The Location of Port Leopold was outstanding, a characteristic of the Royal Navy’s best officers, they beset themselves in great locations, where the ice breaks up early, where it breaks without causing damage to their unseemingly fragile hulls. Ross also surely believed that further to the South, Old Somerset house would have been visited if desperation was at play. It was left damaged by bears and the weather, without giving any trace from Franklin’s men. This was a very bad omen, the First rescue effort came back without a clue, nothing, Franklin, apparently disobeyed direct Admiralty orders asking him to leave as many messages as possible. Limestone is straight East and quite in sight from Cape Walker, another Admiralty key way point. Surely Franklin would have cared to set something at the base of this impressive geological structure. This would have dramatically cut down the number of search ships about to come, a massive armada of brave sailors was unleashed, breaching the limits of the known just to save their unknown colleagues. Leaving nothing written, even on Beechey Island, cursed
A few years later, Browne came back, leaving James Ross to worry from the dejection found only in failure. Further rejection is yet to come, this time visceral and unforgiving, cursed is he who finds the doomed, for he will bring forth the gravest news, shaking Victorians heads eager to deny and defend the honour of foolish officers at all costs, what happened was not to be accepted for 140 years, until Thomas like historians and Lords have seen the hole in their thoughts, put their fingers on the cut bones and became mute or completely disillusioned. Cursed are they as well, for they didn’t believe Doctor Rae, causing a failure in the bridge of understanding between Europeans and Inuit, the bridge collapsed under Dickens mere words, leaving all to believe that “savages” would lie for a spoon. The bridge is still under construction.
In 1851, stationed near Resolute Bay, Browne of the HMS Resolute, William Browne under Austin, set forth to Cape Walker, a sure location for a document, for it was ordered to Franklin to find this point. Hence Browne sledged from Griffith Island, no dogs, just men dragging their sledge faithfully called Enterprise. No dogs? Well it might have been thought incorrectly that the slow 1 or 2 mile an hour sledging pace would give more time to observe around, in fact it did the opposite, dogs were instrumental under James Ross discovery of the magnetic North Pole 16 years prior, Browne’s discoveries would have been more accurate and extensive if he had a dog team. But James Ross and uncle, seemed to have lost favor, they were heroes just for a few days, their success recipes misplaced in the Scottish library of jokes. McClintock –with dogs! Found a great deal about Franklin, some 8 years later. Between 1848 and McClintock’s
Cape Walker, the further Eastern point of Russell Island was perfectly empty, left devoid of any cairns from Franklin, future search expeditions will from this point take another turn, Northwards instead of South since both key geographical markers at the northern door frame of Peel sound were left devoid of any Franklin message. From this it was easy to conclude that Erebus and Terror were not South of the Cape. This in itself lessened the eagerness of sledge Enterprise men to continue straight towards the actual location of all the facts about Franklin. Browne and sledge crew enterprise were ironically heading in the right direction, but they stopped well short, surely thinking about the futility in looking when Franklin didn’t leave any messages, but they kept on going for a further 70 miles South despite any sign of life.
some great part to diligent hard working navigators, and also thanks to, in some small part ,
the disappearance of the Franklin expedition. In fact maps done during the search for Franklin were not changed for more than 100 years. But there was one big problem with them, and all other Polar region maps. The Navigation almanacs were flawed. Refraction corrections were incorrect. All almanacs are still incorrect as of August 2001.
Find an explanation about Polar refraction at the following site: EH2r.
Browne in this case had several high precision instruments. Two of these were crucial, a chronometer and a sextant, one could not work well if the other was flawed. He attempted to follow a preset course, eliminating deviations and getting good fixes on the next and preceding Way Points. Time accuracy is crucial especially for longitude but also for latitude. As we shall see, Browne’s mechanical time piece kept time very well. However, his navigation tables, already so often tested, were not adequate for the Arctic. Cold Polar air was never a proving ground for sextant accuracy.
