Just as they were setting sail, a dove settled on one of the masts, and remained there for some time. Every one was pleased with the good omen, and if it be an omen of peace and harmony, I think there is every reason of its being true.
The expedition was already out of view when the Times trumpeted:
There appears to be but one wish amongst the whole of the inhabitants of this country, from the humblest individual to the highest in the realm, that the enterprise in which the officers and crew are about to be engaged may be attended with success, and that the brave seamen employed in the undertaking, may return with honour and health to their native land.
One week later, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Roderick Murchison, summed up the public mood in a speech: “The name of Franklin alone is, indeed, a national guarantee.” Besides, the geographical obstacles were by now judged to be not all that great: The cumulative discoveries of preceding Arctic expeditions—Parry, John Ross, George Back, and Franklin’s among them—had resulted in the mapping of much of the southern Arctic archipelago. By 1845, stretches of less than 62 miles (100 km) remained to be explored, and it was to close those gaps that Franklin sailed.
After calling briefly at Stromness Harbour on the island of Orkney, the expedition left Britain for the last time. A transport vessel, the Barretto Junior, laden with stores such as ten live oxen, accompanied the ships to the Whalefish Islands in Disco Bay on the west coast of Greenland, where the oxen were slaughtered for fresh meat and supplies transferred to the Erebus and Terror. Harry Goodsir wrote to his uncle from Greenland that, “we have got 10,000 cases of preserved ready cooked meats on board the Erebus alone so you see there is no chance of starving.” It was also while at the Whalefish Islands that the first tins of preserved meat, carrots and potatoes were opened, and the contents served to the expedition’s officers.
Franklin also wrote a letter in which he said his final goodbye to Lady Franklin. It was a message full of optimism:
Let me now assure you, my dearest Jane, that I am amply provided with every requisite for my passage, and that I am entering on my voyage comforted with every hope of God’s merciful guidance and protection, and that He will bless, comfort and protect you, my dearest… and all my other relatives. Oh, how much I wish I could write to each of them to assure them of the happiness I feel in my officers, my crew, and my ship!
Fitzjames sent home a journal in which he described the journey from Stromness to Disco—as well as many of his companions—and outlined his feelings for Franklin: “We are very happy, and very fond of Sir John Franklin, who improves very much as we come to know more of him. He is anything but nervous or fidgety: in fact I should say remarkable for energetic decision in sudden emergencies.”
The respect felt for Franklin was widely shared. A formal but affable character, Franklin was well-liked by his men. Lieutenant James Walter Fairholme, a 24-year-old officer aboard the Erebus, wrote to his family explaining, “he has such experience and judgement that we all look on his decisions with the greatest respect. I never felt that the Captain was so much my companion with anyone I have sailed with before.”
After saying farewell, Lieutenant Edward Griffiths, commanding the Barretto Junior, sailed back to Britain. He took with him members of the expedition, making a total of five who had already become ill enough to be sent home: three petty officers, one Royal Marine and an able seaman. Griffiths later described the spirits of the expedition as high and observed that the supplies, including the quality of the tinned foods, seemed quite satisfactory for the planned voyage.
A dog named Neptune and a pet monkey named Jacko accompanied the 129 sailors when, on 12 July, they pushed westward. Their last contact with the outside world came at the end of July, in Baffin Bay, where they met two whaling ships, one named Prince of Wales, the other, Enterprise. Franklin was waiting for conditions to allow for a crossing of Baffin Bay to Lancaster Sound. Captain Dannett of the Prince of Wales reported inviting Franklin and several of his officers aboard. “Both ships’ crews are all well, and in remarkable spirits, expecting to finish the operation in good time. They are made fast to a large iceberg, with a temporary observatory fixed upon it,” Dannett recorded in his log.
Captain Robert Martin of the Enterprise noted that Franklin said he had provisions for five years, and if it were necessary he could “make them spin out seven years.” Martin added that Franklin told him he would “lose no opportunity of killing birds and whatever else was useful that came in the way, to keep up their stock, and that he had plenty of powder and shot for the purpose.”
Martin was invited to dine aboard the Erebus, but shifting winds sent the ships apart, and so it was that in early August 1845, Franklin and his crews lost contact with their world. The Erebus and Terror were last seen making for Lancaster Sound, the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage, where they would enter the desert of silence beyond.
Puny
EFFORTS
THERE WAS NO anxiety at first. Unease about the status of the Franklin expedition only crept into the minds of the Admiralty’s London officials at the end of 1847. In March 1848, the need for a relief expedition was first raised in the House of Commons, where a confidant of Jane, Lady Franklin asked what, if any, steps the government might take regarding a search. The response confirmed that there was cause for concern, because the expedition had enough food only for three years, meaning its supplies would shortly be exhausted. None could have guessed that their worst nightmares were already about to play themselves out on the desolation of King William Island.
In 1848, the Admiralty dispatched three expeditions to relieve Sir John Franklin. Captain Henry Kellet was instructed to sail to the Bering Strait, where Franklin was to break free of the Arctic ice; a second expedition, under the command of Sir James Clark Ross, was sent into Lancaster Sound, following Franklin’s original route, and an overland party led by Dr. John Rae and Sir John Richardson was sent down the Mackenzie River. It was the failure of all three of these relief expeditions to find a trace of Franklin that finally sparked the fear that something might have gone terribly wrong. Ross’s experiences especially contributed to the growing sense of foreboding.
With Franklin’s disappearance, Ross’s wife’s entreaties—now coloured by the knowledge that it might have been her husband for whom they sought—were overridden by the Admiralty’s orders for Ross to command one of the relief expeditions. Rather than relieve Franklin, however, Ross very nearly replicated the disaster.
Ross, with his wealth of Arctic experience, well understood the need to defend against scurvy. When the Enterprise and Investigator, two barque-rigged sailing vessels, departed the Thames in tow of two steam tugs on 12 May 1848, the ships had been provisioned for three years, with an additional year’s stores for Franklin’s crews. The ships carried plenty of preserved meats as well as canned potatoes, carrots and mixed vegetables such as beets and cabbage; while the expedition still carried salt beef and salt pork, tinned foods constituted the bulk of the provisions. In consequence, Ross remarked that his Franklin relief voyage was exceptionally outfitted by the navy. “Long experience and liberal means gave us many comforts that no other expedition had enjoyed,” Ross would later write, “yet it is remarkable that the health of the crew suffered more during this winter than on any former occasion.”
As winter quarters for