right. Yeah, he was well seasoned. Right,
right. But by the time he was selected to lead yet another expedition in 1845, Franklin was
no stranger to the treachery that lay ahead of him and his crew. But little did he know that he
was about to set off on what would become one of history's greatest maritime mysteries.
So who is Sir John Franklin? We'll we'll look at that quickly. He was born April 16, 1786 in
spillsby Lincolnshire, England. Now he was an English rear admiral and explorer. And I'm going
to show you my childish rear admiral. Yeah, exactly. See, you that's why you and I get along so
is because my childish humor rear admiral sounds like some put down. Why are you being such a
rear admiral, man? Why are you being such a rear admiral? You're a rear admiral. And so I know
it's an it's an esteemed position. But there needs to be a better term for it. Because rear
rear. Yeah, rear admiral is still used today. I mean, the backside admiral is not much better. I
don't know what you. I mean, glad they didn't call it the butthole admiral. That's all I can say.
I wouldn't have made it because that would that would be a thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean,
buttholes in the back. So why not the rear, you know, if they did that, I wouldn't be able to make
it through this episode. I'd be laughing the whole time. All the English butthole admiral. I couldn't
make it. Now, Franklin entered the Royal Navy at age 14 and accompanied Matthew Flinders on his
exploratory voyage to Australia in 1801 to 1803 and served in the battles of Trafalgar in 1805
and the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. So he commanded the Trent on Captain David Buchanan's Arctic
expedition of 1818, which sought to reach the North Pole from 1819 to 1822. Franklin conducted
an overland expedition from the western shore of Hudson Bay to the Arctic Ocean and he surveyed
part of the coast to the east of the Coppermine River in northwestern Canada. After his return to
England, he published a narrative published narrative of a journey to the shores of the Polar Sea
in the years 1819, 20, 21 and 22. And I'm one of my problems with historical books is how long
the titles are. Have you ever noticed that? They will put a paragraph as the title of an old book.
Right. Right. Well, they wanted you to know what it was all about nowadays. They'd have said
the trip is all it would have been. But back in it, we've gone from very specific titles to very
vague. In 20 years, book titles are just going to be emojis.
You're just going to have a person waving and a ship as the title of the book.
I just get this. I don't know. It seems like, you know, the the the dumbing down of people.
You know, I see this stuff and you're going, it wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Yeah. You know, you remember the movie? What does something like that?
Yeah. You remember the movie, Eddie Ocrissing? I might, Judd.
He said somewhere in there that people had gotten to where they they speak a combination of
valley girl and grunts. And I'm like, yeah, we're getting there. I grunt a lot when I talk.
So I mean, I can't say anything. But all right. So let's look at the ships that Franklin
was going to be captaining here. And this is from Royal Museums of Greenwich. Now the HMS
terror was built in Topsham Devin and launched in June of 1813. The ship was actually a bomb vessel.
So it had an extremely strong hull and it was built to withstand the impact of explosions.
So this is a strong ship. Yeah. Terror actually began its career as a ship of war.
It was involved in several battles of the war of 1812 against the United States. So it was a
it was a tough ship. And might I say, very suitable for what they were about to
on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And what a what a badass name. Yeah. I mean, for a warship. I mean,
the HMS terror. Yeah. I mean, that's cool. Yep. I like it. Now the HMS Arabis was built by the
Royal Navy and Pembroke Dockyard in Wales in 1826. Now when the terror's career as a bomb vessel
came to an end, it became a ship of exploration. The ship ventured north to the Arctic in 1836
under command of George George back where it suffered heavy ice damage in the aptly named
Frozen Straight. So let's think about that for a minute, just to give you kind of an idea of
the conditions. This was a bomb vessel built to withstand explosions. And it was damaged heavily
by the ice in the Arctic. And I know we'll talk about that coming up, but
the the way the ice moves up there comes together and stuff. The weight of that crushing on a ship
is immense. So it it it horribly damaged a bomb ship. Right. So I mean, just think about that.
Now the Arabis joined the terror for the next expedition to the opposite end of the earth,
the Antarctic under the command of James Clark Ross. Now the ships were completely refitted
with additional strengthening and internal heating systems. Together they circumnavigated the
continent and the expedition did much to map the areas of Antarctica, the Ross ice shelf,
and set the scene for future polar explorations in that area. So these ships are pretty famous,
even before this. The ship sailed into the Antarctic, which was just as perilous as the north,
north this says, for three successive years in 1841, 42, and 43. Now in one incident,
they were caught in a stormy sea full of fragments of rock heart ice and the ice smashed against
them so violently that their masks shook in a beating that would have destroyed any ordinary
vessel. So so Adams, right. You know, these were the ships to use for this. I mean, they were they
were well suited for this job. They could, you know, they they were hardened against the elements.
