Delving into the research, he describes the intertwined careers of the two men who shared the ship’s journeys: Ross, the organizational genius who mapped much of the Antarctic coastline and oversaw some of the earliest scientific experiments to be conducted there and Franklin, who, at the age of sixty and after a checkered career, commanded the ship on its last disastrous venture. Palin travels across the world-from Tasmania to the Falkland Islands and the Canadian Arctic-to offer a firsthand account of the terrain and conditions that would have confronted the Erebus and her doomed final crew. It was rediscovered under the arctic waters in 2014. Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of the Erebus and its occupants to life, from its construction as a bomb vessel in 1826 through the flagship years of James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition and finally to Sir John Franklin’s quest for the holy grail of navigation-a route through the Northwest Passage, where the ship disappeared into the depths of the sea for more than 150 years. The astonishing findings garnered international attention.ĪRF’s collaborative, community-focused approach had just paid its first big dividend.Audiobook Available ( Complete List from Greystone)ĭriven by a passion for travel and history and a love of ships and the sea, former Monty Python stalwart and beloved television globe-trotter Michael Palin explores the world of HMS Erebus, last seen on an ill-fated voyage to chart the Northwest Passage. They included the ship’s brass bell, a brass “six pounder” cannon, ceramic plates and illuminators that were used to bring sunlight from the ship’s deck into the quarters below. Subsequent dives on the Erebus-including through the ice in the spring of 2015-yielded a treasure trove of Franklin artifacts. Refocusing their side-scan sonar on a nearby seabed, the ghostly image of the HMS Erebus soon crawled across the screen. This was, in fact, a Royal Navy davit, part of the mechanism the Erebus would have used to lower smaller boats into the water. While the trio revisited the rocky beach, helicopter pilot Andrew Stirling noticed a large, U-shaped piece of rusted iron leaning against a rock. Hydrographer Scott Youngblutt, Doug Stenton, Nunavut’s heritage director, and Robert Park, an archaeologist from the University of Waterloo, had earlier spotted the remains of an Inuit campsite in the gulf. The apparent setback turned out to be a stroke of luck. Heading south to the relatively ice-free Queen Maud Gulf, the R/V Martin Bergmann and Sir Wilfred Laurier waited for circumstances to improve. Initial searches of the Victoria Strait were halted due to weather and ice conditions. Its location was both a triumph of cooperation and a validation of Inuit oral history, which had long suggested one of Franklin’s two ships had been abandoned there. Named after the former director of the Polar Continental Shelf Program, the R/V Martin Bergmann was a key part of the search along with three other large ships-the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Kingston and an adventure cruise ship called One Ocean Voyager.īy 2014, the mission had its first big success, when Erebus was discovered in the shallow waters of the eastern Queen Maud Gulf. In 2011, ARF joined the effort, procuring a Newfoundland shipping trawler to refurbish into a dedicated research vessel. In 2008, Parks Canada began a new search for the two missing ships.
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