HMS Calypso was completed as a a steam-powered corvette – a uniquely Victorian mix of old and new technologies- in 1883. After a career of transformations, her hulk rests, all these years later, in a quiet cove in Newfoundland. She remains a historic artifact of Newfoundland’s important naval traditions. Years after adding a Google Earth view to my shipsearcher database, I recently got a chance to visit the site. Join me as I explore Calypso’s interesting past and current state!
Calypso’s port bows, including two large hawse pipes. This is one of the most recognizable sections of the derelict hull (Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com). Inset image shows Calypso under sail, driving before the wind, ca. 1898. Credit: Imperial War Museum, Symonds & Co. collection (Q 21057).
In 1883, Robert Falcon Scott, a young midshipman serving in HMS Boadicea, sat down to sketch a picturesque seascape and a lovely ship: The newly-commissioned HMS Calypso. Boadicea, an older corvette, was sold to the scrappers at the turn of the 20th Century. Scott went on to legendary fame as a polar explorer, before perishing in Antarctica after attaining the South Pole in 1912. All these decades later, Calypso remains.
Robert Falcon Scott sketch of Calypso, ca. 1883, sold at a 2007 Christie’s auction. Via wikimedia commons
Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, Director of Naval Construction, had designed this and several predecessor classes of corvettes, and sisterships Calypso and Calliope were both built at Chatham Royal Dockyards. Where earlier corvettes were built of a mix of iron frames and wood planking, the Calypso class had a steel hull, with wooden sheathing, and a copper-clad underbody. The modern steel hull was structural and complete, but the wood (mahogany planking above water) aesthetically linked the ships to the rest of the sail-and-steam navy. More wood below the waterline created a barrier between the steel and the same sheets of copper alloy that the Royal Navy had used to protect its ships from wood-boring marine life and biofouling since the mid-eighteenth Century.1
The view looking forwards towards the bows of the ship, with the inside of the distinctive hawseholes and some of the forecastle deck remaining above, including the cutout for the forward skylight, portholes, and a pair of heavy bollards. The steel hull is the reason that any of the structure of Calypso survives today, after deterioration and fire damage. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
The ship had vestigial features from the Victorian sailing navy: A towering three-masted sailing rig, a broadside layout of cannon, and elaborate stern galleries (which were merely decorative cladding).2 Contemporary photographs show that the Calypso had a spectacular appearance with all sails set, and, when running before the wind, studdingsails could extend the canvas outwards like wings. Improving on the Barnaby’s earlier Comus class, they were slightly longer, at 235’/71.6 m between perpendiculars, and heavier, at 2,700 tons. They were substantially more powerful, with larger engines that could propel the single screw with over 4,000 units of installed horsepower.3
HMS Calypso‘s original appearance, with a stately rig and aesthetic elements derived from the wooden-hulled sailing frigates. Allan C. Green original glass negative in State Library of Victoria, Australia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The class was armed with modern 6” breech-loading rifled guns.4 These were mounted in four sponsons (structures that mount armament which project out from the hull), with a wide field of fire. Five gunports were sited along the upper deck between the sponsons. A 5″ gun was mounted behind each port. Quicker firing light guns, Nordenfelts, were mounted high on the bulwarks, and were intended to protect from smaller, faster craft, such as torpedo boats. The two ships had a pair of 14″ diameter “carriage torpedoes.” These used compressed air to launch themselves out of cradles to start their run. Like the Comus class, the Calypsos had a partially-armoured deck of steel that protected some of the vital machinery – engines and boilers – low down in the hull just under the waterline.
Plan of Upper Deck of HMS Calliope (1884) National Archives and Records Administration 78116457A recent Google Earth capture from July 2023 of the remains of Calypso, with a smaller trawler outboard. The google earth historical imagery shows marked deterioration since the first image, from 2006.
Predecessor Royal Naval classes had abandoned the graceful clipper stem for an upright bow with a massive bronze ram installed underwater. These were the last Royal Navy corvettes with a full sailing rig. Gaping deck ventilators and a wide buff-coloured funnel broke up the run of the upper deck. The ships were designed to be economical for long-distance cruising about the far-flung British Empire, and could sail and steam between widely-dispersed coaling stations. A contemporary folio of design blueprints, today in the archival collection of the Maritime History Archive, Memorial University, Newfoundland and Labrador, helps us reconstruct some of these technical design features (look out for these structures in our photos of what remains of Calypso elsewhere in this post)5:
1881 Construction Journal, Maritime History Archive, Calypso fonds, P1.
Sectional view of a steel bulkhead with watertight doors and the supports for the sloping armoured deck. Maritime History Archive, Calypso fonds P58.
Hawse Pipes at bows, showing teak bolsters. Maritime History Archive, Calypso fonds P135.
Capstan design. Maritime History Archive, Calypso fonds P144.
Unfortunately, from the day they were designed, the idea of a sailing-steaming corvette cruising the world’s oceans was on borrowed time: A new generation of cruisers, the Leander class were being designed, and the Admiralty quickly halted plans to build more corvettes.6 The Leanders were larger, heavier, more powerful, and had more armour and more bunker capacity to steam to distant ports, or police merchant sea lanes. They improved upon the Iris class despatch vessels, and had a similarly cut-down barquentine rig.
Calypso’s Sistership HMS Calliope -completed in 1884- had an eventful career in the Far East, gaining fame for being the sole surviving warship from a terrible cyclone off Samoa in 1889. Calliope became a drill ship on the Tyne in 1907, and survived until dismantlement in 1951. Her name is perpetuated by the current shore establishment at Gateshead.
HMS Calliope at Blyth, ca. 1920 . This shows the trim appearance of the class, which is hulked with a built-up quarterdeck housing and rigging mostly unshipped, but still has the sponsons and funnel fitted. Credit: From an uncredited postcard collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Calypso had a brief period of active service, cruising to distant ports as a member of the Sail Training Squadron. In 1895, Walter Hose, who would go on to serve as Director of the (Canadian) Naval Service during the Interwar era, was posted to Calypso. She was laid up at the end of the Nineteenth Century. In 1902, she was taken out of reserve and sent to Newfoundland to help train naval reservists in St. John’s for the newly-created Newfoundland Royal Naval Reserve. Newfoundland was the first colony where a naval reserve was formally established, and the Dominion was seen as a potential goldmine of seafaring experience, with many residents connected into seafaring traditions in the ports and outports of “the Rock.”7Calyspo’s sailing and steaming days were over; the vessel was quickly converted to a depot ship, with deck houses built over the weather deck, funnels and machinery taken ashore, and most of the masts taken down.
Across the North Atlantic from Calliope, at St. John’s, Newfoundland, here is a similar view of Calypso around 1915. The false gallery windows have been emphasized in white, which also are cut-through with two heavy stern hawse pipes. The standing lower mizzen mast, the only vestige of the original rig, would remain a feature of the ship until at least 1960. Credit: Maritime History Archive, Malcolm Griffin Sealing Album collection PF-345.004
During the First World War, the Calypso establishment trained many young Newfoundlanders for service with the Royal Navy. Almost 2,000 members served in everything from the massive battlewagons of the Grand Fleet, to armed trawlers, and 192 died.8 Alongside the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, the Forestry Corps, and merchant mariners, they represented the Dominion’s outsized-contribution to the Allied cause.
Reservists alongside the forward starboard side of Calypso, St. John’s, ca. 1916-1922. The ship still has armament in the sponsons, a Hotchkiss gun mounted near the gangway, and a heavy anchor suspended from the forward davit. Credit: The Rooms, Collection MG 110, Item A 142-30; B 3-29; NA 1529
The starboard bows, showing the remains of forecastle decking, skylights, paired bollards and a heavy fish davit for the anchors. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
Calypso was renamed HMS Briton in 1916, to leave the name available for the new “C” Class cruiser. Eventually, Briton was sold off in 1922 to become a salt hulk in St. John’s. Moved to Lewisporte in 1952, most of the interior was stripped of valuable items. Some local residents hoped to save the moldering vessel for preservation. Instead, during 1968 the hulk was towed slightly north to near Embree, and set on fire.9
Calypso/Briton hulk with both port sponsons removed, decks built-over, and the lower mizzenmast still stepped. The photo was taken at St. John’s before the tow to Lewisporte. The Crowsnest Vol.12 No.4 Feb. 1960 P.15, Department of National Defence CN-3077.
The derelict has slowly deteriorated there ever since.10 Today, she functions as a sort of jetty or breakwater, alongside an old fishing trawler. There is remarkable drone and video footage of the site from 2022 at “Discovering Newfoundland.”11 Take a look at the footage below to see the submerged portions:
On a recent trip to Newfoundland, I had a chance to visit Embree and swim around the remains. The hull has settled at a slight list to starboard. The bows are most recognizable, along with the some of the ship’s deck structures, which rise out of the muck. These tall boxy features originally housed a set of ventilators, connected by a louvered structure. As the above drone footage shows, the submerged stern section is recognizable, and, incredibly, Calypso still had the remains of the lower mizzen mast jutting upwards above the site in 2022!12 The capstan, about a third of the way aft from the bows, is one of the remaining distinctive naval artifacts.
Much of the starboard side, adjacent to a small pier, is collapsed and displaced outwards onto the bottom. A small portion rises where the wheel would have been, where a bulkhead still shows a doorway.
The now submerged starboard side, with a visiting jelly fish. Much of that side appears to have collapsed outwards onto the cove seabed. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
Immediately forwards of that is the housing for a large central ventilator with another distinctive louvered top. The port side elevation is more intact. In addition to this massive semi-submerged hulk, there are many artifacts which are preserved from Calypso.
On deck of HMS Calliope in July, 1901, at anchor in the Downs, looking after towards the poop with the ships double wheel. A 6” gun is at left, while at right there is a distinctive deck structure, near the ladders to the lower deck, that trunked up a single large ventilator. N18738 Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Adams CollectionWe are roughly at the level of the upper deck, looking aft from the original break of the forecastle deck. A similar structure near the forward ladderway is one of the remaining highpoints of Calypso. It originally brought a matched set of ventilators above deck level (note two circular cutouts in the original roof). Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
One of the ship’s large stockless anchors is now on display at Embree, while one of the 6” guns that originally was housed in one of the four sponsons is on display back in Portsmouth, UK. Two 3 pdr. Hotchkiss guns said to be from Calypso are also found at the shore establishment in St. John’s, HMCS Cabot, and near Cabot Tower at Signal Hill.13 This last still serves as a Noon Day Gun during the Summer!
HMS Calypso large anchor, on display in front of the Embree Town Hall. Credit:www.warsearcher.com
The picturesque siting of one of Calypso’s 3pdr. Hotchkiss guns at Cabot Tower, Signal Hill NL (Aug. 2023). Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
Back where it all began, at Chatham dockyards, we are fortunate to have a preserved example of a smaller Barnaby design: A Doterel class sloop. HMS Gannet was about half the size of Calypso, and commissioned five years earlier. Like Scott’s old ship Boadicea, Her hull is composite – wood with iron frames – and she has a more traditional clipper bows.14 However, many of the interior spaces share much in common with Calypso, and this preserved museum ship has a sponson aft and quick-firing Nordenfelts installed!
I recently wrote “Could I contemplate a scenario where new information would compel me to get back to work revising my Terror diorama?”1 Well, that situation happened almost immediately! In this post, I focus on what may seem a minor discovery – HMS Terror’s 1845 screw propeller. I argue that it is one of the outstanding finds at either Franklin Expedition wreck site. I will explore the history of this well-preserved artifact and situate it in a revolutionary program of naval ship design. I will conclude by showing how I incorporated the propeller into my diorama of the wreck site.
One hundred and eighty years ago, a visitor to Her Majesty’s Dockyard, Woolwich, near London, would have been treated to a memorable sight: one of Queen Victoria’s warships – under refit to explore the Arctic – was up on the stocks in dry-dock. This was one of a pair of bomb vessels (a type of specialized mortar-armed bombardment ship) which had been converted years before for polar missions. These tough ships had more than proved their mettle during James Clark Ross’s wildly successful expedition to Antarctica. Now the duo – each painted in severe black with a broad white strake stretching along the hull – had been selected for a new “Discovery Service” mission, to be commanded by Sir John Franklin: Complete a Northwest passage across the top of North America. Walking around the dock to the ship’s stern, that visitor would have seen something unusual: a strange cavity low down at the swollen stern post. This was just inboard from an enormous rudder. The hole opened clear through to the other side, like some casemated gun embrasure. Set into this void was a metal monstrosity: A cylindrical shaft with two broad blades twisting away from it. The visitor may have recognized this as a screw propeller – a marvel of the age. When coupled by a long shaft to a steam engine mounted in the bowels of the ship, the rotating screw could propel the vessel – all without a single sail of the lofty three-masted rig drawing a favourable breeze. If that same visitor had returned later, they may have felt the dupe of some trick: the machinery could have completely disappeared, leaving the man-sized hole. As if by some further sleight of hand, the whole cavity could have also appeared closed up, with only a faint rectangular outline now in evidence. What category of navy ship was this anyways? A sometimes-steamer with a propeller that unscrewed right off?! Indeed, here was something completely new: The first auxiliary screw-propelled polar exploration vessel!
The propeller, lowered and possibly installed in its aperture at the stern of the HMS Terror wreck, as photographed by the Underwater Archaeology Team during the late summer of 2019. Credit: used with written permission of Parks Canada, who retain copyright. Scroll down to the next page to see my model of this area.