So, you know, they you got admit they they started off in really good shape.
Right, right. Now, even more dangerously in March of 1842, the arabis and terror came close to
destroying each other. So the arabis was suddenly forced to turn across terrors pass in in order to
avoid crashing headlong into an iceberg, which had just become visible through the snow.
Terror couldn't clear both arabis and the iceberg, so a collision was inevitable. The ship's
crashed violently together and their rigging became entangled. The impact floored the crew members
while mass snapped and were torn away. The ships were locked in a destructive stranglehold at the
foot of the iceberg until eventually the terror surged past the iceberg and arabis broke free.
I just added that because I thought it was wild. I know I read it too and I was like,
why are you getting so damn close? I mean, these are not small ships. You know,
right. You know, like give give yourself a wide berth. I know saying the Antarctic is not a small
place either though. So they had room to spread out. The only thing I could guess is that
as the as the ice, you know, got heavier that the path that you took got more narrow.
Sure. And so they were traveling probably close together and visibility was obviously not great
because they didn't see an iceberg because of the snow until they were on top of it.
So I mean, there's a really good chance that they were having a hard time telling how far away
from one another they were anyway. It just seems absurd that these two ships would have collided
like this. But yeah, you know, that's that's me who's, you know, there's never never been on a ship
like that ever. Yeah. And there's conditions that we aren't privy to that would cause that.
And you know, it could be the white out conditions that they were under that forced them to be that
close so they could see each other. Yeah. You know, they needed to navigate off of one another. But
anyway, let's look at what the Northwest passage is was were when I don't know.
The thing that the Franklin expedition was going to find.
So the Northwest passage spans roughly 900 miles from the North Atlantic, North of Canada's
Baffin Island in the east to the Beaufort Sea north of the US in the state of Alaska to the West.
So it's located entirely within the Arctic Circle less than 1200 miles from the North.
So it's less than 1200 miles from the pole. Now traversing the frozen Northwest passage
historically has required a hazardous journey through thousands of giant icebergs that could rise
up to 300 feet above the surface of the water and huge masses of sea ice that could seal the
passage and trap ships for months at a time. Yeah. So before I go any further, think about that.
You're out here. You're in in the Arctic Ocean and you're dodging 300 foot tall icebergs.
So Lord knows how much is underwater on one of those icebergs. And then you've got sea ice
encroaching on every side and it smashes together. That's what I was saying earlier with the
weight of the sea ice smashed and it traps you for months. What? No, I ain't doing that. Sorry.
Find somebody else for your Northwest passage expedition. And my thing is is you,
you've got to be prepared that this could happen to keep 129 crew members alive and kicking. Right,
right. I mean, you just can't go. Oh, we didn't expect this. You had to expect it. Yep.
And you had to expect to be stuck for long periods of time. So had to have plenty of food and
fresh water and all those things to keep everything going while you were waiting to get unstuck. Yeah.
Well, I thank God they retrofitted these two ships with heating inside. Right. Which would help
if you got trapped. And I know if you look up other expeditions, they got people that are having to
stand on the the bowels of the ship and crack ice with long poles, push the stuff out of the way.
The ship's mast is getting frozen from freezing rain and snow and it's like an ice skating
rink on the deck of the ship. It's just crazy. Now, the idea of a Northwest sea route from
Europe to East Asia dates back at least to the second century AD in the world maps of Greco-Roman
Geographer, Ptolemy. Now, Europeans developed interest in the sea passage after the Ottoman empire
monopolized major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia in the 15th century.
So it was the Northwest passage that captured the imaginations of many of the world's famed
explorers, including Jacques Cartier, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin,
Frobisher, and Captain James Cook. So these are some big names in
captaining here, although met with failure and many met with disaster. Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
who's treat us on the passage inspired many voyages by others drowned during his own attempt in
1583. Henry Hudson, his young son, and seven others were cast adrift by a mutinous crew in 1611
when his discovery of Hudson Bay proved to be an icy trap instead of the passage that he saw.