Using Browne as an example, as you can see a modern map in the background, shows
just how much Browne was off. The inaccuracy projected is deceptive. Browne can’t really be compared with a modern topographic map based on aircraft pictures. He made a few survey measurements while not sledging. Comparing sums it up like this: Browne walked through a mountain while he thought he was on the ice(his trail is the dotted lines), the l islands to the South are completely misplaced, Browne Bay seems to have been completely misjudged.
that Browne was extremely accurate given that he had the right correction tables. Remember he only measured a few key points all while “guessing”, for a lack of a better word, the spaces in between. Distances due to low contrast resolution were very deceptive, all objects were mostly covered with snow, seen from sea ice equally covered with snow, the border between sea and land was not so easily obtained. Unless making a measurement directly from a site, the location of all other “guessed” topography was most likely not acquired correctly.
Browne’s map needed a latitude correction of about 5 to 6 miles on most of his measurements.
A latitude correction indicates an error within his tables. And so it is safe to estimate that Browne’s refraction tables were off by a significant distance. This error can be applied to the Franklin expedition sole measurements, they’ve most likely used the same instruments and tables. So, the ships should have been beset 5 miles Northwards, the message cairns were in fact 5 miles Northwards, McClintock’s true boat site should have been Northwards. The area of undersea junk or garbage where the Franklin ships were beset has been narrowed down a lot.
His voyage on the Fox started in the fall of 1858, in a small steamer, in the Arctic size don’t really matter, just skills. After a brief visit in Ponds Bay (modern Pond Inlet) he was easily persuaded by pack ice not to go down Peel Sound, he chose as alternate Bellot Strait, alas Bellot Strait offered a massive dangerous ice strewn current. The Fox small engine was unable to surpass its strength, after several attempts it moored at Port Kennedy, named after the Canadian co-discoverer of the Strait who was Bellot’s companion in 1854. Perhaps the best location to moor a ship in the Arctic, Port Kennedy was adjacent to a tide driven current which sometimes leaves the Strait with open water even in the dead of winter. Two West Greenland Inuit guides and interpreters were key in acquiring fresh food and travelling by dog teams. Port Kennedy was ideal in terms of proximity of two vast depots of food to the North, Fury Beach and Port Leopold, had vast food stores, left on purpose on the latter, and McClintock wisely used them.
The idea of sledging without dogs was abandoned, unfortunately too late, McClintock , Hobson, and Petersen (the Inuk), left Port Kennedy a second time, April 2 1859. If only dogs would have been used in 1848, some Franklin crew would have survived. Their February trek was exciting, they made First Contact, with one of the last Inuit tribes unknown to Europeans, but they were travelling in the
“On the first of March we halted to encamp at about the position of the magnetic pole – for no cairn remains to mark the spot. I had almost concluded that my journey would prove to be a work of labour in vain, because hitherto no traces of Esquimaux had been met with, and….” “ But we have done nothing more than look ahead; when we halted, and turned around , great indeed was my surprise and joy to see four men walking after us…” “The natives halted, made fast their dogs, laid down their spears, and received us without any evidence of surprise.” “ Next morning the entire village population arrived…” “All the old people recollected the visit of the ‘Victory’. An old man told me his name was “Ooblooria:” I recollected that Sir James Ross had employed a man of that name as a guide, and reminded him of it; he was, in fact, the same individual, and he inquired after Sir James by his Esquimaux name “Aggluka.”” --From Voyage on the Fox.
The same “Aggluka” has recently and often been confused for Franklin or Crozier, those who are certain about this, need to read Voyage on the Fox . “Aggluka” is James Ross, nobody else. The fact that McClintock was not able to find the Cairn at the magnetic North Pole is not surprising, both Ross and McClintock measured their positions at different dates and times, refraction errors vary with the temperature of the entire atmosphere.