Early this year I was searching for information about the 2024 Parks Canada program of archaeology on the Sir John Franklin shipwrecks, HM Ships Erebus and Terror in Nunavut, Canada. Instead, I stumbled upon a new post “Anchors and Propellers” by Franklin Expedition scholar and veteran searcher David Woodman on his site: Aglooka.2 This update assembled interesting information about the ships’ complement of anchors, and also their propellers. Reading on, I encountered a previously unpublished image from the Parks Canada Underwater Archaeology Team (above). I was stopped dead in my wake! Here we see Terror’s screw propeller, installed in its aperture! With this photograph, we have the first visual confirmation that a marvelous piece of Victorian maritime technology has survived relatively intact after more than 175 years of immersion at Terror Bay.3
This simple two-bladed screw is one of the most important artifacts existing at either Franklin shipwreck site. The Commemorative Integrity Statement relating to this National Historic Site of Canada specifically identifies the marine screw propulsion as a character-defining aspect of the sites, demonstrating the 1845 technological innovation of the Expedition.4 From the waterline up, both ships looked much like they had during J.C. Ross’s expedition to Antarctica (1839-1843). Erebus and Terror were also not the first ships with an auxiliary steam engine to go north: In 1829 Ross’s uncle, Sir John Ross, had taken Victory north with an experimental – and mostly useless – steam engine.5 However, the idea of fitting a removable screw propeller into a Discovery Service exploration vessel was truly original. The suggestion came from a superstar in polar exploration. As Dr. Matthew Betts relates in his book HMS Terror – The Design, Fitting and Voyages of the Polar Discovery Ship, the seasoned Arctic explorer Sir William E. Parry – who now had an official role in investigating the optimal methods of steam propulsion in the Royal Navy – believed that the new propulsion technology could give vessels operating in the Arctic Archipelago a big advantage: The ability to navigate tight passages free from any dependence on the vagaries of the winds.6 Having auxiliary steam propulsion available to the Expedition captains could help force a constricted passage, position the vessels to better meet the rigors of overwintering in ice (for example by allowing them to get to a safe harbour or a more sheltered section of coast), or get them clear of an immediate hazard, such as an errant iceberg or a perilous lee shore. Parry’s experience commanding similar vessels in the Arctic provided him with an invaluable perspective on how screw propulsion could support this new attempt to transit the Northwest Passage. The Admiralty endorsed Parry’s idea.
Oliver Lang, Master Shipwright at Woolwich, was responsible for working up a technical plan to meet this new requirement. A half-century after he had begun drafting designs, he remained at the forefront of marine technological innovation. During the early 1840s, the military strength of the Royal Navy still rested on the line of battle ships of the sailing navy, those wind-powered “wooden walls” whose broadsides of cannon had allowed Great Britain to dominate the World’s sea lanes. Lang applied new technologies to both mercantile and Royal Navy vessels. He strengthened the basic structure of warships, packed their hulls with new innovations, and enhanced crew comforts onboard, especially to improve lighting and circulation of air. His innovations helped equip the fleet with larger, stronger, and safer warships. He had recently turned to incorporating steam technology into his designs. There had been experiments with steam engines and, since the early 1820s, some small naval units had been propelled by paddle-wheel. The Admiralty was conducting a series of trials of steamers to test a variety of newly-designed screw propellers against paddle-wheel propulsion.7
The famous trial of H.M. Steam sloops Rattler and Alecto, 3 April 1845 (artist unknown). Rattler (left) displays Lang’s newly-installed mizzen mast. PAH0923 Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Lang’s own treatise Improvements in Naval Architecture (1853) is an important source for understanding his remarkable career. In his own words he “Arranged and fitted the first SCREW propeller to ship and unship in a TRUNK, so as to be taken up on deck in the ships “Erebus” and “Terror” on the late Arctic Expedition for Sir John Franklin.”8 The years 1844-46 were a busy period for Lang, which saw him embark on an ambitious campaign of propeller experimentation, design, and installation. He had first improved upon Rattler’s recently-installed propeller by re-rigging this steamer with a new mizzen mast, which could be used to lift the propeller in its frame straight upwards through a slot which communicated with the steamer’s weather deck. This allowed the crew to ship and unship the propeller, without specialized dockyard facilities.
While building the large steam frigate HMS Terrible (1845 – fitted with paddle wheels), he moved on to designing and fitting his first complete naval propeller assembly. HMS Phoenix (1832) was modified from a paddle-wheeler to a screw steamer. Most of the essential elements of a Lang screw-fitted stern were now in place: propeller aperture, screw propeller, false stern or rudderpost behind the sternpost, a passage for lifting the screw upwards to the weather deck, and the means for lifting it out. The modifications to the Phoenix were underway when he got the “rush order” for the work on the two Northwest Passage exploration vessels.9
The main difference in modifying Erebus and Terror with auxiliary propulsion (with much less powerful steam engines converted from railway locomotives) was that the screws would only be fitted during occasional steaming, and chocks would fill each ship’s propeller aperture most of the time. This filler needed to streamlined into the lines of the hull to not weaken a vulnerable area, and to continue to guide the flow of water aft to the rudder. Lang’s other designs had the propeller fitting into its own iron frame, with the entire assembly lifted through a narrow passage to the deck, or lowered back in place. Erebus and Terror, by contrast, had rails that guided the propeller, which was lifted on its own.
A model of the stern of the Arctic ships as modified by Lang in 1845, showing the propeller aperture, and the bracing of both the stern post and new rudder post to permit the propeller to be hauled up into the trunk and on deck. A view from above shows the almost square passage for lifting or lowering the screw and installing the chock, and the smaller opening for the head of the rudder. Like at the wreck-site, the enormous rudder that would normally project aft is absent. SLR2253 Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
Phoenix was ready in February 1845, and Lang moved to the design of HMS Niger, which would go on to be used in a more balanced round of evaluations of screw-versus-paddle propulsion (with Niger and Basilisk a closer match than Rattler and Alecto had been). During April, the Franklin ships were modified with their unique combination of adapted railway steam locomotive – installed deep down in the after hold – and auxiliary propeller. Woolwich dockyards had its own highly specialized engineering facility – the “Steam Factory” – with the equipment and docking slips to install the new steam systems. Lieutenant Henry T.D. Le Vesconte of HMS Erebus provided a contemporary description of the work.Writing to his father on 2 April 1845 – after he discussed the excellent prospects for promotion that would come his way by serving with the Franklin Expedition – he noted: “The ships are at present in dock where we are rigging each and stowing them while the shipwrights are altering their sterns by bracing on abaft the stern posts an large mass of timber of the same thickness in which to work the screw propellers the engines will be put in next week[…].”10 After the engines and propellers were tested, and the ships finished provisioning, the Expedition departed from Greenhithe, 19 May 1845. (Continue to explore Terror’s screw propeller on the next page)
A basic principle of model shipwreck archaeology is that – in contrast to their full-size brethren – model shipwrecks do not necessarily deteriorate. In this post we explore updates to our miniature interpretation of HMS Terror’s wreck. The Terror mini-site has witnessed substantial improvement since 2022!
Terror’s rebuilt stern, with new rudderpost, gudgeons to hang the absent rudder, a broader stern tuck up to the sternlights (windows) and lower water-closet deckhouses aft of the double wheel.
An earlier post “Wrecking the Terror: Recreating an Epic Tale of Old Loss and New Discovery” summarized what we know about the actual wreck of HMS Terror located in Terror Bay, Nunavut, and my 2022 project to build a small diorama of the wreck site. Terror, an astonishingly well-preserved time capsule of the last Franklin Expedition, continues to captivate Franklin scholars and enthusiasts, archaeologists, naval historians, ship lovers, and the expanding fandom community who continue to enjoy the fictionalized drama of AMC’s “The Terror”(season 1).
HMS Terror site sketch, 2017 copyright Parks Canada 2021 [modified by rotating]. Source.
Turning now to the reduced-scale World, Terror was my first wreck diorama, and was followed by Breadalbane High Arctic shipwreck and HMS Ontario.
A “glass-bottomed boat” view of the updated wreck site, 80 scale feet under the acrylic case top. The shadow of the bowsprit points due north.
Two years after I thought the diorama was complete, I decided it was time to open the case up and revise some features. A sketch I had worked up independent of this project also helped motivate me to rebuild the Terror.
So what changes has the miniature site undergone? The entire lower hull was reshaped to better highlight the turn of Terror’s bilge, the overall body lines, and the broader aft quarters. The wreck was also placed at a more pronounced list to starboard. I added more detail to the debris of fallen masts and yards now located on the upper deck, which better interprets the complexity of the three-masted barque-rig and the chaotic event of the sinking. This “top-hamper” – and what appears to be the ridge poles of winter awnings – would have showered the deck and areas immediately adjacent to the hull with the types of debris we see in the site plan released by Parks Canada, and imagery released by their Underwater Archaeology Team.
The weather deck looking forwards from the taffrail.
Under all the accumulated silt and growth, there is likely to be a bewildering variety of artifacts, which my interpretation can only begin to hint at. The ship’s boat off the port quarter of the wreck was given a modest update: A more accurate fallen davit resting across the stern.
The bows including the port bower anchor, the hawse holes, the catshead with whisker boom, and other oddities of the polar-modified bomb vessels. under the reinforced channels, the massive ice shield of iron plates shows corrosion and marine life.
The water-closet structures at the stern were completely rebuilt with lower roofs and sliding doors opening to the sides. They still have detailed “privy” interiors. A small cavity at the aft end of the starboard closet shows where the flag locker was located.
The new stern water closets, the double wheel and the captain’s skylight just forward of that. In the foreground, a pipe leads down to the captain’s small stove.
The interior of the wreck diorama remains practically inaccessible, and no substantial work was done belowdecks during our “great repair.” I do hope that, in a future season of modelling work, a more fulsome recording of the detailed interior spaces of the model could be attempted. For now, we had a quick examination of Capt. Crozier’s miniature great cabin through the stern windows; his captain’s desk remains in place, but the drawers are still modelled tightly shut. No miniature records have yet been recovered.
Light shines down through the captain’s skylight onto the surface of Crozier’s desk.
Those with keen eyes will note that the team of scuba-diving archaeologists have not been reinstalled in their customary positions. The site is currently under ice and snow, and they will not return to their program of scale archaeology until the next dive season commences in August, 2025. Could I contemplate a scenario where new information would compel me to get back to work revising the Terror diorama? You bet your sextant I could!
The diorama with its winter cover of ice and snow.
Ten years ago, the sea gifted us back a legendary ship, lost for almost seventeen decades: HMS Erebus. As visitors to our site know, there is a lot of Terror talk on this blog! HMS Terror, was the “other ship” on Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated 1845 expedition to discover a Northwest Passage. We had been neglecting Erebus, and are now trying to make amends! Interpreting a variety of archival sources, we decided to attempt a simplified set of plans of this incredible ship to mark the important anniversary of Erebus being back in our World:
Our reconstruction of HMS Erebus in her 1845 (final) configuration: stern/bow and side elevation. Credit:www.warsearcher.com adapted from National Maritime Museum plan ZAZ5673 and other technical info and used with written permission of NMM staff. Dotted lines represent features documented on Terror wreck, which could just as well have been located on Erebus, while anchor positions are from 1845 artistic representations of both vessels at sea, click the “design dossier” link at bottom for more information on this reconstruction.
On 7 September 2014, Parks Canada, a key member of the Victoria Strait Expedition – a consortium of government and private partners – definitively located one of Sir John Franklin’s lost ships. A promising sonar target had been identified in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, Nunavut, on 2 September, after archaeological finds on a nearby island had redirected the search. The Parks Canada Underwater Archaeology Team (UAT) deployed a Remotely Operated Vehicle aroung the well-preserved remains of a shipwreck, located in only 11 meters / 36 feet of water. By the afternoon of the 7th, it was clear to the team that the vessel was one of Franklin’s elusive ships. The UAT informed Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Office. Further investigation by the UAT dive team allowed them to definitively identify the ship on 1 October as HMS Erebus.1 The discovery tied into a rich tradition of Inuit oral history, which had suggested, down through the 166-years of searching, that one of the lost ships had come to grief on the western coast of the Adelaide Peninsula.
The moment had finally come for Erebus, that personification of darkness, of gloom, of the unseen World, to come back into the light; it was time for Sir John Franklin’s lost flagship to be restored to the public consciousness. The discovery was an immediate sensation, and ten years on, the yearly program of archaeology – of surveying, imaging, artifact recovery and conservation – continues to be followed with great enthusiasm.
Ryan Harris (left), Parks Canada project lead, alongside Prime Minister Stephen Harper (center) and Minister of the Environment Leona Aglukkaq, announcing the discovery of HMS Erebus 9 Sep. 2014 [cropped]. Credit: Jason Ransom Library and Archives Canada R16093-50252-9-E.
On the day the find was announced, 9 September 2014, as media reports appeared on my device, I was staring at a damaged ship’s wheel and a bell recovered from another famous shipwreck – and one of Canada’s worst maritime disasters – RMS Empress of Ireland. These were on display in the exhibit Empress of Ireland: Canada’s Titanic at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau. I bought a commemorative bell, walked across the Alexandra Bridge to stand under the statue of explorer Samuel de Champlain – wielding his famous astrolabe over Nepean Point (now Kìwekì Point) – which looks out over the Canadian capital – and rang the bell to celebrate the discovery! It doesn’t have to make sense, it just felt right.
RMS Empress of Ireland wheel, recovered from the wreck off from Pointe-au-Père QC. Taken 9 Sep. 2014 at the Canadian Museum of History (centenary of the sinking) exhibit.