So let's look at Franklin's expedition. So it was the morning of May 9, 1845, and the expedition
set off from Greenhife Kent. Now, the ships first traveled to stromeness orkney islands in northern
Scotland. And from there, they went to Greenland with the help of the HMS rattler and the transport
ship, Burrito, Jr. Now, when they reached Greenland's disco bay, it's D-I-S-K-O.
It was like disco bay, you know. You can tell by the way. That's right. You know,
they got, you know, disco balls and strobe lights and stuff, you know, it's where it came
was where disco originated. You thought the northern lights were pretty. You should see the
giant disco balls and disco bay. That man, when they really get going, it'll light it up down into
like New York and everything. It gets crazy. That's right. That's right. But while they were in
Greenland, they got more provisions. And the crewmen on board the terror and the Areba sent what
would be their final letters to their loved ones back home. Now, during this stop, five men were
discharged. It doesn't say why. But that reduced the final number of crew members to 129.
So when we talk about 129, this is, this is after the voyage has begun, they cut it down from
134 to 129. Now, the final sighting of the expedition by Europeans took place in July of 1845
when the whalers, Prince of Wales and Enterprise spotted the terror and Arebas in Baffin Bay.
And they were, they were hanging there waiting for the conditions to improve enough
to get safe passage across Lancaster Sound. So I'll give you these landmarks. You can kind of,
you can see diagrams of what his path was. But it'll kind of give you an idea of where they are.
Come and, and where they came from to get there. Now, the expedition members spent the winter of
1845, 1846 at a camp on Beach Island before heading south to King William Island. Now, before
reaching King William Island, the two ships, Arebas and terror became trapped in sea ice. Now,
this was September of 1846. So pretty early in the expedition. Right, right. I mean, they, they left,
they left in May of 1845 and now it's not even a year and a half later and they're stuck.
Okay. Now, this is, this is what Adam was referring to earlier about just thinking about being stuck.
The ships remained trapped even during the summer months and on, um, and on June 11th, 1847.
Okay. They've been there stuck from September of 1846 to June of 1847.
Nine months, months, almost a year. Yeah. They are stuck. They are living on this boat.
Can you imagine just not only being stuck there, but wondering, are we ever going to get free?
Are we going to run out of food? You know, imagine the, the, the hostility, you know, the fear,
the worry, you're never going to see your families again. I mean, you know, you can't,
I can't even fathom how high tensions were at this time. You probably got 60 people,
60 something people per ship and you're having a stick in these small quarters with 60 something
in not moving. Nothing to do. Yeah. For nine months. You're not hanging out on the deck. It's too cold.
You know, it's not like you're going to go and jump in the pool. I mean, there's no pool.
You know, probably not, probably not keeping the, uh,
internals of that ship super warm. They're keeping it just warm enough to where you don't die.
Right. Because if they're stuck for almost a year, you're not going to have it a balmy 80 degrees
in there. Because you've got to conserve any wood or heating oil that you're using is again,
you don't know how long you're going to be. But on on June 11th of 1847,
Sir John Franklin died at the age of 61 and he was on board the HMS Arribus. Now,
they didn't do an autopsy. So the ship surgeon never did an autopsy and Franklin's grave has never
been found probably because he was buried in the ice. Yeah, probably. But now under the command
of Captain Crozier, the two ships were carried south by the pack ice and the prevailing wind.
So it wasn't so much that when they got unstuck that they were okay, we're back on track. I mean,
they were essentially at the mercy of the ice and the wind. And it began to carry them now.
It got them unstuck. But you know, they really weren't they at this point, they weren't on track
for their original expedition. Now during the winter of 1847, 1848,
nine officers and 15 men fell ill and died. And they were within sight of King William
Island, which was where they were headed. And they were still just they couldn't move. They
were still somewhat stuck in the ice. So Crozier decided on Good Friday, which was April 22nd of
1848 to abandon the ships and begin to walk to the nearest European settlement at back river.
They never made it. Now, the decision was they didn't come to this decision because of lack of
food, but it was probably closer related to the health of the men. Yeah, they had lost a lot of
weight. They were weak. Some of them had bleeding gums and loose teeth, echinosis and subcutaneous
hematomas. Echinosis is like that red splotchy. Like if you if somebody slapped you and you know,
busted a lot of blood vessels in your face and that reddish purple. It's echinosis. So
and that happens from lack of nutrition. Right. Right. If you're not eating the proteins and stuff
that you need, then you can get those small blood vessels will burst, those will capillaries
and you'll get these patchy places all over your skin. But they were having trouble breathing.
