Welcome Traveller! You who pass by here have arrived safely at an annotated list of our posts concerning the lost Sir John Franklin 1845 Expedition. These posts are evolving ; each one is a lonely cairn with some record at its base. We welcome comments – help us correct inaccuracies with the record, add addendums, marginalia, point out any amateur theatricals – or just leave a note that you’ve passed this way on your own voyages of discovery:
–Image credits found in below posts-
HMS Furnace- First Bomb to Blaze a Trail North Furnace was the first bomb vessel to be modified to go north, in search of a Northwest Passage. The 1741 modifications to this stout warship created the pattern for modifying polar exploration ships, that would end when Sir John Franklin’s two incredible ships went north in 1845. 2025-12-02
Franklin’s Ship of Fate – The HBC ship Prince of Wales A brief ship bio of an incredibly tough merchant ship. In a career that spanned five hazardous decades of service, mostly sailing for the Hudson’s Bay Company, Prince of Wales‘s story intersected with Sir John Franklin’s exploring career in several interesting ways. She was there at the beginning of his North American Arctic exploration – when everyone very nearly died onboard – and she was one of the last ships he encountered as he sailed westwards towards his Arctic doom in 1845. 2025-08-26
Commander Leopold McClintock tours Beechey Island in 1854 and creates the first photographic record of the Canadian Arctic An incredible photographic collection – the first known photographs of the Canadian Arctic – is digitally brought back together, after being scattered to the four winds! Join us as we accompany McClintock on a tour of Beechey as it existed in the high summer of 1854! 2025-06-22
Propelling the Terror – modelling a lost Franklin Expedition Ship’s “Steampunk” Victorian Stern An exploration of one of the outstanding finds at either Franklin Expedition wreck site: HMS Terror’s screw propeller. We place the artifact in its historical/technological context, amidst a program of fitting steam-powered screw propellers into Royal Navy warships, before showing our tiny scale model interpretation of this incredible space. 2025-04-14
Launching a Sad Little Boat Model Part 2 shows a mini reconstruction of this famous boat. The appendix includes the first attempt to itemize the full complement of Franklin Expedition ships boats, and describe them (something quite important when we consider the boats converted to sledging for the attempted 1848 escape of the crew). 2025-02-15
Interpreting that “Melancholy Relic” – the Erebus Bay Boatwreck Part 1 explored the history and design of this incredible artifact of the lost crews of the Franklin Expedition. This two-part series argues against the prevailing view that this boat began life as a 28-foot ship’s boat. 2025-02-03
The Great Terror Wreck Repair [2025] Where I note some recent and exciting updates to my diorama of the wreck of HMS Terror. 2024-12-30
Rise Again Terror Boat: The Surface Needs You! In which we revisit our earlier suggestion to raise the boat from the HMS Terror shipwreck site, with relevant examples of other boat wrecks Parks Canada has raised and conserved. It will compel you! 2024-10-13
Erebus Emerges from the Shadows in which we explore the career of the lost Franklin flagship, HMS Erebus, and attempt to reconstruct the final 1845 plans/appearance of Erebus, to mark the 10th anniversary of the find in September 2014. This plan is unique. 2024-09-07
Breadalbane Part 4: 171 years on – Still the Beautiful Wreck! Part 4 of the Breadalbane Chronicles. A brief account of the 2014 Parks Canada / Canadian Armed Forces visit to the wreck of Breadalbane, supply ship at Beechey Island, Nunavut, illustrated throughout with incredible ROV images. 2024-08-21
HMS North Star CRUSHES IT in the Arctic and Saves the Searchers! A description of the career of HMS North Star, an important supply / depot ship on two expeditions to locate the lost Franklin Expedition. This features the only attempt we are aware of at a detailed reconstruction of the incredible Arctic refit of this unique vessel. See separate post for design of sisterships and other vessels active in the search. 2024-07-20
Frigates for Finding Franklin. A brief description of the design and careers of three frigates involved in the resupply missions that sustained some of the Western Arctic Franklin searches. 2024-06-16