HMS Erebus was a Hecla class bomb vessel completed in 1826, long after the conflict the “bombs” were designed for had terminated. This small warship was about 370 tons burthen, about 105′ / 32m on the gundeck (later considered the lower deck), with a beam (width) of about 28′ / 8.5m. The class was originally armed with two massive mortars – 10” and 13” varieties – housed in rotating carriages in firing beds overtop of reinforced cribbing, that also stored their massive shells. The mortars were located along the centerline of the deck between the fore and main masts. A few cannon installed along the gundeck rounded out the armament, and enabled the ships to defend themselves and perform auxiliary service as a convoy escorts – a useful secondary role during the Napoleonic Wars, when enemy warships and privateers were a constant worry to keeping merchant sea lanes open. The first Heclas were completed at the very twilight of the Wars, and took no active role. Hecla and Fury did participate in the August 1816 Bombardment of Algiers, firing hundreds of shells into the fortified city. In 1819, to lead William Edward Parry’s first exploration mission north, Hecla was converted to the radically different role of polar discovery vessel. For Parry’s next two exploration missions (1821-1825), Fury accompanied Hecla. This revived a tradition of the crews of two reinforced bombs working together on polar missions.2
His Majesty’s Discovery ships, Fury and Hecla by Arthur Parsey (Artist & Engraver) Charles Joseph Hullmandel (Printer) in 1823. Both show early “Parry scheme” modifications for Arctic service, with broadside armament and mortars removed, reinforced channels, and bow iceguards. credit: National Maritime Museum PAH9224.
Erebus, completed the next year at the Royal Navy’s Pembroke, Wales, dockyard, remained in ordinary (out of commission), awaiting a day when the Royal Navy would have need of this compact, incredibly specialized warship. Her first missions saw her employed in the Mediterranean making ports-of-call visits and showing the flag, the typical peacetime routines of the “wooden walls” – the ships of Britain’s massive naval fleet.3 In 1839, Erebus’s moment came to be modified, but it was for an entirely new theatre of polar operations: The exploration of Antarctica. Erebus was selected to be the lead ship in James Clark Ross’s expedition south. The older and smaller Terror(commanded by Francis Crozier) accompanied her. The waist was decked over in a continuous weather deck, as the mortars were unshipped and the massive beds were removed. The ship’s basic skeleton – keel, frames and knees – was reinforced, hull planking was doubled, and this new weather deck was overlayed with diagonal planking. An enormous ice channel or chock now extended from bows to the stern, girdling the hull more completely than earlier exploration ships. The elaborate seven-light (windowed) stern with overhanging quarter galleries was reduced to five lights across the transom, in a simplified design. The entire underbody of the ship was clad in a shining layer of copper plating, but certain areas, such as the bows and waterline, were reinforced with special thickened copper. The vessel that emerged from refit looked less like a pint-sized frigate from the Wars, and more like a bulked-up whaling ship.4
The crews of both vessels succeeded brilliantly on their four-year surveying odyssey, charting vast coastal expanses and ice shelves of the most southern continent, and making important scientific discoveries in biology, zoology, and magnetism. Operating in totally uncharted waters was perilous work, with Erebus and Terror both being damaged in an almost fantastical collision while dodging icebergs. Despite the hazardous environment, casualties on the voyage were incredibly light.
“The Erebus passing through the chain of bergs, 13 Mar. 1842” by John Edward Davis (who was Second Master in HMS Terror) depicts the moments after the collision of the two ships when the damaged Erebus sought refuge in the lee of an Iceberg to make emergency repairs. As Terror maneuvers in the distance, Erebus has lost some of her rig, her bowsprit, and her starboard cathead. Crew are frantically trying to save the bower anchor. PAF0593 Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
After repairs and a brief lay-up, the “Discovery Duo” was selected for the next major polar effort: Sir John Franklin’s 1845 bid to chart the last section of the Northwest Passage along the top of the North American landmass. Another major rebuild followed. A reinforced iceguard of massive iron plates was fitted to the stem and forefoot under the bows. A radical alteration to the stern timbers allowed each ship to operate a screw propeller, powered by a converted railway steam locomotive (please see our subsequent post about HMS Terror’s screw propeller to explore this interesting technological update). When not in use, the screw could be uncoupled from the drive shaft, and raised into a protective cavity that hung inside the stern. These small engines, with a very limited supply of coal for fuel, were intended to help the ships navigate in the challenging Arctic environment without being fully dependent on the wind’s vagaries.
The Franklin expedition ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, setting out with fanfare in late May 1845 from Greenhithe. This was originally published for the 24 May 1845 edition of the Illustrated London News. (Via wikimedia commons) The location of the prominent scuppers along the ice chock of Erebus (in white) seems to indicate Erebus is at right.
Franklin, installed on Erebus, would lead the expedition. James Fitzjames commanded the flagship, while Crozier, Second-in-Command of the effort, remained in his familiar Terror. As most visitors to this site likely are aware, this was to be a one-way trip for ships and crew, that ended in disaster, shipwrecks, boatwrecks, and a trail of abandoned items, burials and bones. Of the lost 129 expedition members, 67 had served on Erebus.The hulk somehow wound up wrecked in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, south of King William Island. Just like the wrecking of HMS Terror nearby, the exact details of the Erebus sinking have yet to be established.
Archaeological reconstruction of the wreck, discovered ten years ago. The site plan was completed in 2017 and shared online in 2021. Credit: Parks Canada, under Crown Copyright
What were the main differences between Terror (Vesuvius class) and Erebus (Hecla class)? These were not sisterships, though they appeared so similar most observers may have thought they were. Both ships were tubby, and very similar to merchant designs, with their bluff bows and broad hulls. The differences were summarized by Dr. Matthew Betts, an expert in HMS Terror’s design and history, in his blog post “What’s the Difference – Franklin’s ships compared“. Henry Peake’s original 1813 design for the Hecla class emerged iteratively out of his earlier design for the Vesuvius class. The enlargement of 50 tons displacement and deepening of the hull are less visible than the overall impression the original plans provide: Terror’s lines harkened back to a time of more elaborate decoration and sweeping sheer (sheer being the lengthwise curvature up by the bows and stern, down at the waist); Erebus was more upright, with stem and stern posts that dropped from the ship’s built-up rails almost straight down, and a flatter sheer. The very bottom of the ship, out from the massive keel, was broader in Erebus, while Terror had a noticeably more “V” shaped lower hull.5
HMS Erebus and Terror in the Ross Sea. Erebus is at left. John Edward Davis, R.N. (1815-1877), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
During the 1845 refit, Terror’s bowsprit was seated much further aft, so that this heavy mast angled out forwards at the level of the rails. Erebus’s bowsprit remained in its traditional location, piercing the bow lower down, between the anchor hawse holes, and just above the visible ledge of the ice channel. As detailed in the “Design Dossier” link below, what is revealed from a close interpretation of plans and depictions of these vessels through their lengthy service is that Erebus, and the Heclas, had upper counters beneath their stern windows, whereas Terror and her two Vesuvius class sisters did not. Erebus also had six large scuppers a side that discharged via pipes halfway down the ice channel. These drained the weatherdeck. Terror had four large scuppers that discharged higher up, level with the deck and above the channel. Thus, by the time of their departure from Greenhithe on 19 May 1845, the ships featured distinctive elements to sort one out from the other at the bows, amidships, and aft.
May Fluhmann (1906-1985), a notable Franklin researcher, commissioned this model of Erebus during the mid-1950s. We know based on her archival records at Library and Archives Canada that she worked diligently to secure the ship’s plans. We now also know it to not be a strong likeness, of the indicated 1845 appearance. Credit: Library and Archives Canada May Fluhmann fonds.
To conclude, when it comes to the design of these two incredibly unique vessels, we are still very much on a voyage of discovery! It has been a decade since the heady days of the Victoria Straits Expedition’s location of Franklin’s lost flagship, HMS Erebus. Much has been discovered, and much remains to be found at both Erebus and Terror sites. Along with artifacts that allow us to explore the human tragedy – the loss of two shiploads of exceptional individuals – our knowledge about the exact design and advanced technology of both ships will continue to expand over the next decades. Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team is at the Franklin ships at this exact moment! What will they find this year?
“Westward from the Davis Strait, tis’ there twas’ said to lie; the sea route to the Orient, for which so many died. Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered broken bones, and a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones”(S. Rogers Northwest Passage – 1981)
CLICK HERE to read the “Design Dossier” for HMS Erebus, and Acknowledgments
The Design Dossier: To create my reconstruction and simplified plans, I had to interpret a variety of sometimes contradictory sources. This project followed on from the reconstruction of HMS North Star, Franklin search ship, and HMS Ontario historic shipwreck. This may only interest a few readers, so I will summarize this research. It adds up to a unique perspective on HMS Erebus. My starting point was the excellent archival collection of plans held at the National Maritime Museum (NMM), Greenwich. My simplified reconstruction omits some frame lines along the midships section for clarity, and because I drew the plans at a small but consistent scale of 1:125. A particularly fine set of technical drawings that show the body plans or hull lines exist at the NMM for Erebus sisters Meteor(1823) and Fury. These made it possible for me to reconstruct both the overall hull lines, and also the bow and stern elevations and body plans for Erebus. Without close adherence to these plans it would be virtually impossible to reconstruct these ships, absent more information from the wreck archaeology. Another guide in this reconstruction was the artistic works that Lt. Graham Gore [Scott Polar Research Institute item 35195957] and Capt. Owen Stanley [National Library of Australia collection item 2484731] created in 1845, as the squadron moved north. I am privileging their first-hand observations over certain other technical evidence. Gore, as First Lieutenant, would have had direct involvement with readying the vessels for sea in 1845, whereas Stanley had sailed in Terror during the Frozen Straits Expedition, and temporarily accompanied the squadron northwards while commanding HMS Blazer, a steamship towing Erebus. Gore sent his artistic depictions back for Lady Jane Franklin while the expedition members posted their final letters from Disko Bay, Greenland (Qeqertarsuup tunua).
Erebus had a large -almost hemispherical- iron iceguard fitted to the bows. Parks Canada’s archaeology has documented iron plating extending from the stem all the way back to be level with the foremast. Their commissioned wrecksite diorama (built by professional model builder Fred Werthman) also demonstrates this expanse of plating. This appears to be larger than any polar-modified ship from before the Expedition and any of the search vessels that followed in the wake of the lost ships. Correspondence with Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team and Dr. Matthew Betts have substantiated this feature.
A distinctive difference in the sterns of the ships is that Erebus always had an upper counter, whereas Terror never had one. An upper counter (see below HMS Victory model) is a space traditionally found under the lowest level of lights (windows) on the stern of a vessel, which also often has the nameplate or lettering identifying the ship. Developing to its classical appearance in the early 18th century, the design of the upper counter was mostly aesthetic, and made a visual transition to the more concave space of the lower counter (where the ship’s rudder usually enters the stern, and stern chase ports, if they exist, are located):This small feature can be readily seen under the stern windows of Parry’s ships in the illustration of Hecla and Fury at top. Terror and her two Vesuvius class sisters (RMG ZAZ5615), by contrast, were more constricted aft and had less deck height in the great cabin, so no upper counter existed under the lights, even when the ship had full, frigate-like stern and quarter galleries. Terror lacked the upper counter in 1813, in 1836, and again in 1845, according to the NMM collections of plans, and a variety of depictions. The upper counter is documented for Erebus on Meteor and Fury‘s 1823 plans and her own 1839 plans for the Ross mission rebuild.
This era saw a lot of experimentation in naval architecture around the stern, to establish the most optimal means of fitting a screw propeller into an existing wooden warship. Oliver Lang (the shipwright for the 1845 modifications to both ships) was at the very heart of this innovative furor, and was involved in the design of the stern of revolutionary new types of steam sloops, frigates, and line-of-battle ships, all modified or designed from the ground up to fit the new models of screw propellers. I believe, when he came to modify these two veteran exploration ships with new propulsion, he omitted the traditional lower counter design from under the transom/stern galleries of both ships, rounding the tuck up, or carrying the hull planking up to meet the transom timbers. His 1845 technical drawing for the stern of both ships (RMG ZAZ5683) is an approximation, even when overlaid to produce the June 1845 “green ink” updates on the 1836 Terror plan (RMG ZAZ5672). The plan had to work for both ships, which had some significant differences in dimensions and stern post orientation. This plan’s inaccuracy can easily be observed when it was traced over to the 1836 Terror plan: The 1845 updates create lines at the level of the ship’s upper rail that have no sheer and terminate hanging in space! Those lines are a simple tracing of the left side sectional stern plan from the 1845 technical drawing, not the right side exterior elevation. This means they are a sectional view imposed inaccurately over Terror’s 1836 lines, with nothing added about what this all looked like from the outside! My interpretation is one of three possible options for the 1845 stern: Round the tuck up to the level of the upper counter in Erebus and the transom/stern galleries in Terror; round the tuck up to the level of the galleries and also remove Erebus’s upper counter; deviate from Lang’s 1845 technical drawing and retain the lower counter in both ships, with Erebus likely also retaining her existing upper counter. As I hope I have indicated with linked examples above, the green tracing on the 1836/45 Terror plans are not accurate – but especially not for the larger Erebus! Only the wreck archaeology will determine the true dimensions and precise geometry of either ship’s 1845 stern configuration. I believe that Lang, familiar with what had happened to Terror’s old-style traditional stern during her 1836 Frozen Straits Expedition ordeal – the near fatal damage to the stern timbers – would have followed his general program of propeller installations, and planked the strongest stern he could have into the two ships- to give the vessels the best chance of not being destroyed by Arctic ice. In my plan, I drew in a “quarter badge” element which tails downwards and which would have flanked the original lower counter in Erebus. This is a stylistic decision and also allows me to easily pencil in a lower counter dividing line towards the stern post if I end up being wrong!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We would like to acknowledge the assistance of staff at the National Maritime Museum / Royal Museums Greenwich, as well as HMS Terror expert Dr. Matthew Betts, and Jonathan Moore at the Parks Canada Underwater Archaeology Team, both of whom generously corresponded with me about elements of Erebus’s design over the course of my often-ambling 2022-24 correspondence. Their assistance does not imply that they endorse the above interpretations.