You know, they were just they were wiped out. And it really looked like a lot of them were
suffering from scurvy. What's you know, are you scurvy dog? Yeah. Yeah. Scurvy is from
vitamin C deficiency. Right. Right. And here's an interesting thing. You've ever heard,
you know, Naval people be called like Limies. Have you ever heard that? Yeah. Limies.
Well, that came from the fact that a lot of these ships carried lines.
Yeah. Makes sense. In order to prevent the crew developing scurvy from the vitamin C deficiency.
Right. Makes sense. So everybody sitting there sucking on lives and you know, another,
you know, a foreign army season. And they're like, look at these idiots. They're just sucking on
lines, but it's a limies. They're a limibugga. Now, crows your plan to continue overland to the south
of King William Island and then cross to the mouth of the Great Fish River on the mainland,
where he hoped to get help from an outpost of the Hudson Bay Company. Now they were dragging
lifeboats on sledges. He and his man progressed down the western coast of King William Island
traveling over the frozen ice along the coastline because this made their passage smoother
than over the rough land. So they stayed close to the coast because they didn't have these,
you know, hills and valleys and rough terrain that was already covered in snow and ice,
making it even more treacherous. So down towards the coast, it was a lot smoother and they could,
you know, they could move a little bit easier. But even with this, they only managed to cover
about one and a half miles or so in a day. Oh my lord. So in a day, they travel one, I mean,
you think about it. We got people that can run a mile in four minutes. These people were going
a mile and a half in a day. That's how slowly it went. And you run, it's not, there is not out for a
walk. I mean, they're dragging equipment with them, plus they're sick. You know, they're
cold. They're hungry. Yeah. I mean, even if this was a little bit of a smoother path,
it, you know, it wasn't easy by no means. But not a single man survived the journey,
although some did reach the mainland. And the bodies of 30 men were subsequently found
near the Great Fish River. Now, an old Eskimo woman will later tell the story of how the,
uh, the, the ill men had fallen down and died as she saw them trudged through the rigid ice.
That's crazy. Yeah. So I mean, you know, this was, this was heavy, heavy, heavy duty stuff. I
mean, this was not like, we're all seen. No. Yeah. I mean, you know that a lot of these men,
especially if they had been involved with any of Franklin's other expeditions, they knew that
there was a chance that they would not return. Right. You know, but to some public folks, it,
it was worth the risk because of, you know, the, the wealth and the notoriety that they would
receive. I mean, in reality, these crew men, they, they, they got their pay and they were like,
yeah, you know, see a guy go find another ship to get on. I mean, you know, it was, you know,
the captains and the leaders of these expeditions were going to be the ones that went down in the
history book. Hopefully the pay was worth it. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of these captains did,
did good at taking care of their crew, making sure they not only had what they need, they had
extra, you know, so they knew they could count on them, especially in a situation like this.
I mean, you know, you, you get stuck in the ice for nine months. I mean, at some point somebody's
just going to go, hey, guess what? This sucks. I'm not listening to you anymore. And, you know,
next thing you know, you've got a mutiny and a riot on a ship outstuck in sea ice. Right. Right.
So, total chaos. But, you know, when they got off the boat and they started walking
to King William Island, you know, it was, it was pretty much sealed at that point. They weren't
going to be able to make it. Disasterous decision. Yeah. Now, for two years, there was no word
from Franklin or any of his men. So, 1848 rolls around. And Franklin's second wife,
Lady Jane Franklin helped persuade the admiralty and government to launch what became perhaps
the largest search effort in naval history. For years, Overland and Sea Expeditions scoured the
area in the spots where the ships had been sent out, but found only a few artifacts and some
scattered human remains. Yeah. So, they're going, I mean, think about it. This is not an area
conducive for search and rescue. Yeah. You got moving pack ice. You got, it's crazy. Yeah. And
when he said it, it was, you know, the largest search and rescue expedition at the time. I mean,
the group after group just piled out going out to look for these people. 32 different expeditions
took place between 1849 and 1859 to find these people. And in 1850, a search expedition at
beachy island turned up the first traces of the lost expedition. This is 1850. Okay. They've
been gone for about two years. They found an abandoned camp from the winter season of the 1845,
1846. But at that, at that winter camp, they found the graves of three men,
petty officer John Torrington, royal marine, private William brain, and able semen John Hartnell,
who were all members of Franklin's expedition. Now, no other information regarding the movements
of Franklin's expedition were discovered at that time. Right. Right. And they did some forensic work
on these bodies that they found. And again, think of forensic work for the time period. It's not
like they had, you know, computers to be able to map the DNA and find everything. But they did
some forensic work. And they found that the men had suffered from starvation, scurvy, and led
poisoning. So they say that that ladder illness led poisoning was probably caused by contaminated
tin cans. And it was thought to have played a significant role in the expedition's demise. So
we take for granted nowadays that if we have canned food like those canned beans that you got in
there, they're good, man. As long as you don't see the ends popping out because of botulism,
then if they're sealed, you're good. Those beans will last you for years. But that wasn't a case
in the 1800s with canned food. It was a different process. Material is used to make the cans
were different. You know, sanitizing all that stuff wasn't really even considered. Right.