The Atholl Corvettes: Supporting the Franklin Searches in Style A description of the design and careers of the Atholl class corvettes involved in the searches for the Franklin crews and resupply missions. (see separate post for HMS North Star) 2024-06-01
What Sir John Franklin’s High Arctic Cenotaph is Made of – A Whaler of a Tale! Using Carpenter William Mumford’s unpublished diary (HMS Resolute, Belcher Expedition) to establish accurate provenance that links Beechey Island’s historic “Franklin Cenotaph” to a stout bitt of a lost American whaling ship. This builds on the earlier “A Lonely Cenotaph to lost Searchers” 2024-03-24
“Dreadful and Perilous Positions” – More Mumford Art! HMS Resolute’s apprentice carpenter, William Mumford, created an important and little-known visual record of the Belcher Expedition, which illustrated the great, perilous, and routine aspects of an 1850s Franklin search expedition. 2024-03-09
A Resolute Perspective – what Mumford the Carpenter saw while searching for Franklin HMS Resolute’s apprentice carpenter, William Mumford, created an important and little-known visual record of the Belcher Expedition, which illustrated the great, perilous, and routine aspects of an 1850s Franklin search expedition. Part one. 2024-02-04
Imagining Terror at Rest A first artistic reconstruction of what the wreck site of HMS Terror might look like, inspired by recent archaeology, published sources, and original research, updated with an incredible before and after sliding view! 2024-01-02
Wrecking the Terror: Recreating an Epic Tale of Old Loss and New Discovery Summarizing the career, loss, and the 2016 discovery of Francis Crozier’s ship, HMS Terror, in Terror Bay Nunavut, and exploring the creation of our diorama of the wreck during 2022. 2023-11-04
Raise the Terror Boat A proposal to consider raising one important artifact from the lost Franklin Expedition – to conserve it and make it accessible to visitors of the National Historic Site of Canada. 2023-10-07
The Terror we wish we knew. A list of the questions we wish we could have answered about the loss of HMS Terror and her crew. 2023-09-17
A Excellent State of Terror now Exists A detailed description of the wreck of HMS Terror from a project-leading archaeologist who has spent a lot of time diving on the site. 2023-09-07
A Lonely Cenotaph to Lost Searchers. Our detailed account of the origins and history of the incredible Beechey Island “Franklin Cenotaph”, which combines the Belcher Monument, the Bellot Plaque, and the Lady Franklin Marble. See the important update: “What Sir John Franklin’s High Arctic Cenotaph is made of – A whaler of a Tale.” 2023-09-01
Breadalbane Part 3: Building a Beautiful Wreck in Miniature Part 3 of the Breadalbane Chronicles. We build a detailed wreck diorama to help us “Drain the Barrow Strait” and check up on the incredible, High Arctic shipwreck of wonders: Breadalbane. 2023-08-21
Breadalbane Part 2: Finding a Shipwreck under the Ice at Beechey Part 2 of the Breadalbane Chronicles. An exciting account of the 1980s discovery and explorations of the (then) furthest-North shipwreck of Breadalbane off Beechey Island, by Dr. Joe MacInnis and an incredibly motivated team of highly-skilled team members. We drew our own wreck site plan! 2023-07-18
Oh, They’ll be No More Yachting from Beechey, me Boys! Whatever happened to Mary, that fine, nice-looking “save yourself” exploration yacht that Sir John Ross kept bringing around with him as he searched for the lost Franklin crews? 2023-07-10
Breadalbane Part 1: Wrecked near the Top of the World Part 1 of the Breadalbane Chronicles. The history of the career and wrecking of Breadalbane supply ship at the incredibly remote Beechey Island, 21 August 1853. 2023-06-11
The Vessels of the 2022 Government of Canada archaeological expedition to HM Ships Erebus and Terror National Historic Site A satellite survey of some of the major participants in the 2022 archaeological program at the Sir John Franklin wreck near King William Island – Still relevant to later yearly Parks Canada programs. 2022-09-20
Themes: Franklin Expedition related blog posts (all of them) The Breadalbane Chronicles ; The Beechey Chronicles ; Franklin Search Ships ; HMS Terror ; HMS Erebus
The Searchers 