On his way to King William Island and the discovery of the boat site, McClintock made more encouraging discoveries, he sledged back to the area he was 2 months earlier:
“…In latitude 70.5 degrees North, we met two families of natives, comprising 12 individuals; their snow-huts were upon the ice…. After much anxious inquiry we learned that two ships had been seen by the natives of King William Island; one of them was seen to sink in deep water, and nothing was
This story is a match with recent oral account of two ships, one drifted on the Boothia west coast at a place now called by Natsilingmiu Inuit ‘Haviktaliq’, the other went whence it came (Northwards, please read page 1). The location of Cape Victoria is eerily almost straight across from a known position of both ships beset as given by one of two notes left by the expedition:
“28 of May 1847 Latitude 70 degrees 5 minutes North longitude 98 degrees 23 minutes West…”
– From Commader Gore with Lieutenant Des Voeux along with a crew of 6 who left a note near Victory Point.
The Inuit village, Ootloolik, was about Cape Victoria, right where one abandoned near Cape Felix ship would land once freed from ice. During the summer dominant Westerly winds mock the sea currents. Strange providence made Inuit villagers life better from a majestic ship’s death, as nature does all the time. Whatever wreck was left from the expedition helped a people who showed James and John Ross how to live and survive despite extreme isolation. It is gratitude from karma, quite innocent indeed, proud HMS Terror mostly got transformed in mighty multiple ‘Terror’ sleds, going through many more icy adventures of Polar travel, life goes on.
Strangely Ootloo-lik is a west Greenland word, to put it simply, it means the red portion of the modern Greenland flag, meaning: red twilight. In North Baffin it means place where the daylight is.
A map of the Northwest passage was drawn shortly after McClintock’s returned to London. The flaws on this map are not as easily corrected as with higher resolution ones, it is a composite map with a low resolution scale, composite as a result of data drawn from several expeditions, most likely including Franklin’s latest and last (they were written records found in two cairns both constructed in the spring of 1847, one record was reused during abandonment in the spring of 1848). Measuring sun angles at different times of the year caused uneven geographic errors , correcting this map similar to Lieutenant Browne’s map can’t be done, unless all sources taken
are reviewed point by point.
What is clear is McClintock/Hobson version of King William Island having very strange errors. Then again if one really looks closely enough, they were remarkably accurate, a tribute to their navigation skills.
It appears that all locations measured with their sextants were quite precise, their descriptions of landform positions in between were not so good. Cape Felix, the ‘Boat’ place, Booth Point, Cape Norton and Cape Victoria, all were pinpointed accurately with a slight explainable deviation. The most striking location is the famous ‘Boat’ place. A location where a 28 foot whaler on sled was left abandoned while survivors were heading Northwards back to the beset ships. This whaler had two bodies and a lot of useless junk. It is the only common location on land if you compare (to the extreme right) the new and old map, the ‘boat’ place, sighted by McClintock is on land with either the new or old map. However on the old map the rest of King William Island West Coast is way off to the West. An error probably in part due to the acceptance of Franklin’s crew location data for Point
“…… The officers and crew consisting of 105 souls under the command of Captain F R Crozier landed here in Lat 69 degrees 37 minutes and 42 seconds North Long 98 degrees 41 minutes and 5 seconds West …..”
These coordinates give a true location at sea! Also:
“… Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22nd April 5 leagues NNW of this…F.R.M. Crozier Captains & Senior officer. And start (on) to-morrow, 26th, for Back’s Fish River”
Essentially it took the 105 survivors 3 days to walk 5 leagues on the ice, if you account 10 hour of sledging a day, their average speed was something like 0.5 miles an hour, extremely slow , either the ice was unbelievably rough or they were further away, erroneous calculations were not out of the question simply by measuring the sun position at different times of the day.
Based on modern and old map comparisons, Erebus and Terror were abandoned 5 miles North and about 7 miles East of the point estimated by Crozier. A considerable distance for an underwater search. The Westward position error can be caused by time, after two years isolation from reliable source, clocks of this period couldn’t keep time well enough,. A small difference of a few minutes can cause a great error in navigation. There are ways in calculating exact time while relying on astronomy, given the map discrepancy projected, it is quite certain that none on board of Erebus and Terror knew how to correct their chronometers while using the stars or the moon.
Erebus and Terror were most likely beset at first very near and straight North to Cape Felix. It was so, many high precision instrument parts were found there by a cairn at Cape Felix, having namely:
of the
DOOMED
