Shipwreck confirmed as Sir John Franklin's HMS Terror

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Shipwreck confirmed as Sir John Franklin's HMS Terror

September 27, 2016 - 13:52
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Parks Canada confirmed Monday a shipwreck found off the shores of Nunavut's King William Island is indeed HMS Terror, lost in Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage.

"Perilous Position of HMS 'Terror', Captain Back, in the Arctic Regions in the Summer of 1837".

HMS Terror was lost during Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The wreck which is said to be "in pristine condition" was discovered on 3. Sept, on a tip from an Inuit crew member aboard the Arctic Research Foundation's Martin Bergmann vessel in Nunavut's Terror Bay on King William Island, north of where Franklin's other ship, HMS Erebus, was found in 2014.

Sammy Kogvik, an Inuit hunter and member of the Canadian Rangers who joined the crew of the Arctic Research Foundation's Martin Bergmann, recalled an incident from seven years earlier in which he encountered what appeared to be a mast jutting from the ice. With this information, the ship's destination was changed from Cambridge Bay to Terror Bay, where researchers located the wreck in just 2.5 hours.

As the story goes, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus became locked in ice in 1846, and the expedition to find the Northwest Passage resulted in the deaths of 129 men.

This vessel looks like it was buttoned down tight for winter and it sank. Everything was shut. Even the windows are still intact. If you could lift this boat out of the water and pump the water out, it would probably float.

Arctic Research Foundation spokesperson Adrian Schimnowski told The Guardian.

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