Notes:
This summary of events is drawn from several chapters of John Geiger and Alanna Mitchell Franklin’s Lost Ship: The Historic Discovery of HMS Erebus (Toronto: HarperCollins Pub. 2015). Ryan Harris, Parks Canada’s project lead on Erebus, provided an incredible guided tour of the wreck in October 2014: https://youtu.be/ZxH18XKqt-k?si=OCrC1XHYZa6AfpvC↩︎
Earlier expeditions of the 19th Century had used converted whaling ships, but Captain Christopher Middleton’s 1741-42 Northwest Passage Expedition featured the converted bomb vessel HMS Furnace, while Constantine Phipps 1773 Expedition “towards the North Pole” (which a young Horatio Nelson journeyed on) used a pair of bombs, HMS Racehorse and Carcass. Fury did not survive her Arctic ordeal, and, it is hoped, one day this near-sister of Erebus, with earlier Arctic modifications, will be discovered near Fury Beach, Somerset Island, Nunavut. ↩︎
Michael Palin’s book, Erebus: The Story of a Ship (Random House: 2019), is an essential source for information about all periods of the vessel’s service. The equivalent work for Terror is Dr. Matthew Betts’ HMS TERROR: The Design, Fitting and Voyages of a Polar Discovery Ship (Seaforth pub.: 2023) ↩︎
Hecla was in fact sold for conversion to a whaling vessel in 1831, and a very good whaler was she! ↩︎
In technical parlance, Terror had slightly more steep-rising floors. A useful description of the changes to sterns, bows, and sheer in the first half of the nineteenth century can be found in Dr. Frank Howard’s Sailing Ships of War 1400-1860 (Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press, 1971) P271. Howard also mentions an interesting and cautionary issue about interpreting contemporary 19th C. naval plans: The ability to draft accurate technical depictions to represent new design elements on paper lagged behind the innovations themselves. ↩︎
A hundred-and-seventy-one-years ago, crew members of the supply ship Breadalbane gazed forwards from the bow rails, looking towards the forbidding cliffs and unknown shores of Beechey Island, in the High Arctic. Today, the spot where they once stood is preserved 310 feet/ 95m underwater, near those same cliffs. Breadalbane’s shipwreck endures as a magnificent time capsule of a remarkable era of Arctic exploration.
Breadalbane’s broken bowsprit and head rails. The bowsprit was most likely sheared off as the ship plunged through the ice. Credit: used with written permission of Parks Canada, who retain copyright
This fourth post will focus on the program of archaeological research conducted ten years ago by Parks Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces at Beechey Island, Nunavut. We will also provide a brief description of the wreck, accompanied with remarkable images. The first post summarized the loss of this supply ship in the High Arctic in August 1853, while provisioning search expeditions looking for the Franklin Expedition. The second post described the original 1980s discovery and exploration of the wreck. The third post showcased the construction of an archaeologically-based scale diorama of this National Historic Site of Canada.
Two decades after the last visits to Breadalbane, there was a revived interest in exploring the wreck. The 2012 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) work involved a preparatory survey by a naval dive team using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). Parks Canada archaeological participation would correspond with the 2014 iteration of Operation NUNALIVUT, a CAF exercise in the Arctic.
Combined dive team photo Operation NUNALIVUT 2014 with Beechey Island’s cliffs in the background (left to right): Jonathan Moore (Parks Canada Underwater Archaeology Team), Jesse Rodocker (SeaBotix Inc.), Petty Officer Second Class Geoff White, Petty Officer First Class Yves Bernard, Leading Seaman Luke Therrien, Lieutenant Greg Oickle and Leading Seaman Quinn Audette from Fleet Diving Unit (Atlantic). Credit: Crown Copyright Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces RE2014-0013-140 (cropped)
This visit involved surveying and filming efforts employing SeaBotix ROVs, one of which used multibeam sonar to guide the exploration to sites of interest, and to construct a detailed visual survey of the site. Parks Canada Underwater Archaeologist Jonathan Moore was the permit holder for the archaeological program, working from an ice camp 330’/100m above the seafloor.
One of the Seabotix ROVs in the ice hole above Breadalbane Credit: Crown Copyright Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces RE2014-0013-139 [cropped]
We are very excited to share stunning ROV images from this visit. Some photos were generously provided to us by Parks Canada, and others are from the Department of National Defence. These allow us to navigate around and inside this wrecked supply barque to note some of her outstanding features.*
The ship’s port bower anchor, resting on the seabed near the copper-clad stem. Credit: used with written permission of Parks Canada, who retain copyright
The return to Breadalbane was an exciting phase in the archaeological survey of Franklin Expedition-related sites, continuing on from the 2010-2011 Parks Canada-led location and dives on HMS Investigator at Mercy Bay, Northwest Territories, and coming a short time before the discovery of Sir John Franklin’s lost flagship, HMS Erebus, in September 2014. One objective of the underwater survey was to assess changes to the Breadalbane since the 1980s.
The broken port quarter rail and rear of the unusually large deckhouse, showing fallen roof planking, the tight fit with the ship’s side rails, and the small aft deck. This area is little changed in 30 years. Credit: Crown Copyright Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces RE2014-0013-133
Though Breadalbane is often treated as a footnote in the saga of Arctic exploration, and as “also wrecked” in the high-drama surrounding the lost Franklin Expedition, it is an incredible site – many areas have not witnessed significant deterioration.
Breadalbane’s well-preserved lower hull, clad in copper sheathing, and stern post (the rudder lies under the wreck on the seabed). This shows the draft marks that climb up the post. Credit: Crown Copyright Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces RE2014-0013-131
The marine life growing at the wreck site is as stunning as what Dr. Joe MacInnis and his teammates encountered in the early 1980s.
Breadalbane’s capstan between the forward wall of the deckhouse and a companionway. Credit: used with written permission of Parks Canada, who retain copyright
Breadalbane helps us understand the range of options available to the British Admiralty for reinforcing mid-19th Century vessels intended for polar service. This supply vessel was not a “paper ship”, totally unprepared for the rigors of Arctic service, but rather received hybrid modifications which were suitable to her intended role: “Continuation service” outbound for the Lancaster Sound.1
Breadalbane was going north in the high summer. The ship was not intended to be beset by ice – frozen-in over the long, dark months. The commanding officer of HMS Phoenix, Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield, was under specific instructions to unload Breadalbane’s vital cargo at Beechey, and then get her turned around and on her way back south before the season changed and all the navigable waters froze.
Breadalbane’s interior spaces. The Lower deck looking aft from near the companionway, towards closed cabins near the stern. Note the heavy timbers to reinforce the hull. Credit: used with written permission of Parks Canada, who retain copyright
An 1853 Lloyd’s special survey report notes that the outside of the bows was shielded by 4″ thick Canadian elm planks, which extended 7′ / 2.1m below the water, from the stem back to a point even with the foremast. This was a lighter-duty version of the combined sheathing and iron-plates installed at the bows of the Franklin search ships.
Lower area of the starboard bow. This view shows the coppering of the lower hull and the beginning of the elm sheathing that extended 7′ down from the waterline and forwards to the stem. Credit: used with written permission of Parks Canada, who retain copyright
Ultimately, these reinforcements did not save the ship from being crushed. The unexpected movement of the ice south of Beechey Island on 21 August, 1853 was instantly fatal to the fabric of the lower hull. The ice created a large rent that stretches for 70’/ 21m along the starboard side, revealing the ship’s mostly empty cargo hold.
The ROV explores the massive hole in the starboard side, running along the bilge. The ice punched through the copper sheathing, ship’s side, and interior framing, before continuing on to damage supporting knees, bulwarks, and decks. Credit: Crown Copyright Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces RE2014-0013-130
I would like to acknowledge the significant assistance of Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team, and especially Jonathan Moore, who generously shared Parks’ substantial research and the above images.
This is how the Captain of HMS North Star, William J.S. Pullen, described Breadalbane in a letter to John Barrow, written at Beechey Island soon after the sinking. At this time North Star was frozen-in on the inland side of Beechey. As noted in the first blog, the Lloyd’s survey report of early 1853 is an important source for interpreting the modifications Breadalbane received for her “Continuation Service” (a termed used in their survey) in early 1853. ↩︎
There is an incredible ship, frozen in time down in the depths of Lake Ontario. HMS Ontario was a wooden warship that sank in a storm October 31st, 1780. This tragedy claimed the lives of as many as 129 sailors, soldiers, Indigenous warriors, American prisoners, women and children. All these decades later she is still down there, astonishingly intact. This ghostly Revolutionary War relic appears almost as if she is sailing west across the lakebed. After months of work, we have completed a model diorama to help interpret the history of this archaeological marvel.1
Early in 1779, with the American Revolutionary War raging along the Lower Great Lakes watershed, Master Shipwright Jonathan Coleman designed a British warship for service on Lake Ontario. He drafted out a scaled-down version of his Royal George, already active on Lake Champlain.
British vessels active on nearby Lake Champlain early in the Revolutionary War. These types are similar to those on Lake Ontario. The ship-rigged Inflexible (near left) was a similar size to Ontario, but had been taken apart at Quebec City and rebuilt. Lake Champlain was a more contested body of water, and many of these ships would fight an American flotilla at the Battle of Valcour Island, in 1776. Charles Randle Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1996-82-1
This new vessel, to be named Ontario, had a pleasing sheer, a full underbody, and elegant decoration at the stern.2 The bows were adorned with a simple scroll. This impressive inland warship was built at Carleton Island (the dockyard facilities of the British on Lake Ontario near present-day Kingston). She was launched 10 May 1780, and when completed that summer, her twenty-two cannon made her the most powerful warship operating on the Lake.
The gundeck was 80’/24.4m long, the ship displaced about 220 tons and the two masts were set up as a snow (similar to a brig-rig but with a small pole mast running from deck up to the level of the maintop, which normally carried a loose-footed gaff sail). She was a beamy 25’/7.6m wide, and had a capacious hold, appropriate to her main role of military transport. Her armament consisted of sixteen six-pounder cannon, mostly disposed on the gundeck, and lighter pieces on the quarterdeck and focs’l. Her hull was somewhat shallower than an ocean-going vessel of this length.
A model of Ontario on display at the Aquatarium, Brockville ON (modeller unknown). From details, the model appears to have been completed before the discovery. The bowsprit has been forced up in the case. Credit:www.warsearcher.com
The careers of warships on the Great Lakes during the 18th and early 19th centuries were generally brief, as hulls were often hastily-constructed of green wood and wore-out quickly over the harsh winters. Even so, Ontario had a woefully short existence: a few months of ferrying troops and supplies. Under the command of Captain James Andrews, she supported the continuing “Burning of the Valleys” campaigns, helping to supply John Butler and Mohawk leader Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant)’s forces and other Indigenous allies fighting as part of the Haudenosaunee / Iroquois confederacy. On 26 October 1780, she departed Niagara bound for either Oswego or Carleton Island. Lt. Colonel Mason Bolton, Commanding Officer of the 8th King’s Regiment at Fort Niagara, was taking passage to England to convalesce. The crowded ship was sailing along the southern shore of the Lake.
Fort Niagara, now located in New York. This is the original French fort HMS Ontariodeparted from. Taken from a PBY Canso aircraft belonging to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum 2024/07/27. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
A violent storm swept from northeast to southwest across the Lake on 31 October. The crew were likely caught by surprise late at night, as a sudden squall overcame the ship in the darkness and laid her over on to her beam ends. Andrews, Bolton, and more than a hundred other unfortunates disappeared into the Lake.3 The next day, debris was found near Golden Hill by a party of Butler’s Rangers and others who were returning to Niagara from Oswego. Boats, hatch coamings, sails, hats (including Andrews’ own tricorn), the binnacle cabinet, and some sections of quarter lights (windows) had washed up. Much later, in July 1781, a macabre reminder of the loss surfaced–six bodies floated ashore. These victims had been trapped at some intermediate depth until the lake waters released them. No other discoveries would provide context to the loss. The War and life in the (warring) colonies moved on. Ontario’s place in the squadron was taken by a new sistership, Limnade, and the story faded from memory.
Historians of the frontier campaigns of 1780, maritime scholars, and history buffs did not forget about Ontario. Of the many ships that have come to grief in the Lake, her story remained unique. When new technologies were developed that allowed amateur shipwreck hunters to search in deeper areas (which had been the preserve of well-funded professional expeditions employing incredibly expensive specialist equipment), enthusiastic searchers set out on the Lake to find the resting place. There were several claims over the years announcing that Ontario had been located, and many other lost ships were discovered.
Jim Kennard, of Fairport, NY, had an interest in Ontario that stretched back to the 1970s. After retirement, he returned to searching and built his own sonar outfit. He partnered up with Dan Scoville, a recreational diver from Rochester who had experience building ROVs (Remote Operated Vehicles). On 24 May 2008 – after three years of dedicated searching – a promising target appeared on side-scan sonar images onboard their search boat. In common with almost every discovery story we have ever heard, they were packing up and turning for home when the target appeared! The find was confirmed two weeks later by footage from Dan’s ROV. The rich documentary record revealed a shocking sight 500’/152m down: During the twenty-two decades the ship had awaited discovery, she had barely decayed!4
Ontario’s decorative stern gallery, with the large ship’s launch sitting on the lake tucked against the starboard quarter. The rudder post is visible in the central stern light, climbing to the hard-over tiller on deck. There is a single stern-chaser cannon still poking through the carvings over the damaged port quarter-gallery.
The ship is deeply embedded in lake sediment, with a pronounced list to port. The two masts still tower over the site. The mainmast is fully intact to its topgallant mast cap. It is unusual for a wooden wreck to be leaning so steeply to one side, and may speak to a fatal shifting of ballast or guns under the onslaught of the storm. The bowsprit and decorative scroll points west, back towards Fort Niagara.