Right. Now researchers also discovered that some bones bore cut marks suggestive of cannibalism.
So I mean, it's a touchy subject. Cannibalism and people don't want to talk about it. But
in a lot of these expeditions that happen like that. And I'm sure we'll touch on more at another day.
But a lot of these people resorted to cannibalism because they were malnourished,
they were dying, hadn't eaten in weeks, months, whatever. And their shipmates are just
dropping dead around them. They see no other choice. Right. So as horrible as cannibalism is,
you can't condemn the people for doing that. They were trying to survive. I mean, it's not like
they were, you know, some kind of wacko just decided, hey, I like to eat people. I mean, murdering
them to get the meat. Right. But you know, when you're faced with starvation and these desperate
situations and all you can, all you can concern yourself with is how to live another day.
You know, cannibalism seems like the only way out. You don't have any other food. You know,
there's, there's nothing to hunt. You can't fish. I mean, it, you've, you've got nothing else.
There's no vegetation. Nothing. It's just ice. But the problem with it is, number one,
you know, when we've talked about cannibalism before, you know, it causes some internal problems
because your body is, you know, human, human body isn't meant to digest human meat.
Okay. So it causes some problems. The other aspect of this is these people weren't dying
healthy. Yeah. Exactly. They were already sick. So, you know, their bodies were already
beginning to, you know, atrophy and just fall apart. And with whatever illness was, was afflicting
them. And then we're going to eat it. Look, cook it or not. I mean, if you saw an emaciated cow,
um, you know, out there just dragging along and just looks awful. You know, it looks like
you could just drop dead in a minute. And a farmer says, that's your supper tonight, son.
It'd be like, no, not for me. You find me one of them healthy ones over there.
But they, you know, they didn't have a choice. So, you know, you wouldn't eat, you know, a disease
ridden cow, but these people were forced to eat a disease ridden human. So it, like I said,
all they were worried about is living one more day because one more day would get them closer to
the chance that somebody would find them and rescue them. I mean, you know, they had to understand
we're not going to make it out of this unless we get rescued.
Mm hmm. Well, think about it this way. They, a lot of the men, it says they had lead poisoning
from the, the cans. We, we hear a lot of talk about heavy metal toxicity in large fish,
like tuna and stuff like that because they're high up on the food chain. It's the same scenario.
You could get tuna and cook it, but you're not going to cook out the heavy metals. Right.
So no matter what you did, you were contributing more to your
lead poisoning if you were eating meat from someone who died of lead poisoning. So it was,
it was sort of good that it sustained them for a little bit, but they were contributing to their
demise in the long run from all those negatives. Now, the majority of Franklin's crew
had simply vanished. Yeah. Couldn't find any other evidence of them.
As my granddad would say neither hide nor hair up.
So that's right. Now, the search for the lost Franklin expedition continued through the 19th
and 20th centuries. So over the years, a rough sequence of events was gradually assembled
based on information from search expeditions, inuit, oral accounts, and the work of explorers.
So one key resource was the victory point note, which was dated April 25th, 1848, and written by
Crozier and Fitz James. It was found in May of 1859. It was tucked into a stone can on King William
Island. So that that tells you at least Crozier and Fitz James made it to King William Island.
Now, according to the note, the Franklin expedition spent the winter of 1845 to 46 on
Beachy Island. And then in the summer of 46, it traveled down Peale Sound.
