The Vanished Northwest Passage Arctic Expedition

The Vanished Northwest Passage Arctic Expedition
Author: Lisa M. Bolt Simons
Publisher: Capstone
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2022
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1663958920

In 1845, Sir John Franklin commanded two ships on an expedition to find a Northwest Passage from England through the Arctic and over to Asia. If successful, the route would be a faster way to get goods from Asia to Europe and back. But success was not in the cards for Franklin's expedition. Only recently, the sunken ships were discovered in the icy Arctic waters. What happened to Franklin and his men, and what messages did they leave behind?

Discovering the North-West Passage

Discovering the North-West Passage
Author: Glenn M. Stein
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2015-10-27
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1476622035

From 1850 to 1854, the ambitious Commander Robert McClure captained the HMS Investigator on a voyage in search of the missing Franklin Expedition, which sailed from England into the Arctic in 1845 to map the last uncharted section of the North-West Passage. The Investigator and her consort the Enterprise were to pass through the Bering Strait from the west but a Pacific storm separated them, never to meet again. Obsessed with traversing the passage, McClure pressed on and HMS Investigator spent three years trapped in pack ice in Mercy Bay before the crew abandoned ship on foot. This book chronicles the voyage in detail. McClure and his relationships with his officers are at the heart of the story of the arduous journey, vividly illustrated by the paintings of Lt. Samuel Cresswell.

After the Lost Franklin Expedition

After the Lost Franklin Expedition
Author: Peter Baxter
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2019-01-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1526727382

A historian examines a disastrous, Victorian-era expedition in the Canadian Arctic, a shocking revelation, and the celebrity fallout that followed. The fate of the lost Franklin Expedition of 1847 is an enigma that has tantalized generations of historians, archaeologists, and adventurers. The expedition was lost without a trace, and all 129 men died in what is arguably the worst disaster in Britain’s history of polar exploration. In the aftermath of the crew’s disappearance, Lady Jane Franklin, Sir John’s widow, maintained a crusade to secure her husband’s reputation, imperiled alongside him and his crew in the frozen wastes of the Arctic. Lady Franklin was an uncommon woman for her age, a socially and politically astute figure who attacked anyone whom she viewed as a threat to her husband’s legacy. Meanwhile, John Rae, an explorer and employee of the Hudson Bay Company, recovered deeply disturbing information from the Expedition. His shocking conclusions embroiled him in a bitter dispute with Lady Franklin which led to the ruin of his reputation and career. Against the background of Victorian society and the rise of the explorer celebrity, we learn of Lady Franklin’s formidable grit to honor her husband’s legacy; of John Rae being discredited and his eventual downfall, despite later being proven right. It is a fascinating assessment of the aftermath of the Franklin Expedition and its legacy.

The Man who Ate His Boots

The Man who Ate His Boots
Author: Anthony Brandt
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2011
Genre: Arctic regions
ISBN: 0224082310

Brandt tells the fascinating whole story of the search for the Northwest Passage, from its beginnings early in the age of exploration through its development into a British national obsession to the final sordid, terrible descent into scurvy, starvation, and cannibalism.

Trial by Ice

Trial by Ice
Author: Richard Parry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2009-01-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307492125

“An extraordinary real-life adventure of men battling the elements and themselves, told with ice-cold precision.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred review) In the dark years following the Civil War, America’s foremost Arctic explorer, Charles Francis Hall, became a figure of national pride when he embarked on a harrowing, landmark expedition. With financial backing from Congress and the personal support of President Grant, Captain Hall and his crew boarded the Polaris, a steam schooner carefully refitted for its rigorous journey, and began their quest to be the first men to reach the North Pole. Neither the ship nor its captain would ever return. What transpired was a tragic death and whispers of murder, as well as a horrifying ordeal through the heart of an Arctic winter, when men fought starvation, madness, and each other upon the ever-shifting ice. Trial by Ice is an incredible adventure that pits men against the natural elements and their own fragile human nature. In this powerful true story of death and survival, courage and intrigue aboard a doomed ship, Richard Parry chronicles one of the most astonishing, little known tragedies at sea in American history. “ABSORBING . . . Suspense builds as Parry describes the events leading up to Hall’s ‘murder,’ then climaxes in horrifying detail.” –Publishers Weekly “RIVETING.” –Library Journal

Ice Ghosts

Ice Ghosts
Author: Paul Watson
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0771096534

The true story of the greatest mystery of Arctic exploration—and the rare mix of marine science and Inuit knowledge that led to the shipwreck's recent discovery. Ice Ghosts weaves together the epic story of the Franklin Expedition—whose two ships and crew of 129 were lost to the Arctic ice—with the modern tale of the scientists, divers, and local Inuit behind the incredible discovery of the flagship's wreck in 2014. Paul Watson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was on the icebreaker that led the discovery expedition, tells a fast-paced historical adventure story: Sir John Franklin and the crew of the HMS Erebus and Terror setting off in search of the fabled Northwest Passage, the hazards they encountered and the reasons they were forced to abandon ship hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost of Western civilization, and the decades of searching that turned up only rumours of cannibalism and a few scattered papers and bones—until a combination of faith in Inuit lore and the latest science yielded a discovery for the ages.

The Spectral Arctic

The Spectral Arctic
Author: Shane McCorristine
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1787352455

Visitors to the Arctic enter places that have been traditionally imagined as otherworldly. This strangeness fascinated audiences in nineteenth-century Britain when the idea of the heroic explorer voyaging through unmapped zones reached its zenith. The Spectral Arctic re-thinks our understanding of Arctic exploration by paying attention to the importance of dreams and ghosts in the quest for the Northwest Passage. The narratives of Arctic exploration that we are all familiar with today are just the tip of the iceberg: they disguise a great mass of mysterious and dimly lit stories beneath the surface. In contrast to oft-told tales of heroism and disaster, this book reveals the hidden stories of dreaming and haunted explorers, of frozen mummies, of rescue balloons, visits to Inuit shamans, and of the entranced female clairvoyants who travelled to the Arctic in search of John Franklin’s lost expedition. Through new readings of archival documents, exploration narratives, and fictional texts, these spectral stories reflect the complex ways that men and women actually thought about the far North in the past. This revisionist historical account allows us to make sense of current cultural and political concerns in the Canadian Arctic about the location of Franklin’s ships.

The Other Side of the Ice

The Other Side of the Ice
Author: Sprague Theobald
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2012-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1616086238

Traces the author's family's eight thousand five hundred mile voyage along the dangerous Northwest Passage, describing the divorce-related mistrust and the formidable environmental factors that posed constant threats.