A large ship’s boat rests just off the starboard quarter above the sediment. The loss of lights from quarter and stern galleries opens up tantalizing views of the interior of the great cabin. On deck the tiller bar leans over hard, continuing the angle of the rudder tucked under the counter. It is as if the ship went down while the crew tried desperately to steer the vessel to starboard. Two cannon carriages appear to be wedged underneath it. There is very little visible damage, and few missing elements. On the whole, it is difficult to credit that an 18th Century ship could have survived into the 21st Century in this condition. The Ontario site endures as a lovely wreck of a beautiful ship. We hope the diorama helps interpret this site, and that the Ontario resting place is protected from harm.
I would like to share an artistic reconstruction of HMS Terror, one of the 1845 Sir John Franklin Expedition’s lost ships. This astonishing, barely-wrecked ship of wonders now rests in a bay named after her, in 80’/ 24m of water! I based my sketch, as much as possible, on archaeological information, reconstructions and site plans at the Parks Canada page “Underwater archaeology at the Franklin wrecks“:
My wreck site interpretation (right) and the model of Erebus at the Nattilik Heritage Centre, Gjoa Haven, Sep. 2019 (left), that inspired me. Credit: (left side) Kerry Raymond via wikimedia commons (right side) Alex Comber @ http://www.warsearcher.com
The above reconstruction is based on sources I discussed in “An Excellent State of Terror now Exists” and other Terror-related posts. It is a preliminary effort, based on a photograph of the model of Erebus at the Nattilik Heritage Centre, Gjoa Haven.1 After more than two years of research, and the construction of a model diorama interpreting the wreck environment, I felt it was time to put something down on paper. The sketch is an idealized representation of the 210-year old exploration vessel. Silt or marine sediment still hides many artifacts and prominent areas of the deck.
I have chosen to omit other marine growth, such as kelp strands, that mask the basic shapes of wreck structures. The overall effect is of a fantastically preserved wreck site. Terror is one tough little ship, a veteran of battles, storms, and ordeals in both Arctic and Antarctic exploration that would have smashed a weaker vessel to splinters. All those with an interest are eagerly awaiting more information about both Terror and Erebus sites.
We don’t yet know the exact details surrounding Terror’s sinking, but one ten-year old has formed her own ideas. Credit: Lucy at warsearcher.com
The model of Erebus on display at the Nattilik Heritage Centre is actually a closer representation of Terror in all details, and appears to have closely followed the 1836/45 National Maritime Museum plans that depict Terror. See our recent post on Erebus to explore the distinctive visual differences. The archaeological investigation by Parks Canada is far from complete. Very little information exists about the entire starboard side of the wreck, or the artifacts scattered on the seafloor in the immediate vicinity of the hull. ↩︎
“With a shipwreck…you are dealing with a single instant in which everything was pitched onto the seabed; and, because water can be a wonderful preservative, in the right circumstances, the wreck and almost everything within will still be there. A wreck can be a perfect time capsule.” (Mensun Bound The Ship Beneath the Ice p.280).
The Franklin expedition ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, setting out with fanfare in late May 1845 from Greenhithe. This was originally published for the 24 May 1845 edition of the Illustrated London News. (Via wikimedia commons)
In 1845, Her Majesty’s Ships Erebus and Terror sailed into the unknown. Sir John Franklin, commander of the expedition, was instructed to chart the last remaining sections of the Northwest Passage and return via the Pacific. The British Admiralty expected that this modern, lavishly-equipped official effort would survey the remaining portions of a sea route along the top of the North American landmass. Hopes ran high that this expedition would be a crowning achievement to decades of British exploration of the Arctic.
Reconstruction of Franklin’s route from 1845-1848 Locations are: 1. (off map, right) Disko Bay, Greenland, site of departure from towing and supply ships 2. Beechey Island, site of the 1845-46 wintering and artifacts; 3. NW of King William Island 1847 position of the Victory Point “All is Well” message and the 1848 addendum of “we are deserting the ships”; 4. Erebus found 2014;5. Terror found 2016. Base map: Kennonv, after CIA’s World Fact BookFranklin’s route: Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Instead, the 129 men disappeared. It would take a decade and a half for the outcome of the expedition to be reported, and decades more for the majority of the grim tale to be uncovered: No survivors, no repository of useful information collected, both ships utterly vanished, and presumed to have sunk. The witnesses, local Inuit who were recalling events from years before, provided oral testimony to parts of the tragedy. So many questions remained unanswered about how this great expedition met its end.
The wreck of HMS Terror, Captain Francis Crozier’s lost ship, was discovered seventeen decades later, in early September 2016, by the crew of the Arctic Research Foundation’s vessel, RV Martin Bergmann. The ARF had already participated in several Government of Canada searches, and had been involved in the discovery of HMS Erebus, Franklin’s flagship, two years earlier.
RV Martin Bergmann at Cambridge Bay, her longtime homeport. Image Courtesy of Gloria Song, who retains copyright.
While at Gjoa Haven, ARF members received a tip from local resident and Canadian Ranger Sammy Kogvik, and decided to divert from the searching area off the western coast of King William Island to enter Terror Bay. After an initial sonar search did not return any likely sonar targets, the Martin Bergmann turned to resume its journey. The course to exit the Bay took the research ship right over a well-defined sonar image of a wreck on the seabed, in about 80 feet (24m) of water.
Our representation of the Terror wrecksite with the Parks Canada dive barge over top, at 80′ scale depth. Credit:www.warsearcher.com for our updated wreck interpretation from 2024, please see: The Great Terror Wreck Repair[2024]
Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team confirmed that the identity of the wreck was indeed Terror a few weeks later. It was an astonishing find: A barely-wrecked ship, almost frozen in time! The hull stands proud of the seafloor, and the weather deck is in exceptional condition. Sections of the masts and the bowsprit are still standing! Unlike Erebus, Terror’s site appears to have little scattered debris. Everything related to the wreck seems to be adjacent to the hull, or has fallen off it in close proximity.
HMS Terror site sketch, 2017 copyright Parks Canada 2021 [modified by rotating]. Source.North is to the left, and the three-dimensional nature of the diorama introduces some positional discrepancies with the above schematic two-dimensional site plan. Credit:www.warsearcher.com
HMS Terror lies in a quiet resting spot, with few obvious signs of damage, and no immediately observable evidence of what brought her to this watery grave, in a bay later named -in a stunning coincidence-after her. She appears to have been abandoned in winter quarters, closed up with topgallant masts removed. The enormous rudder is unshipped from the stern and mounted on the port ice channels amidships. The ship is gently listing to starboard.1 The state of preservation appears outstanding – Almost everything required to operate a mid-19th Century sailing ship with auxiliary steam propulsion is still there. It is as if departing crew members left Terror in good working order as they abandoned ship.
The diorama depicts underwater archaeologists examining sections of the wreck. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
With the historic discovery of both Franklin vessels, a methodical exploration of the wrecks by Parks Canada underwater archaeologists, over many seasons, may yet answer important questions about the tragedy: why are the wrecks located further south than many expected; were they reoccupied; did the plan of the retreat, as described in the Victory Point note, evolve; what halted the ships further progress, and caused their final abandonment; when did this happen; how much longer did they remain afloat; is there anything onboard to help point to terrestrial archaeological sites; do the remaining supplies or preserved records help explain what maladies the crews were suffering from, and how these were impacting command decisions; were local Inuit groups able to salvage much from either of the wrecks; are there remains of either of Franklin’s crews still entombed in their ships?2 For now, Terror is keeping her secrets close below decks.
We built a model in 2022 to help us interpret the history of the wreck. We used every scrap of information, including the wreck plan on Parks Canada’s website, the Arctic Research Foundation 2016 video, the Parks Canada 2017 exploration of the wreck video. Matthew Betts’ blog site, Building the Terror where he built a large, extensively researched model of the ship, was also an important resource. He followed this with HMS Terror: The Design, Fitting and Voyages of a Polar Discovery Ship, which came out just as we finished the model. Until more information is released by Parks, this is an essential source for interpreting Terror. Parks Canada Underwater Archaeology staff generously shared information about the archaeological program and assisted us in gathering further information about the ship. Their expertise, professionalism, and concern for the wrecks they conduct archaeological investigations of is remarkable.
This interpretation of the site won’t be the last or the most accurate wreck diorama. So far as we know, it is the first. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
The 2017 Parks tour of the wreck video shows, when the ROV reaches the aft cabin, the degree of list to starboard. ↩︎
We don’t yet know if or when crew reoccupied Terror. If she was reoccupied and brought to her present location, we also don’t know if she sank unexpectedly or was abandoned in orderly fashion as the crew marched westwards along the King William Island coast, to cross to the mainland. ↩︎
Raise the Terror? Raise the Terror’s Boat! Why? Read on!
Since the incredible discovery of HMS Terror in September, 2016, there has been keen interest in the archaeology taking place at the wreck. Terror was Sir John Franklin’s second ship from the ill-fated 1845 search for the Northwest Passage, and was discovered almost exactly two years after the lead ship, HMS Erebus. The 2023 archaeological season has concluded, but announcements of new discoveries by Parks Canada archaeologists remain weeks or months away. We are years from a full archaeological assessment of Terror, though a tantalizing vision has formed of an astonishingly well-preserved site, 80-feet under the waters of Terror Bay, King William Island, Nunavut. An international community of “Franklinites” – those interested in all things Franklin Expedition- continues to speculate: What was discovered this year; what new information helps explore the last days of the Expedition; are there connections to known or as yet undiscovered terrestrial archaeological sites? Is either ship an actual tomb to some of its crew?
The ship’s boat immediately to port at the stern of the Terror wreck, as represented in our 1/125 scale wreck diorama. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
Over the years, there have been posts on the very active “Remembering the Franklin Expedition” Facebook group, proposing to “RAISE THE TERROR” from her current location. Other members, just as passionately, dismiss the idea as premature, ruinously expensive, and potentially destructive to an artifact group members care very much about. In this post we’d like to focus on what we think would be a less contentious project. We remind readers that we are not archaeologists or marine salvage experts.
What we are proposing is to recover one artifact: RAISE TERROR’S BOAT! It is located on the seabed off the port quarter of the wreck, under a pair of davits. It can be readily seen on the site plan that was prepared by Parks’ archaeology staff in 2017 and released on their website two years later. Like the ship, this boat-wreck appears to be in very good condition after almost 175 years of frigid immersion.
HMS Terror site plan, ca. 2017, modified to emphasize the location of the ship’s boat. Credit: Parks Canada source.
The boat appears to be a standard 23-foot ship’s cutter, about 7-feet at its broadest part. It is clinker-built (overlapping boards) and has recessed slots for rowing with eight or so oars. It has several thwarts for crew and passengers, and could also be fitted with two small masts to sail it. Some upper sections of the gunwales appear to be damaged or rotted through, and it is unclear to us if it still has some type of fabric cover or is instead almost completely filled with sediment. A fallen section of davit or post rests at the squared-off stern, overhanging the transom. The rudder is not installed.1
HMS Fury, carrying a similar cutter in the same position, as depicted before the second William E. Parry Expedition searching for a NW passage. Fury was very similar to both Franklin ships, and had been wrecked in the Arctic at Somerset Island, two decades before. Detail of His Majesty’s Discovery ships, Fury and Hecla by Arthur Parsey (Artist & Engraver) Charles Joseph Hullmandel (Printer) in 1823 PAH9224.
Raising this small vessel should not compromise other areas of the wreck. The operation would not upset precious artifacts or records inside Terror, as they await systematic archaeological study. Based on the Parks Canada tour of HMS Terror film, the boat is not deeply embedded in the hard, gravel-like seabed. Compared to the complex overall sites of either Terror or Erebus, a thorough survey of the boat and its immediate surroundings should not be a multi-year operation. The full survey would ensure that no artifact, no matter how small, was overlooked.
An underwater archaeologist examines the boat near the HMS Terror wreck diorama. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
Once recovered and conserved, the artifact could serve a variety of purposes, helping to interpret the history of the Expedition, and its grim denouement. This cutter is a tangible link to its companion boats–the sledge-bound boats that crew members dragged along the coasts until they could go no further. It could also help explore less tragic polar exploration voyages and other searches for a Northwest Passage.2
A comparative example is the display of the famous James Caird, a 22.5-foot reinforced ship’s boat from Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition ship, Endurance. After the Endurance was crushed by ice in the Weddell Sea, in November 1915, the boats allowed the crew to escape to Elephant Island. Shackleton and two companions pushed on in the James Caird to South Georgia, where they were able to organize a rescue party to return to for the whole crew. The boat is now on display at Dulwich College, South London. Credit: Rumping, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Raising the Terror’s boat is only half of the ambitious plan, though! The cutter is a character-defining element of the overall Terror site. If it is raised to the surface for conservation and display, it would create an absence at the wreck site. Why not replace it with a replica that also memorializes the lost crews? A traditional boatworks in Great Britain, the Canadian Maritimes, or New England could be contracted to create a faithful copy of the craft, to be deposited (or sunk) in situ in the same exact position. It would gradually silt up and decay alongside the wreck, becoming more integrated into the environment and benthic marine ecosystem as the years pass. This new boat could also serve as a kind of benchmark or “canary in the coal mine” for identifying more rapid changes to the site, which may be less evident on the original structures. In the (hopefully distant) future, when the Terror decays, the boat could remain as one of the last wooden elements at the Terror wrecksite. Beechey Island has memorials and the replica wooden gravestones currently marking the earthly remains of three Franklin expedition crewmembers. It seems fitting that HMS Terror could have a replica boat to mark her resting spot. There are also precedents for this. Replica objects deposited at famous wrecks mark removals, and can restore an aesthetic appearance to the site.3 A suitable plaque affixed to the replica boat could help memorialize the lost crews–an underwater cenotaph to the lost men of the Franklin Expedition in an incredibly powerful location. RAISE THE TERROR’S BOAT INDEED!