Off King William Island, the Arabis and Terror became trapped in the ice forcing the men
to spend the winters of 46 and 47 and 47 and 48 on the island. So John Franklin died on
in June of 1847, like Matt said. And the note also stated that Crozier, Fitz James and the crew
had abandoned the ships and were heading for what is now back river on the Canadian mainland.
The 248 mile journey required 248 miles, Matt. And you mentioned that they were making a mile and a half
a day. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. So this journey required the 105 survivors at this point to
traverse King William Island and cross the sea ice before reaching the river. Later,
Inuit people in the area told searchers that 35 to 40 white men had died near the mouth of
back river. However, the location of the other crew members was unknown. So one
searcher for the lost Franklin expedition, Robert McClure, later Sir Robert, entered the passage
from the west. He became locked in ice for two winters again, somebody locked in ice. And then he
slidged overland to another rescue ship coming from the east, thus completing the first one-way
transit of the northwest passage in 1854. So all of this with the Franklin expedition and
Sir Sir Robert McClure made it technically. But finally, in the 2010s, the mystery of what it happened
to the two ships was solved. Sort of a combination of research into Inuit oral histories,
the continued work of modern explorers and the use of high-tech underwater equipment,
allowed scientists to locate first the Arabis in Queen Maud Gulf in 2014. And then the terror
and terror bay in 2016. Both wrecks were found off King William Island. Numerous dives recovered
various artifacts. So if you can find the pictures of this, it's cool seeing all these stuff.
You want to know something else that's kind of cool about this? Terror bay was already called
terror bay. Nothing to do with the ship being found there or anything. Which seems like a weird
coincidence or fate. You know, I'm not a big believer in coincidence. So maybe it was fate that the
terror went down in terror bay. Yeah. It's kind of weird. So these discoveries highlight the
importance of Inuit oral histories in gleaming information about the expedition. However,
for many years, the accounts were dismissed. And Matt and I were talking about that a little bit ago
that before we started recording, they just kind of ignored a lot of the oral history from them.
Well, in the 1850s, British searchers interviewed Inuits on King William Island and were told of
the cruise suffering, which included the cannibalism. But the claims caused outrage in England and
the Inuit stories were rejected. So it's kind of sad that that all happened that because
of the look, like you and I were talking about of cannibalism, right, they rejected the story.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was just like even even Lady Franklin just completely denounced the idea
of cannibalism. I mean, it was almost like that was some kind of huge disgrace if they had resorted
to cannibalism. And it must have been a cultural thing at the time because I don't think as
horrific as it would be if we heard a story about that now. I don't think that anybody would
have this, oh my God, I can't believe it. There's no way they did that. We can't let our, you know,
our loved one died on this trip. And but he would have never resorted to cannibalism.
Really might have. And is it that big a deal if he did, right? You know, he was trying to save
his life for crying out loud. But no, they didn't want to hear that. So you're right at him,
they did. They, they just completely discounted the Inuit stories. But the funny thing about that is
they always had that information and never pursued it. Okay. Now, the, the net silk Inuit
as early as 1854, which was just six years after the expedition was declared lost,
um, a Hudson Bay fur trader named John Ray talked to an Inuit man about the, the expedition
and the Inuit told Ray stories of the meeting the starving men and gave him relics from the Franklin
expedition to back up their story. But when Ray came back and, and told these stories about cannibalism,
um, they started a smear campaign that was initiated by Lady Jane Franklin.
