The Franklin Conspiracy Read online

  Whatever they really saw, Kennedy and Bellot were fooled into thinking Peel Sound was blocked off at its southern end. This led Kennedy to a second change in plans. Believing Franklin could not have come south down Peel Sound, he decided there was little point in proceeding south to the North Magnetic Pole. Instead, he opted to travel directly westward to see if he could find a passage southwest of Cape Walker. Southwest of Cape Walker was where Franklin had been told to go, and southwest was where Kennedy now planned to search.

  Crossing the ice, Kennedy and Bellot reached Prince of Wales Island, an island already searched by Ommanney’s sledge parties. For thirteen days they continued westward across the level island, with no sign of a passage. Finally, Kennedy decided they had travelled far enough. He turned north, sledging up to Cape Walker under the belief that he might find a message left there by Franklin. Of course, Ommanney’s sledges had already visited here too, and if there ever was a message left by Franklin, it had long since disappeared.

  Frustrated by their failure, Kennedy and Bellot crossed Peel Sound, returning to the ship on May 30, 1852. On August 6th, they left Batty Bay and set sail up Prince Regent Inlet, then over to Beechey Island, where they encountered the North Star, the same ship which had been previously sent to provision James Clark Ross.

  The North Star had returned to Beechey Island as part of a new Admiralty effort to explore Wellington Channel. In a final heroic gesture, both Kennedy and Bellot (and two other men) volunteered to transfer to the North Star to continue the search for another winter; but, significantly, on being informed they would have to place themselves under the command of the navy, they changed their minds. Kennedy accepted the latest dispatches for the Admiralty and headed back to England.

  KENNEDY’S MOTIVE?

  Essentially nothing had been learned of Franklin’s fate. Kennedy and Bellot had merely gone over ground that others had searched before them. Worse, Kennedy had decided at the last moment to completely alter his plans.

  Why? He had known the navy ships were searching in Barrow Strait; surely he could have assumed they would have searched for a passage to the southwest of Cape Walker. Surely he could have assumed they would have visited Cape Walker itself. In the absence of other searchers, Kennedy’s strategy makes some sense, but not if he thought that the navy sledge teams were operating in the area.

  Eight years later, Kennedy would pen a letter of apology to Captain Coppin to explain why he hadn’t listened to the Captain’s daughter about Victory Point: “Lady Franklin herself was so possessed with the matter that Sir John had gone up Wellington Channel that most people were carried away with the same impression. I was amongst this number and so did not attach the importance to these revelations that I ought to have done.”4 It was certainly true that in the November after Kennedy had set out, Jane Franklin was quoted in the Nautical Magazine as saying, “I am persuaded now that it is pretty well proved that my husband could not have penetrated south west . . . but that he has taken the only alternative their instructions presented him by going up the Wellington Channel.”5 But this opinion was, in historian Roderic Owen’s words, “as over-stated as it was newly acquired.”6 She may well have believed it, but this statement was made soon after the Beechey Island ships had returned, in the heat of the battle between Penny and Austin over why Austin had so suddenly abandoned Wellington Channel with the search nearly resolved one way or the other.

  As well, there is the matter of Jane Franklin having sent Kennedy to spend three days interviewing Anne Coppin about her ghostly vision. Would Lady Franklin have done so, if she was really “possessed” by the Wellington Channel route? What’s more, Kennedy had not been sent anywhere near Wellington Channel; he had been sent to Somerset Island. His explanation to Captain Coppin rings hollow indeed.

  But what other explanation can there be?

  Kennedy’s actions make no sense since he must have known the British expedition would explore the areas he planned to search. On the other hand, his actions make perfect sense, if Jane Franklin did not trust Austin to honestly search Cape Walker and the area to the southwest.