So, have we persuaded you? Let us know by leaving a comment or sharing!
This description is drawn from the Parks Canada Terror dive tour video linked to above, Matthew Betts’ work HMS Terror: the Design, Fitting, and Voyages of the Polar Discovery Ship, archaeological field reports about Terror prepared by Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team, and comparative examples of other Royal Navy cutters. ↩︎
A 23-foot boat could also help interpret more positive events, such as when HMS Fury‘s abandoned boats were instrumental in saving Sir John Ross’s entire expedition crew, after the abandonment of their own ship Victory. Elsewhere, it is also the same basic size as the HMAV Bounty’s launch. ↩︎
One example is a proposal to sink a sculpture of a 55-foot long Sea King Maritime Patrol Helicopter on the deck of the artificial reef, the former Canadian HMCS Annapolis, to reincorporate a representation of the destroyer’s helicopter detachment to the site. ↩︎
HMS Terror, Sir John Franklin’s second exploration vessel, was discovered in Sept. 2016. Captain Francis Crozier’s sturdy little ship had vanished seventeen decades earlier. HMS Erebus, the flagship of the lost 1845 expedition, was located in 2014, about 70km south. Franklin’s mission was to have taken them into uncharted waters, to finish surveying a Northwest Passage across the top of North America. Where they went, none could follow.
So many questions about Terror and her lost crew remain unanswered. Archaeology on the incredibly well-preserved wreck is still in the early stages. The yearly dive season is all too short – late August to mid-September on a good year. Underwater Archaeologists are up there right now (2023/09).1 See our earlier post for possible Terror-related archaeological priorities. Here are some questions we have about this fascinating shipwreck:
A. When, why, and how did Terror actually sink? How did Terror get from the point of original Apr. 1848 abandonment by Crozier and the crew, Northwest of King William Island, to a resting spot under the waters of Terror Bay?
B. What documents or artifacts are in the great cabin desk? What other objects are along the shelves there? What is in Capt. Crozier’s bedchambers (behind the only blocked door on the lower deck)?
C. Is Terror’s screw propeller deployed in its trunk, or raised up? Since we know the massive rudder is unfitted and mounted on the ship’s port side channels, this info could help understand Terror’s last movements near Terror Bay, King William Island.
D. What did the stern gallery (windows at stern of ship) really look like and was there any transom decoration?
E. What else is on the seabed, besides the 23-foot ship’s cutter (boat) off the port quarter. The original Arctic Research Foundation 2016 wreck discovery film showed a variety of weird and interesting objects on the seabed.
F. How high do the remains of the masts project above the weather deck? We know the foremast is entirely missing (most likely on the seabed under the bowsprit – see link to last post’s multibeam sonar video clip)
G. Since the wreck and debris are highly localized, are there any significant timbers or structures missing, that suggest damage or removal by the crew?
H. What condition are the lowest decks in? How much provisions and fuel remain aboard?
I. Are there any human remains on the ship? (either the wreck is a tomb to members of its crew, or it is a powerful site of remembrance of those departed explorers)
It’s seventeen long decades since these ships of fame Brought my Lord Franklin across the main, To Baffin Bay where the whale fish blow The fate of Franklin no man may know. (Adapted Lady Franklin’s lament trad.)
Early indications suggest the balance of September 2023 archaeology has again prioritized Erebus. ↩︎
“Who knows what lies behind that closed door!” (R. Harris, Parks Canada, 5 Sept. 2019) As this year’s underwater archaeological season commences on the Sir John Franklin 1845 Expedition shipwrecks, HMS Erebus and Terror, we highlight what we believe to be an important description of the incredible condition of the shipwreck of Terror, discovered September, 2016.
Model diorama we constructed during 2022 which was inspired by the sources of information discussed below.
The most detailed public statement regarding the condition and archaeological plan for HMS Terror that we are aware of remains Ryan Harris’s 5 September 2019 comments to visitors onboard Parks Canada’s Research Vessel, David Thompson.1 It is an authoritative and concise description of Terror, from an experienced underwater archaeologist who has significant dive time on both Franklin wrecks. (There is more context about the vessels mentioned in this post from our 2022 update)
Ryan Harris (left), Parks Canada project lead, alongside Prime Minister Stephen Harper (center) and Minister of the Environment Leona Aglukkaq, announcing the discovery of HMS Erebus 9 Sep. 2014 [cropped]. Credit: Jason Ransom Library and Archives Canada R16093-50252-9-E.
Harris was recorded by Adventure Canada crew members or passengers during the first (and thus far only) visit of members of the general public to the Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site. This was included in a remarkable video with other clips featuring Marc-André Bernier, veteran underwater archaeologist, and other Underwater Archaeology Team (UAT) members. Site sketches and multi-beam sonar of both wreck sites made jaw-dropping cameo appearances.
A sonar image of the HMS Terror wreck, ca. 2017, which was similar to one of the images in the film. credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright source.
The film was uploaded to the company’s YouTube account and was also featured in Bunny Laden’s blog post “A Visit to the Wrecks of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site of Canada” released on Adventure Canada’s site eleven months later. The lucky participants from the Northwest Passage cruise onboard MS Ocean Endeavour had been able to board the dive support barge, Qiniqtiryuaq, which was anchored near the wreck of Erebus. They also explored David Thompson. Harris spoke candidly about Terror, and also the plans for the 2020 archaeology season. After the heady days of 2019, events (The Covid-19 Pandemic and an increasing concern about Erebus’s fragility) caused the postponement of these best-laid plans. Rumours have circulated that this year’s archaeological season, which appears to have started, may involve asignificant return of the archaeologists to Terror.
1927 Gould Admiralty Map, which listed Franklin-related discoveries and conjecture about the ships up to that time [modified with several updated locations, including the approximate wreck locations and geographic features]. Credit: Library and Archives Canada May Fluhmann fonds MG31-C3 vol.1
Harris’s statement is important, so we transcribed it to the best of our ability, and encourage readers to visit the hyperlinks to see what he was referencing:
This is another multibeam image that we collected just a few days ago in Terror Bay. This is the other ship, HMS Terror, and you can probably readily see that this is in really really good condition, even better than the Erebus. It’s essentially completely intact. So it has all kinds of structures sticking up, including davits, these suspended the various boats, and raised and lowered them over the side. We still see masts standing to a certain height, sheared off about 10 feet in the case of the mainmast, above the deck. And along the centerline are various openings in the upper deck, including the forward companionway down to the focs’l. (BREAK)
And those openings, even though they are sometimes skylights with all the panes of glass still intact, we’re able to insert that Remotely Operated Vehicle you may have seen on the dining room table here, into, on several different occasions, and we’ve explored 90% of the lower deck just a few days ago. If you have seen the Youtube video [link], a lot of that footage – some of the good stuff!
The only cabin or compartment we couldn’t access was Captain Crozier’s bedchamber. So tantalizing – behind the only closed door on the ship that we haven’t seen – so who knows what lies behind that closed door! But you peer down the corridor with the ROV and you can see the list of the ship, because the ROV rights itself naturally…and through the darkness you see the lights penetrating, and then a succession of cabin doors, all sliding doors all open, and we went in one after the other…probably twenty different times -every single cabin except for that one – open. And you could see an incredible array of artifacts all in situ, chamber pots below the beds, washbasins on the shelves, muskets attached to the wall ready for action, ceramics, the plates for the different mess groups, showing different ceramic patterns mess group by mess group…little cradles that are in the sick bay, which are the sick beds…just a wondrous array of artifacts that are going to be documented in the years to come.
So the plan for next year is to basically take that barge, anchor it over the Terror, and do the same thing but with the surface-supply diving equipment, the hats and umbilicals and we’ll go inside and we’ll go cabin by cabin and learn what we can.
Ryan Harris, Parks Canada, Adventure Canada 5 Sep. 2019 interview (loaded on Youtube).
A 2017 plan of HMS Terror wreck site released by Parks Canada and uploaded to their site in late 2021. Credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright source.
We hope that that plan comes to fruition in the next few weeks and that this is a productive season for exploring the always astonishing, barely-wrecked ship of wonder, HMS Terror!
Another essential description of the wreck is the epilogue “The Discovery Vessel Herself Discovered” that concludes Matthew Betts’ recent book, HMS Terror; the Design Fitting and Voyages of a Polar Discovery Ship (Pen & Sword 2022). The authors of the foreword, Ryan Harris and Jonathan Moore, UAT Manager, note that Betts provides a summary of Parks Canada’s findings up to publication. ↩︎
One-hundred-and-seventy years ago today, a ship was dying, incredibly far North. Early on 21 August, 1853, ice suddenly penetrated the Breadalbane’s cargo holds, where vital supplies had been stored a few days previously. The crew scrambled away to safety. The ship sank like a stone in 330’ of water. All these years later, what remains of this relic of the great searches to find the lost Sir John Franklin Expedition? What if today we had the technology to “Drain the Barrow Strait” (to borrow a National Geographic-inspired dramatic device) and check up on Breadalbane? Well, on this important day, we are doing just that – in reduced scale!
“A ship above and a ship below”–The wreck diorama accompanied by a contemporary view. E.A. Inglefield’s illustration of HMS Phoenix towing the ship, Credit Library and Archives Canada mikan 2837866 AND http://www.warsearcher.com
This third post will show our construction of an archaeologically-inspired scale diorama of the Breadalbane wreck site–part of the Beechey Island National Historic Site of Canada. The first post summarized the loss of this supply ship in the High Arctic in Aug. 1853, while provisioning search expeditions looking for the Franklin Expedition. The second post described the original 1980s discovery and exploration of the wreck. A fourth post explores the wreck based on Parks Canada’s 2014 visit.
330” scale feet–or 28 inches–under snow and ice, lies the Breadalbane model, represented at her 1980 moment of discovery. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
Following on from our work on an HMS Terror diorama during 2022, we had the idea to build Breadalbane after seeing the state of preservation and the incredible marine life populating this remote spot, south of Beechey Island, Nunavut. Photos and video from the original 1983 expedition and the 2014 check-up (the 1984 National Film Board documentary and the contemporary Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2014 coverage and clips) show a riot of colour in the dark, freezing waters off Beechey.
In addition to the binnacle cabinet and ship’s wheel, a site of importance to the 1980s explorations, the transom has been represented with three closed scuttles, which both C.A. Inglefield’s and another contemporary illustration of the sinking show. Credit:www.warsearcher.comDraft marks are present climbing up the stern post, with the fallen rudder and lower mizzen mast underneath. The stern post is perched a few feet off the hard bottom. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com.The main cargo hatch, mainmast, pumps, companionway leading down to the aft portion of the lower deck, the ship’s capstan, and the open forward face of the deckhouse. The model also has detailed interior areas of both the lower deck and main hold, which may be explored in a future post. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
The Breadalbane was a casualty of Beechey Island’s local conditions, like the three Franklin crewmembers (and one HMS Investigator member) buried nearby, so we gave the diorama a nameplate inspired by the original 1840s-1850s appearance of the Beechey gravestones: Black board with white lettering.
The model’s bows, showing the placement of the port Bower anchor, and the damaged bowsprit and head rails. The beginnings of the copper cladding are damaged at where the stem meets the keel. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com
The diorama was originally conceived of as an engaging way of interpreting the information gathered about the wreck by Dr. Joe MacInnis’s 1980s team and by Parks Canada’s visits to the wreck site 2012-2014. We owe both teams a debt of gratitude for supplying us information, and would like to reiterate the acknowledgements from the first post. We are not done with Beechey, or rather Beechey is not nearly done with us. Spare this sunken, beautiful barque a thought today, and stay tuned!
The starboard side, showing the deckhouse, and the enormous and fatal hole in the ship’s bilges. At the very left corner of the diorama, we chose to represent Breadalbane’s female figurehead, resting on the seafloor. This feature appears to have been sheared off during the sinking, and has not been found. Credit:www.warsearcher.com
This second post will focus on the 1980s discovery and explorations of the incredibly intact wreck of Breadalbane off Beechey Island, Nunavut. The first post summarized the loss of this supply ship in the High Arctic in Aug. 1853, while resupplying search expeditions looking for the Franklin Expedition. The third post shows our construction of an archaeologically-based scale diorama of this National Historic Site of Canada.A fourth post explores the wreck based on Parks Canada’s 2014 visit.
The Breadalbane wreck diorama, built in 2023, represents the wreck at a scale depth of 330’ as it appeared before its 1980 discovery. This will be the subject of a future post. Credit:www.warsearcher.com
On August 17th, 1984, Anthropologist Owen Beattie, looking for evidence of what went so terribly wrong with the 1845 Franklin Expedition, exhumed the body of John Torrington, a stoker from HMS Terror who had been buried almost fourteen decades before at Beechey Island, in the Canadian Arctic. Torrington had been one of the first to perish, on New Year’s Day, 1846. He was buried at the site of the first winter encampment of HM Ships Erebus and Terror. When photos were released of his body, newly exhumed from a frozen coffin, the public was shocked, fascinated, and a little horrified. This early-Victorian sailor appeared to have barely decayed!