So, um, it was almost like she was being scandalized because of these stories. And
there were other, there were other factors in it too. Like, um, the, the writings of Charles Dickens
were, uh, kind of shaded, you know, towards this being, you know, a really a terrible thing or
that these Inuit people would have been, uh, dumb tribal people, you know, savages to some degree,
they weren't. Um, but that's how they were painted, uh, in a lot of the, the literature and the
writings. So nobody wanted to believe any of these stories. You know, it just kept, you know,
I was just, you know, I mean, it would be the equivalent of, you know, some, a street person,
you know, walking up to you and giving you specific details about something that you're looking for,
and you're just going, God, you, you don't know anything. Get away from me. Well, they may know
everything. Right. And the Inuit people apparently did. Um, but for British lore, Franklin and his crew
became martyrs to science. They were good Christian men who suffered a cruel fate at the hands of
Mother Nature. But later historians framed Franklin as a heuberistic imperialist and more recently,
the Canadian government has used Franklin as an argument for Arctic sovereignty, um, you know,
that the Arctic should be, you know, it's, it's own, uh, independent nation, if you would. You know,
so, so it doesn't have all of these, um, outside, uh, factions coming in and, and, and, and moving
around and tearing it up and claiming this and claiming that and all this other stuff. Um, because
what they say is that's what Franklin was really trying to do is he's not just looking for
north, north, west passage. He's looking for the fame and the notoriety of having explored the
Arctic and, you know, quite possibly, uh, going down in history with, you know, half the Arctic
named after him. You know, they never said that is what he wanted. He wanted to bring this glory
back to his homeland. And it that may have been why, um, they trudged in through conditions that
were absolutely not favorable to this particular expedition. We don't know because we're,
we're going based on, uh, you know, if we look at the writings of the time, you know, it, it certainly
doesn't paint that picture. Um, but even the inuit story just tells you how much these men suffered,
how sick they were, how malnourished they were. Um, but I, I'll touch on this real quick before
we wrap up. I, there were, I found an interesting article that talked about the weather conditions
in the Arctic at that time. And you think, Matt, it's cold. It's snowy. Everything's frozen.
But what if I told you that back when, when Franklin led this expedition, everything was a lot
worse. It was, yeah, much more cold. There was a lot more ice, thus making this trip significantly
more dangerous than it would be in modern times, despite the equipment. Okay. And, and the way they
determined this, I thought was so cool. Uh, researchers took ice cores from two different sites in
the Canadian Arctic to reconstruct the climate record. And they took the percentage of melt layers
in the ice cores, which shows how warm the summers were. And saw that the expedition took place
during a period where there was very little to no summer melt. Hmm. Okay. So even in the middle of
June, they remember, we talked about it in June. They're still locked in ice. It's not getting any
warmer. Yeah. And, and after June, they realized it's not getting any warmer anytime soon.
Because that was the period where they were. I mean, they were essentially coming off a, a
mini ice age. Uh-huh. So, you know, if this expedition occurs 50 years later, it's quite possibly
successful. Um, you know, it's impossible to say, but I look at it this way. The, the people like
Franklin and Crosier that put everything else aside to say, I'm going to go on this adventure
to, to discover the undiscovered. Mm-hmm. I don't care what they, what they ate, you know,
what they had to do to survive. It doesn't matter. To me, you know, these people should be
lauded, you know, as, as heroes, because they, they were the first ones. They were the ones that
said, look, we're going to go out in the great unknown. And we're going to come back and tell you
what we found. You know, look, if, if you wanted a little bit of glory for doing something like that,
I'm not going to fault you. Right. I mean, I'm not doing it. You know, so people that, I mean,
you think about it, think about people like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I mean, what,
what that must, I mean, Yuri Grigaring. I mean, they're going somewhere. Nobody's ever been.
I mean, nobody, we're leaving this planet, guys. We've already seen everything we got here. Let's
go see what else is around us. Who's going to sign up to be the first person to do that?
It takes a special kind of person. And so, you know, these folks and an effort, you know,
to, to find out if there was a passage from Europe to the Orient going through the Arctic.
I mean, you know, that, it took a lot of guts and not just for Franklin and his entire crew,
because like I said, at the beginning, these guys had to know there's a chance we're not coming
back from this. Right. And the, you know, we get, we get spoiled now, because even if we go,
say we're going into Papua New Guinea in a place that we haven't explored in the jungle,
we still have GPS locator beacons. We've got the potential of satellite phones to get in touch with
somebody and say, Hey, I'm not dead. I'm, I'm just stuck in this area or whatever. You could call
for rescue. You could let your loved ones know when they left on the ship. That was the end of
communication. Yeah. They didn't have radios. They couldn't send a carrier pigeon back to land
with a letter from them. So it, it's not shocking that they wouldn't know what happened to the crew.
And it'd be a mystery for as many years as it was. I mean, this was a big, a huge mystery,
a maritime disappearance that, you know, a ton of people disappeared. But
we now know kind of what happened because of modern technology. And then our more modern thinking
of let's, let's actually listen to these people who live here. And, and know what's going on.
Yet we still have problems with that when it comes to different mysteries of like cryptozoology
and stuff like that. Despite learning the lesson here that these Inuit people had been telling
you the story of what happened to Franklin and his men for decades. It's in their oral history.