  Is it possible Kennedy had been secretly instructed to search to the southwest of Cape Walker and to search Cape Walker itself because Jane Franklin did not trust the navy to honestly search those areas? Perhaps she, like Captain Penny, suspected the navy searchers might go so far as to conceal any messages found and she hoped Kennedy might get there first. Kennedy’s and Bellot’s offer to transfer to the North Star might then be seen as an attempt to further keep an eye on naval activities, but one which they abandoned once they realized they would have had to place themselves under the navy’s command.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Captain Collinson and the Enterprise

  What was he doing, the great god Pan,

  Down in the reeds by the river?

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

  A Musical Instrument

  WITHOUT A TRANSLATOR

  Incredibly, even as the Canadian expedition set sail back to England, another vessel was making its way through the summer ice on a course which couldn’t help but lead it to the lost ships. More amazing still, the vessel was Royal Navy.

  Back in 1850, slightly before Penny, Austin, John Ross, Forsyth, and the Americans had all set out on their combined search, with the Beechey Island find still in the future, James Clark Ross’ two ships, Enterprise and Investigator, had been refitted and dispatched with the task of entering the Arctic by way of the Bering Strait — the west end. A previous expedition, the Plover, had been sent the same way but hadn’t turned up any sign of Franklin along the north coast of the continent.

  Once again, the Admiralty chose to ignore the probable in favour of the improbable.

  The most obvious course for the Enterprise and Investigator would have been for the ships to extend the Plover’s search along the southern passage — the passage Franklin had known would lead him out of the Arctic if he could only get to it. Instead, both ships were instructed to make for Banks Land farther north. Banks Land was the westernmost land mass sighted by Parry during his spectacular voyage so many years before. It also lay on the other side of the impassible ice barrier that Franklin had been specifically ordered to avoid. In this respect, the searchers were taking the same course as every other expedition except Jane Franklin’s Prince Albert: forget Franklin’s sailing instructions; search north or west, but not south.

  In command of the expedition was Captain Richard Collinson, aboard the Enterprise, the faster of the two ships. In charge of the Investigator was Robert McClure, destined to go down in history as the first man to finally discover the Northwest Passage . . . sort of.

  His triumph was diluted by several factors: for one, he was forced to abandon his ship in the ice and complete the Passage on foot; for another, later evidence would indicate Franklin’s crew had discovered another Northwest Passage to the south shortly before they perished.

  On setting out from England, the Enterprise and Investigator had parted company with the understanding that they would regroup off the Alaska coast. However, they met again having just reached the Pacific Ocean by way of the Strait of Magellan. At this point, an astonishing thing happened. Before setting out from England, a missionary from Labrador, of the Moravian Brotherhood, had been recruited to assist the expedition in translating any news they might obtain from the Inuit in the western Arctic. But there had been no berth available on the lead ship, Enterprise, so the missionary was placed on the Investigator. Now, meeting again off the tip of South America, Collinson asked the missionary to transfer to the lead ship, where a berth had been prepared for him.

  Incredibly, the missionary refused. He didn’t want to get his books wet in the wind and rain while crossing over to the other ship. McClure concurred and Collinson easily gave in. Instead, Collinson said, the missionary could change ships when they met in Honolulu. It was to be a fateful mistake, for by the time McClure reached Honolulu, Collinson had decided to continue on
without his translator after a stop of only four days. They had missed each other by twenty-four hours.

  Collinson’s decision to proceed without his translator was a remarkable oversight, which would have grave consequences later. Still, it is possible he planned to pick up the Moravian when the ships met off the Alaskan coast and on its own this oversight would not be reason enough to question Collinson’s motives for the search. But there would soon be more.

