Too bad I still haven't hit the lottery... I'd happily pay to refloat the Terror and bring it to a museum.

Of course, since these are British Military ships, they don't know where most of their crewmembers died, and even though they were on a peaceful mission, they may well be treated as war shrines. Any decisions respecting removing one or both would require a long decision process involving the Canadian and British governments, the Nunavut government, and I am sure, the Inuit and scientists and historians from both countries.

The ships are still Royal Navy property, and the British government has the right to claim any of the artifacts that may be raised.

Frankly, I seriously doubt approval would be given, even if a sugar daddy paid the bills.

Steve Hunter

As another season rolls around, Parks Canada will be back at Franklin's ships.

Of note to this forum, one of their main goals is to try to get an ROV into the engine room of HMS Erebus, hopefully giving us our first look at the former locomotive used as the ship's engine.

It seems to be a year for preparation of marine assets, which hopefully will let them do far more exploration next year.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/fra ... -1.4241633

Steve Hunter

Don't know what if anything this means for the locomotives but the wrecks of Erebus and Terror have been given to the Government of Canada, they were until now still officially the property of the Royal Navy (United Kingdom).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/franklin-expedition-ships-canada-owner-1.4367419

In related news there is a TV dramatization of the Franklin Expedition coming to AMC in March which looks promising. A trailer is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaRAi5P9lPo

Pat Hosford

Interesting. I wonder if they are going to do intense salvage on the two ships in order to bring up the engines?

BTW: that dramatization is not a docudrama but yet another horror anthology show, this one based on Dan Simmon's novel The Terror.

With the current season, further explorations appear to be taking place.......
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/in ... ar-AAGsEF8

I have read a news item in The Guardian and they specifically want to recover artifacts, especially documents.

Removing the engines would require deconstruction of the ships, and I doubt that is on anyone's plan.

Would they lift the entire ship? There are examples here in Scandinavia, but their location is soooo remote. And what would be the exhibit destination?

Lastly, it is pretty clear that the crew abandoned the ships. They did not die onboard. So it is not a grave site.

Just wagering a guess based on what I know of the Franklin Expedition, I don't think every crewmember's remains were accounted for... So maybe it's a matter of playing it safe on the off chance that someone did die onboard one of the ships and is still there?

Well, go dig up the latest news. My reading is that they left the ships as a large group, in an orderly fashion. That means, if someone died before they left the ship, I would guess they gave them a correct burial.

Actually, today's story was in the Washington Post. 105 men are counted as leaving the ships, and 24 died before abandonment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/29/arctic-canada-hms-terror-found-frozen/

During World War II, the RCMP schooner St. Roche was reassigned to Halifax, Nova Scotia from Vancouver. After the war, she was reassigned back to Vancouver. Both transits were made via the NW Passage. On both transits, her RCMP navigator was assisted by Inuit navigators. The RCMP was quite amazed at the level of navigational accuracy demonstrated by the Inuits. On a second reassignment to Halifax in the 1950s, the St. Roche transited the Panama Canal on both her outbound and return voyages. Returning to Vancouver, the St. Roche was retired to a maritime museum where she now sits in drydock. St. Roche was the first ship to ever circumnavigate North America.