You'd still said, well, these people are talking about this giant animal in the forest here. I
don't, I think they're lying. They're savages. They don't know what they saw. They're not smart. You
got it. Excuse me. Have we not learned any lessons at all? Some things, yes, possibly could be
stories that were made up to keep their children safe and not travel through the woods. But
if you have stories of a mysterious animal that has traveled down through generations
in an oral history and they're even still saying, hey, we see it occasionally today. Why do we
continue to say, ah, these savages don't know what they're talking about? They're mistaken. Yeah.
I mean, there, there's probably a lot of people out there going, Adam and Matt, why did you all talk
about this? Yeah. But one reason and you'll have to forgive me. My dog decided he was going to start
barking for no reason. He's just out there barking. So I apologize. But you're probably asking why
did we decide to do this? Well, there's several reasons. One, this was a giant mystery for a long
time. And Matt and I love to cover mysteries. And remember, put it in perspective, these ships,
you know, they, they disappeared without a trace, okay? In 1848, roughly, it was less than 10 years
ago when we found these ships. It has been within the last 10 years. So if we go back and we're
having this discussion in 2013, it's still a mystery. Right. We don't know where those ships went,
okay? Right. Just in the last 10 years, we know what's happened. I mean, that's significant.
I mean, that is tremendously significant because it gives you then hope for one of the other
disappearance mysteries that we've talked about several times. And that's Amelia Earhart. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. But you think about it. These two ships aren't even, you know, of course,
they're found now. But, you know, they're, they're a drop in the bucket of the, of the ships and
planes and whatnot that have gone down in the ocean that we have never been able to find even with
modern technology. Right. Right. And one of the other reasons, which I'm not going to go into
very, very much detail on, but I'm going to touch on it. This episode is a setup for next episode
as well. Right. So, despite the mystery that was actually solved, the lessons that maybe we could
learn from the people ignoring the Inuits stories about it, it put that on today's
stories that we get from different tribal people in nations like Papua New Guinea or in Asia
or whatever that live outside the major cities that tell stories of, hey, there's this giant ape,
or hey, there's this six foot tall hairy man out in the forest. Or I've seen this creature in the
oceans, all of our island. Let's not immediately discount them as being, quote, barbarians and savages
and quote, not learned enough to know what they're seeing. Let's use this as an example. But also,
Matt and I are just fascinated by the the the sheer desire of these men to explore and to learn
new things. Because I know for me and probably for Matt, if we had the ability to go out and
do an expedition to try to find one of these creatures that we talk about, and it be taken
seriously, us not looked at as whack jobs, you know, oh, we're going out here and we're screaming
for a big foot in the woods. We're doing a mating call for a big foot in the woods.
If we could actually, we would do it in a heartbeat because we like the exploration, we like the
learning of new things. And just the chutzpah of these people to be able to do that.
Yeah. And it's always incredible to me that when you when you find an answer to a mystery,
you know, I was like, I see it wasn't what you thought. Well, that's okay because we found
these ships. Right. You know, we have a better understanding of what these men went through.
And you know, how even the best prepared ships were no match for the weather in the Arctic at that
time. I look at this as the same as if we go hunting for bigfoot and we find bigfoot and we find
out that it's a rare undiscovered species of primate. It's not it's not magic. It's not
it's not interdimensional. You know, it's not alien. Yeah, it's just an undiscovered species.
And I was like, see, we told you, okay, well, look what we found. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, we found a species that has managed to survive for all this time without being discovered.
You know, that's, you know, that that's earth shattering in and of itself. Even if even if all of the
the legends and stuff don't necessarily come true, it's still incredible that you get an answer
to this. And this is one of those mysteries where we had an answer. And it's amazing that we've got
these ships, you know, to look at and to study and to understand, you know, what it was like for
these guys, you know, what it was like to to to leave your family behind and make this trip into
the great unknown. Right. Right. So I mean, you know, we get, we get a little, we get a little
passionate here towards the end when we start talking about some of this stuff. And that's okay.
I think that's what that's what drives Adam and I to continue and do these things and look at
some of these stories a little differently than maybe the average person would. But if you guys
think like we do, you know, if you guys think we're totally off our rocker, let us know. And the
best place to do that is in our Facebook group. We have so many people in there sharing stories and
personal experiences and jokes and and all kinds of stuff. I mean, it's just, it's really,
it's really a great place. And you don't have to be worried about people calling you a white
job. It's a safe space. We just want to hear some really great stories. And don't forget to check
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