John Torrington’s grave marker. This is a replica placed here in 1993 when the original marker was moved to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Credit: Gordon Leggett via wikimedia commons [cropped and edited]
The state of preservation should not have been so surprising: remains and relics of Arctic exploration located at Beechey just don’t seem to deteriorate as we would expect! A few years earlier the wreck of the supply ship Breadalbane had been discovered nearby. Like Torrington and the shipmates buried alongside him, Breadalbane was also “Frozen in Time.”1
Map of the Arctic portion of North America, with the state of surveying just before the Franklin Expedition set off. [cropped and annotated with rough location of Breadalbane sinking] HM Admiralty; J. & C. Walker, Public domain, Royal Museums Greenwich via Wikimedia Commons
In most other bodies of water on Earth, a 130-year old wooden shipwreck would be a pile of debris and ballast stones, with scattered cannon, decayed timbers and remnants of cargo, copper and rusted metal left to hint at its past size and shape. The naval shipworm (toredo navalis – a pernicious little species of clam) devastates wood, devouring wooden hulls, masts, and deck structures within a dozen or so years. In the High Arctic, as in the waters around Antarctica, and a few inland lakes and seas, the shipworm has no dominion, and wrecks remain as silent sentinels of past eras of trade, warfare, or exploration.
As the lost ships and vanished 129-man crew of the Franklin Expedition lived on in the popular memory, the related story of the ship that sank at Beechey in 1853 was completely forgotten. During the 1970s, Dr. Joe MacInnis, a Canadian who was pioneering new undersea medicine and diving technologies, began looking into Arctic shipwrecks, with the idea of a search that could also be a test bed for new undersea equipment. Using archival sources from the Scott Polar Research Institute, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and elsewhere, he eventually seized on the idea of a search for the Breadalbane. He had high hopes of locating the wreck based on the reasonably accurate statement about where the ship was lost south of Beechey Island. He led a multidisciplinary team, supported by Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers, starting in 1979. Weather and ice conditions limited the search to a few short weeks and the team was forced to wait to return to the waters off Beechey until August 1980. That year, they discovered a wreck in about 330’ of water, two kilometres south of the Island’s imposing cliffs.
Annotated Sentinel Playground image of the conditions around Beechey Island 165 years after the sinking, showing dangerous ice pans and floes south of Beechey. These conditions in mid-August both caused the original 1853 loss of Breadalbane, and made any summer search or exploration efforts on the wreck difficult.
While noting enormous iceberg scour trails snaking their way across the seafloor of the Barrow Strait, a clear image of a wreck came across the sonar print-out. The images were interpreted by expert sonar technician Garry Kozak on the bridge of the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Sir John A. McDonald. Surprisingly, the scans clearly showed two masts pointing towards the surface. They had located a large sailing ship! A sonar image, though, does not constitute a confirmed shipwreck identification. For that, the team needed “eyes on the prize.” That came soon after, as the team were able to descend a camera on a line to the wreck, which filmed some portion of the ship’s gunwales or deck.
CCGS Pierre Radisson (at right) refuels HMCS Moncton during the Sep. 2015 Operation QIMMIQ in Nunavut, related to the search for HMS Terror. Pierre Radisson was involved, early in her career, in the Breadalbane exploration. Credit: Department of National Defence (Corporal Felicia Ogunniya) SW2015-0226-1306
After delays and an unfavourable season, the team returned in September 1982 with a Benthos Remote Piloted Vehicle (RPV). This advanced robotic vehicle had been developed by Chris Nicholson, who was present to skillfully pilot it (Nicholson would be involved in many other robotic explorations, including on RMS Titanic and the US warships Hamilton and Scourge in Lake Ontario). The RPV captured a rich visual record that helped survey the wreck’s condition-it was shockingly intact! During April 1983 they were back over Breadalbane with more funding and an incredibly audacious plan that MacInnis had put together: To establish a camp on the ice over the wreck using flown-in supplies; to continue to survey the Breadalbane with RPVs; and to tractor in equipment to enable the team to perform crewed-dives to inspect the wreck and surroundings. The frigid depths the wreck lay at were beyond the limit of safe scuba diving or surface-supplied diving. The team had been planning for this. They would operate the WASP suit, a newly developed atmospheric diving suit that was safe to operate beyond Breadalbane’s depth. It was basically a heavy diving-suit-like one-person submersible, with claw-like hands emerging from articulated arms, a dome to look through, and a single lower section.2 The WASP pilots propelled themselves by marine thrusters.
The cover of the July 1983 edition of National Geographic showed the recovery of a WASP-suited pilot who had been exploring the wreck. The National Geographic photographer most involved in shooting some incredible imagery was Emory Kristof, longtime underwater photographer.
This might all seem standard procedure in the third decade of the 21st Century. Similar dives have now been performed on other Franklin Expedition-associated sites, and an ice camp was also an option in the recent find of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s exploration ship Endurance under the Weddell Sea, Antarctica; however, in 1983 this was pushing the limits of technology. Looking back at the concurrent RPV filming and diving, and the as-it-happens filming of a National Film Board documentary, directed by Bill Mason, the logistical and technological efforts in an environment of -20*C, and the “cowboy” atmosphere at the ice camp…the whole effort was bonkers!3 Somehow, the program stayed on track, and things came together just when they had to. The dives were an incredible success. WASP pilots Phil Nuytten (a Canadian engineer heavily involved in the design of the suits) and Doug Osborne have been the only humans to ever visit the site. Nuytten was quoted as saying ”It looked like you could sail it away, if you could somehow make the water vanish, you could probably repair it in a couple of weeks and sail it back to England. It looked great.”4
As Dr. MacInnis relates in his book on the topic, The Search for the Breadalbane, news of the 1980 Breadalbane discovery was eclipsed by false reports of the discovery of RMS Titanic, which would not actually be located until five years later (iconic bow section view). Courtesy of NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island (NOAA/IFE/URI)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Compared to the barrenness of Beechey’s landscapes, Breadalbane was found to be host to thriving communities of marine life. Anemones and bright white basket stars blended with vibrant pink, orange and red coral growths on the upper hull and topsides. Everywhere there was silt, heaps of growth, and decades of deposited phytoplankton and algae, which floated down on the wreck like green snow. Below this abundance, her lower hull was found to be clad in a minty-green cloak of beautifully-preserved copper sheathing.
Copper roof sheets originally removed from the roof of the Canadian Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, now a wall in the lobby of the Canadian War Museum. These approximate the sizes and shades of verdigris on the Breadalbane’s hull. (Author’s photo)
A brief summary of the archaeological discoveries and major features of the wreck would highlight the exceptionally large and early example of a deckhouse. It survived mostly intact on the ship’s quarterdeck, and was packed with artifacts such as tables, chairs, and a ship’s stove. Elsewhere, deck furniture included the large windlass forward and the capstan aft. Open hatches provided glimpses of the chaotic damage on the lower deck. The ship’s wheel and a binnacle cabinet were located with navigating instruments, on the small after deck.
Site plan of Breadalbane as discovered in the early 1980s, drawn in 2023 relying on 1980s and 2012-2014 ROV and dive footage, sonar scans, artistic reconstructions, and other sources. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com, who retain copyright
The lower hull was marked by a massive extent of ice damage, particularly running along the starboard bilge. This marred otherwise pristine copper sheathing. A well-preserved bower anchor of the stockless variety was discovered on the seafloor, on the Portside of the stem, with a heavy hawser still leading up to a hawsehole. The rudder was located on the seabed just aft of the sternpost, while the fallen mizzen mast stretched from it off to port. White draft marking climbed up the sternpost (these would have originally helped load, ballast, or trim the ship, filling it to a safe, even, waterline level). Debris and spars stretched along the port side on the seabed, with a railing, originally on the deckhouse roof, running like an angled ladder from the seabed to the ship’s sides. The bowsprit was shattered, the figurehead could not be discerned through the growth, and the ship’s bell (a focal point of any shipwreck) was not found.
A 1987 issued Canada Post 36 cent stamp commemorating the Breadalbane find, which shows the wheel with colourful marine growth. Credit: Credit: Library and Archives Canada; Copyright: Canada Post Corporation
During the 1983 RPV and WASP operations, a small number of artifacts, and notably the ship’s wheel, were brought to the surface. Parks Canada underwater archaeologist Robert Grenier did not support the recovery of items from the site – a process that requires additional permits and permissions. Once the objects were at the surface, he worked diligently to safeguard the preservation of these wooden artifacts and prepare them for transportation.
After the recovery, the team worked quickly to wrap up the season, tearing down the ice camp. The fabulously expensive equipment was shipped south. Joe gave interviews and presentations and wrote his book, The Search for the Breadalbane, Bill Mason produced the NFB documentary Land that Devours Ships, the National Geographic photo crew moved to other assignments, Chris Nicholson continued to design and operate improved robotic systems, and Garry Kozak was involved in new sonar searches for other famous shipwrecks. Robert Grenier returned south to continue the massive archaeological excavations at Red Bay, Labrador. When the last plane lifted off the ice-strip in the shadows of Beechey Island’s imposing cliffs, Breadalbane was again left as a time capsule waiting under the ice.
John Geiger and Owen Beattie’s 1987 book Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition laid out a hypothesis that lead poisoning had contributed to the destruction of the Franklin Expedition, which had originated out of the 1984 exhumation of Torrington, and John Hartnell and William Braine the next year. The grave of sailor Thomas Morgan, of HMS Investigator, located beside the three Franklin graves, has not be excavated. The author, as a young boy, first saw the Torrington image in Owen Beattie and John Geiger’s 1991 young readers book Buried in Ice: The Mystery of a Lost Arctic Expedition, and has been trying for thirty-two years now to unsee it. ↩︎
Readers may recall a different type of atmospheric diving suit, the JIM suit, making an appearance in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only.↩︎
The NFB film “Land that Devours Ships” (1983) is an incredible visual record of these expeditions to the Breadalbane, that can be fully viewed on the NFB website. The author would like to acknowledge the continued assistance of Jonathan Moore, Parks Canada, whose expertise has substantially complemented the visual record of the 198os expeditions. ↩︎
“Divers find old ship intact in the Arctic,” New York Times 27 May 1983 A12. ↩︎
One-hundred-and-seventy years ago, the Breadalbane supply ship was proceeding North to a rendezvous in Greenland. This merchant ship had been built on the Clyde River, Scotland, in 1843. Ten years later, the crew succeeded in an important mission, but Breadalbane would not return from her Arctic service. Her shipwreck was located 130 years later by Dr. Joseph B. MacInnis and his colleagues. Currently, she is the most northerly identified Canadian Arctic wreck, and one of the most northerly in the World.1 She remains one of the most intact ships from the great era of polar exploration. Breadalbane’s wreck is a vibrant oasis of marine life in a brutally harsh environment.
Of all our attempts to locate imagery and plans of Breadalbane, we have settled on this National Maritime Museum model of an 1830s merchant ship as best representing Breadalbane as she appeared before Admiralty modifications for Arctic service. Even the paint scheme appears similar to that found on the wreck. Credit: Royal Museums Greenwich SLR0726
Breadalbane was built by the firm of Hedderwick and Rankin in 1842-1843 near Glasgow, and was typical of hundreds of other merchant ships. She was roughly 125 feet from bow to stern (according to the Lloyd’s of London survey report for 1843, she was 117.8 feet, which could be a stem-to-sternpost dimension), and displaced about 430 tons, her moulded breadth was about 24 ‘, suggesting her overall width was greater. She was sturdily built, of a bewildering variety of woods, from all over the British Empire and beyond: African and American Oak, Quebec Rock Elm, Red and Yellow pine. Well-squared English and Welsh oak predominated. Unlike the later clipper ships, she was designed for economical transportation of goods, not speedy passages. Her bows were bluff, her proportions were generous (to incorporate capacious cargo holds) and her lines were simple. She was rigged as a barque–that is to say square sails on the fore and mainmast and a simpler fore-and-aft rigged mizzen mast near the stern. Compared to a fully-rigged ship, this simplified rig had only a small impact on the ship’s performance before the wind, while requiring less crew members.
The Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, a museum ship at Mystic CT, barque-rigged and the most similar surviving vessel to Breadalbane. She was built two years earlier, and is slightly smaller, with the specialized features of a whaler-tryworks stoves for melting down blubber and davits for more whale-catching boats. Credit: Ken Mist, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Breadalbane’s career thus far had involved routine voyages to transport goods to and from British India. She had been meticulously maintained. Upon an 1848 return from one such voyage, she had to be set right after a minor accident in Calcutta. She was repaired with teak sections and classed again at the highest level of Lloyd’s of London assessment, A1 for ten years, with the surveyor writing ” The barque is in good condition and eligible for the safe conveyance of dry and perishable cargos to and from all parts of the World.”2
Taken up for Admiralty service in March 1853 and given a refit and modifications for Arctic service (which we will describe in a future post), Breadalbane departed from the Thames Estuary 19 May 1853, fully loaded with provisions for the search expeditions, commanded by Captain Edward Belcher, which were then scouring the Arctic for traces of the Franklin Expedition and HM Ships Erebus and Terror. It was eight years to the day since Franklin’s ships had started off on their own fateful passage. Breadalbane arrived off Disko Island, Greenland, 8 July. After meeting up with her powerful consort, HMS Phoenix, a steamship, she proceeded along the western coast of Greenland and on up the Davis Strait. Breadalbane was not updated with steam engines and screw propellers like Erebus and Terror had been in 1845. Instead, she was towed through adverse winds and dangerous ice by Phoenix.
Breadalbane under tow off Disko, Greenland. This is the only representation we have ever seen that shows both the figurehead and the deckhouse at the base of the mizzen. Detail of E.A. Inglefield’s view of HMS Phoenix towing the ship, with HMS Diligence store ship aft. Credit Library and Archives Canada mikan 2837866.
Phoenix’s Captain, Edward A. Inglefield, commanded the resupply effort. He also kept a visual record, in the form of well-executed sketches of the major events of the 1853 passage. Despite worsening ice conditions, the ships continued to make progress with Phoenix in the lead, employing her steam power and reinforced bows in the novel role of icebreaking, cutting a path for Breadalbane while simultaneously towing her.
