The Franklin Conspiracy Read online

  In a single season, the next year, Parry very nearly succeeded in crossing the entire Arctic from east to west by taking a straight line course down Lancaster Sound, through Barrow Strait and into Viscount Melville Sound [see map 2]. His luck was incredible. The weather turned warmer than it would ever be again for any other expedition in this period. The ice fields parted before him, the route to the Orient stretched like the Thames. Only briefly in Lancaster Sound was he halted by ice. Immediately he turned south down Prince Regent Inlet where he coasted Somerset Island before again running into ice and returning to Lancaster Sound. Finally finding a path through the ice to the west, Parry continued on to Viscount Melville Sound, eventually crossing 110 degrees Longitude, thus allowing him to claim the five thousand pound reward that the government had set.

  Map 2

  Edward Parry’s First Expedition, 1819–1820

  But then, on the very brink of completing the Passage (and the twenty thousand pound prize that came with that feat), Parry ran up against a vast river of ice stretching across his path. Unable to find a way through the ice, he wintered near Melville Island and tried again in the spring. But all his efforts were in vain. The ice was impenetrable.

  What Parry did not realize was that this river of ice originated in the permanent ice fields of the Beaufort Sea far to the northwest, where titanic mountains of ice fifty feet thick were formed. Only later would it be understood that this ice river flows south and east, through Viscount Melville Sound, then abruptly abuts up against Prince of Wales Island and is forced south down McClintock Strait and past King William Island.

  But for Parry there was no alternative. Defeated on the very brink of success, he turned back and sailed home.

  THE LOSS OF THE FURY

  The next year, Parry set out again on his second voyage, this time to attempt a completely different route. Eschewing Baffin Bay altogether, instead he followed Henry Hudson’s old route, passing through Hudson Strait farther south, then turning north into Foxe Basin. The attempt was unsuccessful and again he was thwarted by ice.

  Parry’s third attempt took him over familiar ground as he passed through Lancaster Sound, then turned south down Prince Regent Inlet as he had briefly done when temporarily blocked by ice in 1819 [see map 3]. This time, however, the results were far more disastrous. Icebergs crushed one of his ships, the Fury, against the coast of Somerset Island, forcing him to abandon it and its provisions on Fury Beach. With his entire expedition desperately crowded aboard his other ship, the Hecla, they barely made it out alive.

  Map 3

  Edward Parry’s Third Expedition, 1824–1825

  The Fury was the first ship lost in the modern search for the Passage. The loss of a ship was the ultimate failing in the eyes of the Admiralty. But, though a court martial was convened against Henry Hoppner, the Fury’s commander, he was nonetheless acquitted. Parry and his officers were praised for their efforts. Where John Ross had been ostracized for turning back, Parry was praised for losing a ship.

  JOHN ROSS TRIES AGAIN

  After Parry’s failed third attempt, the government cancelled the twenty-thousand-pound reward for the first ship to traverse the Passage and actively dissuaded others from embarking on the quest. But now John Ross wanted another crack at it. As official channels would not support him (indeed, they cancelled the reward precisely to discourage him), he was forced to seek private backing for his expedition and he found a patron in Felix Booth, a distillery king and sheriff of London. Aboard an eighty-five ton steam packet, the Victory, Ross followed the exact same route that Parry had taken on his third voyage.

  The Victory sailed through Lancaster Sound, then south into Prince Regent Inlet where the expedition wintered on the east shore of Somerset Island and the Boothia Peninsula [see map 4]. For four years, the longest any expedition had yet remained in these waters, Ross was forced to winter on this coast, having chosen a harbour that was too shallow. Thus for three winters he remained trapped, unable to sail clear even when the ice broke up each spring. Finally, Ross had no choice but to abandon the Victory and travel north by foot up the coast to the provisions and small boats abandoned by Parry at Fury Beach. Reaching these, he and his crew attempted to sail out of Prince Regent Inlet in hopes they might be picked up by whalers in Baffin Bay. But they were turned back by ice and forced to spend a fourth winter at Fury Beach, this time without even a ship to keep them warm. In the spring they finally made their escape and were indeed picked up by a ship in Baffin Bay. Thus, in the search for the Northwest Passage, two ships had so far been lost, both on the same coast. This is how things stood when the Franklin expedition was organized. The government had decided it didn’t want anyone else going in search of the Passage. John Ross had gone anyway and nearly perished. Now, after all this, the Admiralty reversed itself with a vengeance.

  THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION

  Map 4

  John Ross’ Second Expedition, 1829–1833

  It organized a final voyage and it organized it well. More money was spent on preparing the Franklin expedition than had been lavished on any previous expedition. The Erebus and Terror were better built and better prepared than any previous ships. The crew of 134 men (reduced to 129 at the last minute) was larger than any crew that had sailed before in search of the Passage. For the first time, the Navy would employ ships capable of self-propulsion in the Arctic. A massive railway locomotive was installed in the hold of each ship, capable of turning a specially adapted screw propeller in the event of an emergency. Terror’s engine could supply twenty horsepower; Erebus’ could offer twenty-five. The ship’s living spaces would be heated by hot water pumped through pipes throughout the ships. Desalinators were built into the galley stoves. All that modern science could offer was to be employed in this one final push into the unknown.

  Which then begs the question: why?

  The Admiralty had earlier decided the search for the Passage simply wasn’t worth the expense. Now it was prepared to spend more than ever. After so many centuries, it was finally understood that the Passage, assuming it really did exist, would never be useable for merchant ships. That ancient dream, to discover a western route to the East, had already died in the harsh light of cold hard geographical reality. The ice was simply too unpredictable. The summer season in the high Arctic was simply too short. Even if the Erebus and Terror were able to batter their way through, there were no ships capable of following in their tracks. Their very invincibility proved the commercial irrelevance of their mission.

  It has become a truism that the Passage grew to be an end in itself; that it was a matter of national honour that the British finish what they had started before any other nation beat them to it. And for many it was. But there were much more economical ways to complete the Passage. Expeditions dispatched overland had already accomplished more than all the sea voyages combined. Franklin’s two treks through the Barren Grounds of Canada had mapped the western leg of the Passage along the roof of the continent. Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson had extended Franklin’s Passage along the continent into the east as far as King William Island until only a tiny stretch remained — somewhere north of King William Island was where the final strait had to lie, if it lay anywhere. One more overland trip would have determined once and for all whether a Passage existed. A dozen men, a few small boats, a single, simple trip — the result would have been the same. The Northwest Passage would have been completed by the British. National honour would have been satisfied.

  So why this final Herculean expedition? Why 129 men? Why waste two unsinkable ships at such phenomenal expense? Why go to so much trouble for something that could have been accomplished for so much less?

  NOT THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE?

  I began by saying I intended to present a hypothesis, but that I would lead into it gradually. To do so, I have presented the facts as they are usually told in history books. It was important to establish the history of this subject before overturning that history, to explain what is
commonly accepted before proposing an alternate interpretation of the facts.

  My hypothesis is simply this: the Franklin expedition was never intended to complete the Northwest Passage. This was not its true purpose. Instead, its true goal was to enter the Arctic in search of something else. What something else? We will get to that soon enough.

  In the meantime, such a suggestion demands evidence. After all, if we suppose the Franklin expedition was searching for something other than the Passage, certain corollaries arise from this hypothesis. For one, the Navy must already have known about this something and must have known where to look, otherwise they could hardly have expected Franklin to find it, no matter how well outfitted his expedition. Thus, it is reasonable to ask: how did the Navy know?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Victory Point Revisited

  When fishes flew and forests walked

  And figs grew upon thorn,

  Some moment when the moon was blood

  Then surely I was born.

  G.K. Chesterton,

  The Donkey

  JOHN ROSS’ SECOND VOYAGE

  As we have seen, sixteen years before the Erebus and Terror sailed on their final voyage, John Ross returned to the top of the world on his second attempt at the Northwest Passage.