  FIT TO BE TIED

  Even though Collinson was ahead and in the faster ship, McClure suddenly saw a way to take advantage of his enforced isolation and beat Collinson to the Arctic. Being in no great hurry, Collinson took the longer route to Alaska, circling around the treacherous Aleutian Islands. McClure decided to head directly through the islands, even though this was generally thought to be a risky venture. The move paid off and McClure handily beat Collinson to their meeting point off Kotzebue Sound. There he was met by the Plover and, when told Collinson had not yet arrived, he feigned disbelief, arguing that the Enterprise must have passed in the fog. Off he went, only to be stopped again by another Royal Navy ship, the Herald. Again, McClure pretended to believe he was hurrying to catch up with the Enterprise, and the captain of the Herald, though seeing through the pretence, wasn’t prepared to order McClure to wait for his superior. Had half this much initiative been shown by the Franklin searchers, the lost expedition would have been found right off the bat. Unfortunately, McClure wasn’t interested in discovering the fate of Franklin’s lost crew; McClure had eyes only for the Northwest Passage. So, off he went again, headed for Banks Land and destiny.

  When Collinson finally reached Alaska, he was astonished to learn McClure had already been there and gone on without him. Collinson’s officers told him there was still time to catch up with the Investigator, but Collinson refused to heed their advice. Desperately they suggested he winter at Point Barrow on the Alaska coast; again he refused. Instead, he turned around and sailed back to Honolulu to spend the winter, apparently seeing his rescue mission as something less than urgent.

  The next summer, while Kennedy and Bellot were entering the Arctic from the east, Collinson penetrated the northern waters from the west, hard on the trail of his insubordinate subordinate. But, again and again, Collinson ran into ice, becoming trapped in waters which should have been easily traversed. He wouldn’t listen to his ice master, Francis Skead; he wouldn’t listen to his own officers. Unable to comprehend his commander’s strange behaviour, Skead bitterly wrote, “As we make so little progress when there are so few obstacles to our advance, I am afraid to think of what we shall do if we meet with difficulty from ice.”1 It was as if Collinson was deliberately set on wasting an entire season. “Poor Sir John!” Skead bemoaned. “God help you — you’ll get none from us.”

  After coasting the southeast and southwest shores of Banks Land and finding messages left informing him that McClure had already been that way, Collinson finally sought a winter harbour on the west coast of “Prince Albert Land”, which was actually the western shore of the massive Victoria Island, a gargantuan land mass stretching all the way across the southern Arctic until its eastern shores looked out upon King William Island itself.

  Once again, Collinson was inexplicably lax in pursuing the search for the lost expedition. Though the ocean didn’t freeze-up for another five weeks, he adamantly refused to budge from his haven. As Pierre Berton commented, “In that time, he could have found a wintering harbour farther south, putting himself in a better position for the thrust to the east the following spring.”2 But then, in his every decision, Collinson had made it perfectly clear he was in no hurry to find the lost expedition — this in spite of the possibility, at that time, that Franklin might still be alive. Skead found he could not remain silent in the face of Collinson’s inexcusable negligence, “considering Franklin was perishing for food and shelter.”3 He continued to fight the captain, until finally Collinson had him placed under arrest for the duration of the mission.

  But Skead wasn’t the only member of the Enterprise fit to be tied. When Collinson finally departed the Arctic in 1854 and returned to Honolulu, the Illustrated London News reported that he had either placed under arrest or suspended every single one of his officers during the course of his voyage. Collinson had made certain that he alone determined where the Enterprise sailed and what she found once she got there.

  THE RIGHT DIRECTION

  The next summer, as Kennedy and Bellot set sail for home, the Enterprise resumed her journey. But this time there was a striking difference to her course; this time she was headed in the right direction.

  Collinson decided to follow the southern passage along the roof of the continent [see map 14]. The path had already been explored and mapped — by John Richardson, by John Rae, and by Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson — but all had come overland through Canada; no one had yet tried to pass this way by ship. Indeed, the famous Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen would later praise Collinson highly for this feat of navigation; Amundsen had difficulty passing through the same waters even in a far smaller ship.