Inglefield took a photographic record of a later resupply mission, in mid-1854, which saw HMS Phoenix (right) again leading a storeship, HMS Diligence, to resupply the Belcher expedition (1852-1854) looking for Franklin. They were photographed at Godhavn, (Qeqertarsuaq) Disko Island, Greenland. Diligence was a similar barque to Breadalbane, of earlier vintage. It appears that Diligence had been upgraded with partially reinforced ice channels under the fore, main and mizzen chains. Credit: Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The ships arrived near Beechey Island off the southwest coast of Devon Island, 8 August. Beechey already had a special significance, as the spot where the Franklin crews had spent their first winter of 1845-46, onboard their frozen-in ships. It was now being used as a staging base for the Belcher expedition ships, with HMS North Star depot ship victualling the widely-dispersed search ships. For the isolated Royal Navy crews confined to Beechey for many months, Breadalbane and Phoenix’s arrival was a joyous time. News of home, new faces, and new supplies boosted spirits. Breadalbane’s goods were sustaining the largest of the Franklin searches.
Beechey is an island of lost explorers, graves, monuments, shipwrecks, and house wrecks made from shipwrecks. These are the ruins of Northumberland House, constructed in 1852-53 under the direction of HMS North Star‘s Captain, Cmdr. W.J.S. Pullen. It was provisioned with supplies in case Franklin’s crews or others returned. The mast of a whaling ship (still standing in the 1980s), whose timbers also wound up incorporated into the house, can just be seen on the beach, with a view out to Cape Riley, Devon Island, across Erebus and Terror Bay. Credit: Ansgar Walk, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Navigating the ice-chocked waters off Beechey proved to be challenging, so the next day the ship manoeuvred across Erebus and Terror Bay and in close to the bluffs at Cape Riley on Devon Island. Crew members begun shifting coal ashore. Ice remained a hazard, but the transport worked back inshore to discharge more cargo on 16 August.
Breadalbane’s crew shifting supplies ashore at Cape Riley, Devon Island, in company with HMS Phoenix (at right). (Detail of) Illustrated London News 22 Oct. 1853. Credit: Frederick James Smyth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Unlike the events leading to final abandonment of Erebus and Terror, the details of Breadalbane’s loss, on 21 August 1853, are well-established. Descriptions by both Inglefield, and Breadalbane’s Second Master, William Fawckner, help chronicle the ship’s end. When most supplies had been unloaded, drifting ice began to descend on the area. The decision was taken to again evacuate the inshore area on the 20th. Sledging trips continued to remove more supplies to North Star. By midnight, Phoenix had worked her way to a position about a half-mile South of Beechey Island. Both ships were moored to a large flow. The ice crowded in, and the crew worked to save boats and to help Phoenix, which was thought to be in more imminent peril.
Edward Inglefield (1820-1894), HMS Breadalbane and HMS Phoenix caught in ice off Beechey Island, 1853. Breadalbane was a supply ship to an expedition that had the aim of recovering Sir John Franklin’s ill fated voyage in the Arctic. For sale in marine show in Oct. #history#navalpic.twitter.com/CDjzfSc6za
This remarkable work came up for auction a few years ago. It seems unlikely it was actually sketched by Inglefield, as it contrasts quite strikingly with his other depiction of the sinking. Here Breadalbane is shown heaved up on the ice, with HMS Phoenix nearby. This depiction has some unique features: A more ornate stern with three lights and false galleries (not depicted anywhere else), and lines which seem to indicate the bow sheathing.
The worst of the ice passed aft of Phoenix, smashed the boats, and brutalized Breadalbane, which would have been sitting high in the water, in ballast trim. The ice first pinched the ship, sending tremors throughout, before crashing straight through the lower hull. This opened an enormous gash along the starboard side at the same time as it ground a smaller rent in the port bows. Interior spaces, particularly around the ship’s bows, were devastated, with decks and partitions snapping like matchsticks.
The moment when Breadalbane was crushed by ice, 21 Aug. 1853, by EA Inglefield, who witnessed the events from his command, Phoenix, ahead of Breadalbane. Close visual inspection of the transom seems to indicate that there is indeed a third sealed scuttle or light across the stern, matching a detail of the auction house sketch. Evidence does suggest that Breadalbane had two enormous “2”s painted on each side, to mark her role as a supply ship. Nothing of these markings has been located on the wreck. Credit: Edward Augustus Inglefield, Library and Archives Canada [detail of] mikan 2837463
Inglefield arrived on scene and ordered Fawckner to assess the damage, as the ship settled lower by the bows. A cursory glance down the hatches into the main hold showed him that the ship was doomed. The 21-member crew worked to save a few possessions as the ice momentarily let up. Moments after all crew members had escaped over the ice, the ship plunged straight down with a rapidity that shocked all who witnessed the sorry end of Breadalbane.3 The process may have looked a bit like a sped-up version of Frank Hurley’s 1915 footage of Shackleton’s Endurance sinking in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica.
A World away, the most Southerly shipwreck, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s barquentine RRS Endurance, being gradually crushed by ice during the 1915 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Endurance was located deep under the Weddell Sea in 2022. Credit: Frank Hurley via wikimedia commons.
The shipwrecked crew joined some of the crew of HMS Investigator (one of the search ships that had been beset and had been abandoned at Mercy Bay in April) and were soon on their way back to England on Phoenix. Breadalbane had served the Admiralty’s purpose. The ships of Britain’s far flung merchant marine were routinely lost in seas all over the World, and Breadalbane’s story seemed set to fade into obscurity, amidst the greater drama of the continued disappearance of the Franklin expedition, and the loss of many of the search ships.
A teaser for a future post. Here the model of Breadalbane’s wreck, which we will extensively interpret, is compared to satellite imagery of the Charles W. Morgan…BECAUSE WE CAN!
I would like to acknowledge the assistance and expertise of Jonathan Moore, Underwater Archaeology Team, Parks Canada, and Dr. Joe MacInnis, original team lead of the late 1970s and early 80s efforts to locate and explore Breadalbane.
Jonathan Dore (Facebook group Remembering the Franklin Expedition) and David Mearns (FB group Sir E.H. Shackleton Appreciation Society) have supplied information about the remains of Benjamin Leigh Smith’s exploration ship Eira, in Franz Joseph Land, 6 degrees of latitude higher North. Eira was lost 18 years to the day after Breadalbane, 21 Aug. 1881. Breadalbane was the World’s most northerly located wreck from her discovery by Dr. Joe MacInnis in 1980 until 2018, when substantial evidence was recovered from the Eira wrecksite. Eira’s archaeological assessment is ongoing. ↩︎
The Lloyd’s of London survey reports for Breadalbane from 1843,1844,1849,1853 are a valuable resource for describing her construction, repairs, and substantial modification in early 1853 for Northern service. ↩︎
A detailed description of the sinking is provided by Fawckner, extensively excerpted in Joe MacInnis’s 1983 book: The Search for the Breadalbane. Many of the details of Breadalbane’s journey are taken from this source. I would like to thank Fabiënne Tetteroo for providing me with a copy of the Illustrated London News of 22 Oct. 1853 that excerpted Fawckner’s report. ↩︎
What a cast of characters, what a mise en scène! Since arriving off King William Island, Nunavut, in late August, 2022, the Parks Canada Research Vessel David Thompson has remained near the famous Sir John Franklin expedition shipwrecks longer than previous seasons. What amazing discoveries must the Underwater Archaeology Team (UAT) be making at these incredible mid-19th Century exploration ships right now?! Will the dive team working from David Thompson or the specialized dive barge, Qiniqtiryuaq, uncover new information about the last days of this ill-fated effort to locate the Northwest Passage?
Composite Google Earth image, with RV David Thompson superimposed from below GE capture, and sonar images of wrecks of HM ships Erebus and Terror modified from Parks Canada images. Date and location of all ships indicated is only an approximation.1
There has not yet been any official reporting about the 2022 Parks Canada work. It is a safe bet that the balance of research is focusing on the fragile or “dynamic” site: HMS Erebus (discovered by Parks during the Sep. 2014 search in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, after years of searches which followed up on Inuit oral history of a wreck in this area).2 In the long 165-years that Erebus remained unlocated, there must have been decades where the wreck, in the frigid waters of Wilmot and Crampton Bay, would have appeared almost untouched by time’s passage. Unfortunately, her condition has worsened in the last years, as ice or ocean swells take their toll on upper surfaces, such as the weather deck and supporting structures. The wreck is only in about 11 M of water. There is real urgency to conduct a thorough survey.
HMS Terror is located about 60 km North, somewhere in the aptly named Terror Bay (discovered Sep. 2016 by the Arctic Research Foundation’s ship Martin Bergmann, following up on a tip from Gjoa Haven resident and Canadian Ranger Sammy Kogvik). The seabed is about 24 M deep, and the wreck’s depth and location seem to be working to better shelter it. We hope at some point that the team are able to shift the archaeological exploration to Terror. Previous Remote Operated Vehicle surveys of the interior have shown a wealth of artifacts requiring further study.
The ships (and shipwrecks) of the 2022 Franklin Fleet:
RV David Thompson (2017) LOA 95’ / 29m TDISP 228 tons. Originally Canadian Coast Guard Fisheries Patrol vessel CCGS Arrow Post (1992-2016) before transfer to Parks Canada. Now equipped with up to two Rigid Inflatable Boats and a hydraulic crane. RV David Thompson made a brief transit back through the Simpson Strait to Gjoa Haven 7 September, but appears to have returned to the vicinity of Erebus the next day.
RV David Thompson, a day after her return to the Coast Guard station at Prescott, ON. 1 November 2022, after a busy archaeology season at the Franklin wrecks and elsewhere. Credit http://www.warsearcher.comRV David Thompson during the 2019 expedition to the wreck sites. Credi: Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Parks Canada Dive Barge “Qiniqtiryuaq” (2017) approximately 50’X 30’ / 15.3 X 9.3 m displacement unknown. Fitted with three 20’ converted sea containers with a tool shop/archaeological lab, a meeting space, a decompression chamber. During 2018 the barge received a powerful hydraulic crane.
CCGS Pierre Radisson Icebreaker (1977) LOA 323’ / 98.3 m TDISP 8,200 tons Arctic class 3 breaker. Early in its career, this was the base of operations of Dr. Joseph B. MacInnis’s 1981 search effort for the Beechey Island wreck Breadalbane, supply ship to the 1853 Franklin search effort. This year it assisted or escorted RV David Thompson on the journey to Gjoa Haven. It can help to replenish and refuel the Parks Canada vessels, be called upon to ensure the security of the sites, and be involved in towing the dive barge.
CCGS Pierre Radisson (at right) refuels HMCS Moncton during the Sep. 2015 Operation QIMMIQ in Nunavut. Credit: Department of National Defence (Corporal Felicia Ogunniya) SW2015-0226-1306
CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier (1986) LOA 262’ / 83M TDISP 4,600 tons Arctic Class 2 Light Icebreaker and tender. This ship is a veteran of previous Franklin Expedition search efforts and Parks Canada archaeology efforts. During the 2019 season, Laurier contributed anchors to help tether the barge Qiniqtiryuaq above Erebus. Based on recent marine traffic information (2022/09/20), and the onset of colder weather off King William Island, we believe the Laurier is helping to conclude the dive season. CCGS Pierre Radisson has moved on to Hudson’s Bay. Laurier’s last positions showed it stationary near Ambush Rock after having moved westward from Gjoa Haven through the Simpson Strait and Storis Passage, towards the vicinity of the Erebus site. The ship appears to be accompanied by an 8m, 15 ton light Coast Guard Boat which may be ferrying supplies back from the actual wreck site to the Laurier.
CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier (left) and HMCS Moncton in search of HMS Terror as part of Operation QIMMIQ on September 2, 2015. Credit: Department of National Defence (Photo: Corporal Felicia Ogunniya) SW2015-0226-980
HMS Erebus (1826-ca.1849) Hecla class bomb vessel extensively modified for polar expeditions. For the 1845 expedition to locate the Northwest Passage, the massively reinforced vessel was fitted with an auxiliary method of propulsion (steam railroad engine) and a retractable screw propeller. Lead ship of expedition, carrying Sir John Franklin, officer commanding and Erebus’s captain, James Fitzjames. LOA ca. 120’ / 36.6 m davits on transom to stem knee, sparred length unknown TDISP 370 tons
The Franklin expedition ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, setting out with fanfare in late May 1845 from Greenhithe. This was originally published for the 24 May 1845 edition of the Illustrated London News. (Via wikimedia commons) The two ships, from separate classes of bomb vessels, were virtually indistinguishable after many updates for polar expeditions.
Credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright.
HMS Terror (1813-ca.1849) Vesuvius class bomb vessel extensively modified for polar expeditions. War of 1812 veteran. For the 1845 expedition to locate the Northwest Passage, the massively reinforced vessel was fitted with an auxiliary method of propulsion (steam railroad locomotive) and a retractable screw propeller. Commanded by Captain Francis Crozier, second-in-command of expedition. LOA ca. 120’ / 36.6 m davits on transom to stem knee, sparred length unknown. TDISP 320 tons
A sonar image of the HMS Terror wreck, ca. 2017. credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright.
Credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright.
The precise location of the Franklin ships has not been released, and the general vicinity of each site is protected and not accessible to the public. ↩︎
We most likely won’t hear for months about this season’s work, or a reported April or May site visit (which would have involved an ice camp over either wreck site) ↩︎
This small feature can be readily seen under the stern windows of Parry’s ships in the illustration of Hecla and Fury at top. Terror and her two Vesuvius class sisters (RMG 
The Searchers 