Opening Friday, June 7, 2019 at the Anchorage Museum, “Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition” explores the fate of this tragic story of Arctic exploration and death and one of the most enduring mysteries of maritime history. To this day, it is still an unsolved mystery.
Setting sail from London on May 19, 1845, Sir John Franklin and his 128-man crew, aboard Erebus and Terror, were the British nation’s biggest hope of finally discovering the Northwest Passage; the much desired, possibly faster, trade route from Europe to Asia.
Franklin and his men were last seen by Europeans in Baffin Bay in July 1845. Two years would pass with nothing heard from the men, prompting the first of a series of expeditions to be sent into the Arctic in an attempt to find them and the reasons why they had not been in touch with the Admiralty or loved ones at home, unfortunately Franklin and his crew was never heard from again.
Since then, thirty-seven expeditions were launched from several countries in a decades-long effort to discover the fate of Franklin’s men. Tantalizing clues, including graves, provisions, Inuit tales and a single handwritten note aka Victory Point Note told a grim story, including the date of Sir John Franklin’s death on June 11, 1847, but, again, the men and ships would never be found.
It has been indicated, the exhibit will have on display more than 200 objects from the collections of the National Maritime Museum in London (NMM) and the Canadian Museum of History (CMH), alongside finds recovered by Parks Canada from Franklin’s ship HMS Erebus.
The artifacts from Erebus discovered under water in 2014 will be on show. The exhibition promises to advance the understanding of the expedition and the fate of Franklin and his men. In addition, ‘Death in the Ice’ will also explore both the European and Inuit perspectives including the importance of the Inuit to those out looking for the remains of the expedition.
For more detailed information, see: www.anchoragemuseum.org.
