CAMBRIDGE BAY, Nunavut, and OTTAWA — The search for the remnants of an ill-fated British expedition that failed to cross the Northwest Passage — and a seminal moment in Canada’s history on Arctic sovereignty — will start anew.
In the coming weeks, a group of researchers will scour Canada’s Arctic waters to find Sir John Franklin’s two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, led by a ship named for an Arctic researcher who perished in a plane crash last year.
The renewal of Parks Canada’s search for the lost Franklin vessels, anticipated last week by Postmedia News, follows three recent federal expeditions that failed to locate Erebus and Terror but ruled out huge swaths of the Arctic Ocean seabed as possible resting places for the sunken ships.
That fact alone should increase the chances of success this year, and discovering one of the wrecks would generate massive international attention because of the tragic history surrounding the Franklin saga and the enduring mystery of the ships’ whereabouts.
In the coming weeks, a group of researchers will scour Canada’s Arctic waters to find Sir John Franklin’s two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, led by a ship named for an Arctic researcher who perished in a plane crash last year.
The renewal of Parks Canada’s search for the lost Franklin vessels, anticipated last week by Postmedia News, follows three recent federal expeditions that failed to locate Erebus and Terror but ruled out huge swaths of the Arctic Ocean seabed as possible resting places for the sunken ships.
That fact alone should increase the chances of success this year, and discovering one of the wrecks would generate massive international attention because of the tragic history surrounding the Franklin saga and the enduring mystery of the ships’ whereabouts.
