N70 59 W 096 52, Pressure 1009, water temp 2.2, air temp 0 UTC 0530 10 Sept, Victoria Strait
Still plodding up Victoria Strait against a head wind. Past King William Island on our starboard. Up into Larson Sound, and after my watch, into Franklin Strait. Ready for the Bellot tomorrow. It will be a big milestone for us.
This whole area is renowned for sadness and sorrow.
The North West Passage was the holy grail. A short cut to China. Many had tried. At a time when Britain wasn’t fighting a Naval war, we had a glut of officers and ships, so to conquer new worlds was the order of the day. Sir John Franklin set out in 1845 with two ships, the Erebus and Terror and 129 men. All were lost, never to be seen again. This was the area they struggled to survive in a brutal environment, with poor clothing, food and skills. Gradually a picture has been built up over the years of their torrid time. With skeletons and graves all around this very area. Recently, they found one of the ships in the Victoria Strait and new findings will piece together these heroic men.
Whenever I go to London, just off Pall Mall, there is a statue of Scott, on the opposite side of the square is a memorial to Franklin and his men. I always go and nod my respects to both great Englishmen.
David
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Thank you David for the local history. It is a harrowing process thinking of those brave unfortunates. I, for one, cannot help but attempt to conceptualise the realisation that they must have had, at some point, that failure was imminent. To see and feel the unstoppable onset of Arctic winter. The shortening of days, the bitter plummeting of temperatures and the very sea itself becoming unnavigable as it changes state. To know that the route ahead is unknown and to venture back means travelling North again, the very source of the extreme cold. All the time the seasonal door closing. There would be no distress signal to send nor any near future rescue imminent. Would their demise have been civilised or chaotic?
It is important, I feel, to remember and acknowledge these brave souls. These are the sorts who don’t rest upon the success of others; those who push at boundaries to expand the world of mankind, whether it be for fame or fortune, or just the adventure itself.
I also hold Ernest Shackleton in highest regard. His failed 1914-1917 expedition to cross Antarctica being exemplary for his leadership. To keep all of his crew alive through the bitterness and darkness of a polar winter. To not allow spirits to falter through these extremes. To convince his crew that they were capable of dragging lifeboats over miles of floating ice to open waters and then navigate to Elephant Island, an uninhabited ‘dot’ in the Southern Ocean, (having survived some 457 days on the water, be it liquid or solid). To have McNish, the carpenter, make a lifeboat seaworthy with very basic and limited resources, making a watertight deck with canvas sealed with paint and seal blood. Worsley’s unbelievable navigations skills to find tiny islands in vast ocean expanses. To have this boat survive a hurricane that sunk ships within sight of South Georgia and then have to climb over mountains to reach Stromness with only 50feet of rope and a carpenters adze. To then go back and face the sea ice around Elephant Island in a boat he’d acquired through persuasion, to rescue the rest of his crew. Incredible.
Best regards.
Thank you for this thoughtful reflection. The Franklin story is truly one of the greatest epics of human history, and Sir John himself, as an Arctic explorer, was larger than life, in many ways. It must be amazing, to be able to travel quite literally in the wake of all those brave men and to follow the trail they blazed. I often wonder what they would think if they could see the Arctic now.