  Map 14

  Richard Collinson’s Search, 1850-1855

  It was this southern passage that Franklin had (ostensibly) hoped to reach somehow by a route to be found somewhere southwest of Cape Walker. Collinson explicitly stated his reason for taking this route was to place his ship in a location “where we should be in a good position to succour any parties who might have come to mishap after entering the strait between Capes Bunny and Walker”(in other words, Peel Sound.4 If Collinson had kept going on his course he would eventually have run smack into King William Island and the scattered and grisly remains to be found there. But there wasn’t time to travel farther than Cambridge Bay on the south shore of Victoria Island. Again, the Enterprise put into winter quarters. This time, however, the answers they sought were finally within sledge distance.

  IGNORING THE EVIDENCE

  “It would almost seem,” commented Noel Wright, “that during the ship’s long stay in Cambridge Bay Captain Collinson’s reasoning faculty became numbed by the conditions of cold.”5 Having “deliberately isolated himself from the companionship of his officers,” Collinson now proceeded to do everything in his power to ignore what was quite clearly staring him in the face. He had said it himself: he was there to succour parties trapped coming down Peel Sound. And yet, on seeing the heavy ice in Victoria Strait to the east of Victoria Island, he decided there was no point in crossing over to King William Island, but settled for a search of the immediate coast.

  Local Inuit were encountered, but having left his only interpreter aboard the other ship, communication was difficult. Just the same, an officer named Arbuthnot managed to convince an Inuk to draw a picture of the east coast of Victoria Island, which depicted the lost ships in Victoria Strait. Incredibly, Collinson claimed not to believe it. The drawing did not match the coast he had travelled over, he said; the Inuk was merely repeating back the questions put to him. A sledge party found a piece of door frame with a latch attachment nearby, almost certainly from one of the lost ships; but again Collinson dismissed it as unimportant. Ice master Skead, still under arrest, could only grind his teeth in disgust. Why was Collinson there if not to follow up what few leads he could find?

  Why indeed?

  WHAT WAS HE DOING?

  If we accept that Collinson was part of the conspiracy to keep the lost expedition from being found, we have to ask ourselves one vital question: why had he dared to come this close? His relationship with his officers would indicate that he had not shared whatever secrets he may have been privy to. No matter how tight a rein Collinson kept on his officers, the risk of discovery must surely have been enormous. Why would he chance it?

  Perhaps the answer is to be found in a sledge trip undertaken by Collinson in April. Setting out from his winter berth at Cambridge Bay with two main and one supporting sledge, Collinson travelled up the east coast of Victoria Island until he came upon a cairn left by
the explorer John Rae two years before. Rae, Collinson discovered, had come overland in the summer of 1851, then briefly visited that same coast by small boat. Rae had been unable to cross over to King William Island because of the ice. Collinson now continued on a little farther, even crossing out onto the ice until he was a mere fifty miles away from the place where the answers lay: Victory Point. Then he turned back and returned to the ship.

  Apart from Rae’s cairn, it was during this sledge trip that Collinson’s party happened upon what Noel Wright described as “three rather mysterious cairns, which contained no documents or clues to their builders.”6 Were these cairns erected by Franklin’s crew? If so, Collinson’s motive becomes instantly clear. Just as Captain Ommanney may have “suppressed” whatever message was left in the cairn at Beechey Island, as well as whatever may have been deposited on Cape Walker, Collinson too had come, not to succour the lost expedition, but to seek, remove, and conceal the records they had left.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A Study in Contrasts

  Trifles light as air

  Are to the jealous confirmations strong

  As proofs of holy writ.

  William Shakespeare,

  Othello

  AS SAFE AS HOUSES

  It was April, 1852, and Franklin had now been lost for seven years. In the western Arctic, McClure was solidly trapped in the ice on the northeast shore of Banks Land. Though he had discovered a Northwest Passage, that impassable ice stream sat squarely in his path, preventing him from making good on his discovery. Collinson, further south on Victoria Island, had just placed his ice master, Skead, under arrest for suggesting he might do more to find Sir John. In the eastern Arctic, the Canadian expedition under Kennedy and Bellot was doggedly sledging over Prince of Wales Island.