  But why, after more than a decade, did Ross now decide he wanted another try at the Passage? Certainly he had always had reason enough to want another go at the prize. Having abruptly (and inexplicably) terminated his first attempt on sighting the imaginary Croker Mountains in 1818, his reputation amongst the Admiralty brass was less than shining. Edward Parry, who had sailed with him on that botched voyage, had gone on to fame and glory (in spite of the loss of the Fury), and in the process proven that Ross’ mountain range did not exist. It is easy enough to see why Ross might have wanted another try at the Passage. But why now? Why after so long?

  Initially Ross sought official support for his venture, but the Admiralty would have nothing to do with him. It refused to support any more quests for the Passage. Just to drive home its point, it cancelled the twenty-thousand-pound reward that had stood available since Ross’ first attempt and it eliminated the Board of Longitude whose duty it was to judge such matters.

  Ross was determined. So determined that he sank three thousand pounds of his own money into the endeavour before finally securing an additional seventeen thousand from a private source, Felix Booth, Sheriff of London. It wasn’t much but it was enough to purchase the Victory, a small sidewheel steamer that had been used to run between Liverpool and the Isle of Man.

  With a crew of twenty-eight, the Victory set out from Woolwich in May 1829. With the weather on his side, Ross breezed through Baffin Bay into Lancaster Sound, then south down Prince Regent Inlet as far as Fury Beach where Parry had abandoned his ship, the Fury [see map 4]. After some difficulty, Ross managed to collect some of the provisions left by Parry on the beach, then proceeded south once more.

  There were two main goals for this voyage. One was to discover the exact location of the North Magnetic Pole. It wasn’t then known that the Magnetic Pole is not stationary but drifts gradually over decades; it was known that the Pole lay in the vicinity of Somerset Island and the Boothia Peninsula. Indeed, its proximity rendered compasses virtually useless on this leg of the journey. (The Magnetic Pole is entirely different from the Geographic North Pole, which is the point around which the planet turns and which is fixed at ninety degrees latitude, far to the north of the Magnetic Pole.) The second purpose of the expedition was to discover whether or not there was a strait through the land-mass of Boothia-Somerset.

  At the time, little was known about this area. Though it was eventually discovered that Boothia is connected at its southern end to the Canadian mainland (making it a peninsula), it was thought at the time that there might actually be a strait separating the two, which would serve as a link in the Northwest Passage. Conversely, it was not known then that there was a strait (albeit, not a useable one) separating Boothia from Somerset to the north (making Somerset an island). For the purposes of this book, we will generally refer to Somerset as an island and Boothia as a peninsula, even when speaking of periods when they were not yet identified as such.

  Before he could determine whether or not a strait existed along the coast, Ross ran into heavy ice and was forced to take shelter in a harbour, where the Victory settled in for the winter. As we have seen, the harbour turned out to be too shallow, trapping Ross for three years and eventually forcing him to abandon the Victory and make his escape on foot.

  JAMES CLARK ROSS AND KING WILLIAM ISLAND

  In early January of the first winter some local Inuit arrived, and it was through their assistance in procuring game that John Ross’ expedition survived at all. Furthermore, the Inuit were able to supply details about the surrounding geography.

  Ross’ nephew, James Clark Ross (who would later gain his fame through explorations in the Antarctic), set out from the Victory several times by dogsledge to explore the countryside. During one of the first of these forays, an Inuk named Ooblooria led James Clark Ross across the peninsula to its west coast to show him a strait that, Ross was told, remained ice-free in the summer [see map 5]. Thinking this passage might lead to the Pacific, James Clark Ross set out again in May for this same point on the west coast, taking two dogsleds, three weeks of provisions and a skin boat. He was accompanied by Abernethy, the ship’s mate, and three other men.

  But, this time, when they reached the western coast, the group crossed out onto the ice. Passing islands as they went, Ross found it difficult to tell the hummock-covered water from the lowlying land. He wrote: “When all is ice, and all one dazzling mass of white — when the surface of the sea itself is tossed up and fixed into rocks, while the land is, on the contrary, very often flat, it is not always so easy a problem as it might seem.”1

  Finally, he reached his destination, a long, low shore he had sighted from Boothia. He named this King William Land, thinking it was likely connected to Boothia somewhere to the southwest. In fact, it was an island. This mistake, more than anything else, has been historically cited as the cause of the Franklin tragedy. Because Franklin was not aware of the strait that separated King William Island’s east coast from Boothia Peninsula, he instead attempted to pass the island on its west coast thus running straight into the impenetrable ice stream that flows forever down from the pack in the Beaufort Sea.

  With his companions, James Clark Ross sledged directly to the northern tip of the island which he named Cape Felix. Then, steering a course down its west coast, Ross continued on with only Abernethy accompanying him. Finally, he reached a point of land where he planted the flag and which he called Victory Point. Here Ross erected a cairn, leaving inside a record detailing his expedition’s accomplishments to date. In the distance, across a yawning bay, he could make out another headland, which he christened — in what would be the eeriest irony of all — Cape Franklin. About his choice, Ross explained: “If that be a name which has now been conferred on more places than one, these honours, not in fact so solid when so widely shared, are beyond all thought less than the merits of that officer deserve.”2

  Map 5

  James Clark Ross Sledges to Victory Point, 1830

  With provisions running low, Ross and his companions retreated to the Victory, even then nearly failing in the return journey. Only two of the eight dogs survived, and the humans would also have perished if they had not run into Inuit who fed them before sending them on to the ship. Unable to free the Victory in the spring, the expedition settled down for a second winter. Early the next year, 1831, James Clark Ross set off once again, this time successfully discovering the location of the North Magnetic Pole on the west coast of Boothia. In the meantime, through information obtained from their Inuit visitors, the two Rosses learned that Boothia was, in fact, a peninsula, and that there was no strait through it leading to the west water. James Clark Ross, however, was unable to prove this definitively during his many sl
edge trips, and thus the theory of the strait continued long after the expedition returned to England two years later.

  AN ASTONISHING COINCIDENCE?

  When considering Ross’ second expedition, several features stand out. The most obvious is the remarkable coincidence of James Clark Ross’ trip to the northwest tip of King William Island, for it was precisely here that Franklin’s ships would be trapped during the fatal expedition to come. On the northern tip that Ross named Cape Felix, evidence would be found of a camp established there by the crews of the doomed ships. When the last survivors abandoned their vessels and marched across the implacable ice to shore, they reached the island at Ross’ Victory Point. Indeed, they left their final record in the cairn erected by him (or, at least, this is what they attempted).

  James Clark Ross visited no other part of King William Island, nor did he return there, even though the Victory was trapped for two more winters. Why did he not pay a further visit to the southwest corner of the island? He thought he had found a Passage, but only by going farther south on the island could he have known for certain. Moreover, he had observed massive ice sheets thrust up on the shore as much as half a mile. Even if he thought King William Island was attached to the Boothia Peninsula, why didn’t he check the east coast of the island to be certain, knowing that a strait — any strait — would have been preferable to that heaving river of ice to the west? Other questions become apparent. There were two main purposes to the expedition: to find the North Magnetic Pole and to determine whether or not there was a way through Boothia-Somerset. Whatever their plans, James Clark Ross could not be certain there would be a second winter. The staying power of any Arctic expedition was unpredictable, none more so than this one. The Victory was never made for voyaging in the Arctic ice. They carried provisions for three years (thanks partly to Parry’s stocks left at Fury Beach), but food alone was not enough to survive. To combat scurvy required fresh meat, something that only their Inuit visitors could supply. During that first winter, there could have been no guarantee the Inuit would stay another season as they did. Surely, he should have tracked down the Magnetic Pole sometime during the first winter. He had to pass the Pole in order to reach King William Island. The discovery of the Pole was the main reason Felix Booth had sponsored the venture in the first place.