BROWNE BAY, A GOOD PLACE TO LOOK FOR ANOTHER PAPER COMING FROM THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION

This is how exploration looks like:

When one thinks on how exploration ships sailed in search of a Northwest passage, barely can imagine the amount of changes of direction they had to take in order to examine every inlet that could lead them to the west.

I am impressed by the route followed by the Fury and Hecla during the second Parry´s expedition of 1821-23. I knew more or less how explorers of that time conducted they researches, but it is my believe that this route is specially twisted. I focused on that I when I was trying to locate the exact place where James Pringle, the seaman who fell from one of the mast of the Hecla, was buried in Winter Island in order to place the grave in my "Arctic graveyard" map.

It is not rare to find in the narratives of many expeditions that officers and men landed from time to time to make observations, hunting, etc. Often, during those incursions, cairns were built and documents buried.

This erratic course has made me think what could have been the route followed by the Erebus and Terror in 1846 while descending by Peel sound. I wouldn´t be surprised to find a forgotten cairn, maybe with a copper cilinder still intact inside, in the barely frequented shores of Browne bay, a big inlet which runs in southwest direction starting from the west side of Peel sound, waters which follows with precision the direction of Franklin orders. If this region has been searched before, I would be happy to know if something was found. Maybe some sledge parties from the 1850´s searching fleet of Horatio Austin, I should check out my notes.

POLAR MEMORIALS MAP

I introduce you another of my unfinished projects, the POLAR MEMORIALS MAP. This new distraction is keeping me away from writting about the Franklin expedition, which is the thing I should be dedicating my spare time right now, but ...this is so fascinating that I can´t hardly stop pinning in the mapevery new plaque, statue, bust, grave and so on which I am continuing finding here and there. Will this have this project an end? I am beginning to think it will not.

This map aims to be an useful tool for those who are visiting any country to find lost pieces of the Polar history, it will also help you to take long detours from your programmed route to visit the grave of your favourite explorer while on holidays, no matter how loud could be the complains of your companions, or even to realize that when you were visiting St Nicholas church in Copenhagen during your summer trip of two years ago, you missed to take a look to Jens Munk grave, which was exactly my case.

I have found digging into internet in websites, blogs and genealogical forums tens of items in museums, forgotten graves, memorials, statues, etc. and will keep on doing it for the coming years but, I have also to say here, that the actual satisfactory side of all this work, is the help I am receiving from many friends, some real and some virtual, and from many strangers who willingly are sending me specific locations of polar related places they found during their trips or visits.  I would like to underline the collaboration of Logan Zachary and Nick Aglitki, who have supplied me with many very useful information. As this is just an amateur project I am doing by my own, the only way I have to thank them properly is to give the collaborators credit of their findings in every pin they provide me. With time I will be able to add in the description box of every place a short description of what is there. For now I am only adding some useful links to the above refered websites or blogs where further information can be found.

Here is what I have so far:

Thanks to all those who are collaborating:
Logan Zachary, Nick Aglitki, Jonahtahn Dore, Russell Potter, Mechtild Opel, Narda Elvidge, Peter Carney, Jessica Forde, Silvia Wright, Javi LG, David Legrand, Ken McGoogan, Gisle uren, Regina Koelner, Dave Brook, etc. for their direct and some times indirect contributions.

MUFF´s ODISSEY AND THE ARCTIC NEWSPAPERS

It was common during polar expeditions of the nineteenth century to start writting newspapers by both, officers and sometimes also by men, in order to fight the boredom of the three long months which lasted the winters at those latitudes. William Edward Parry was apparently the first on doing so during his expedition of 1819-20, maybe because he was the first navy ship of a relatively "modern age" on wintering in the Arctic.

They published weekly The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Cronicle of which Edward Sabine acted as editor. Such was the success of those initiatives that the habit was soon closely followed by his successors and some of those outburst of ideas and imagination ended eventually published formarly under the format of books. In words of Parry:

I can safely say, that the weekly contributions had the happy effect of employing the leisure hours of those who furnished them, and of diverting the mind from the gloomy prospect which would sometimes obtrude itself on the stoutest heart.

One only needs to read some of those articles to realise that we are not in front of the result of naive or boring texts, obligatorily exercises ordered by the commanders, but before of elaborated and witty ideas developed into hilarious pieces of news.

In 1850 below decks of the ship Assistance, belonging Horatio Austin´s squadron in search for Franklin, it was published "Aurora Borealis", every fortnight, this newspaper provoked the delight of those who read it. They even counted with a print press which initial purpose was to print message for the balloons addressed to meet the Franklin men, it is not necessarily to mention that the press ended being used to print the newspaper, songs and so on. So much was it used that the men ended printing in leather and even in blankets.

To understand better and endorse what was the result of this spontaneous camaraderie, I have copied here what the Preface of the publication of Aurora Borealis wrote about the authors of the newspaper:

"The popular opinion seems to be, that the literary attainments of British sailors seldom exceed the acquisition of some boisterous song, and that only the very erudite amongst them can succeed in scrawling a letter to their friends at home.

In the " Aurora Borealis," however, we find articles written by veteran tars, whose home since boyhood has been upon the sea, that would not disgrace the pages of some our magazines. These men with frames of iron, with a courage and a stem

endurance that nothing can subdue, show themselves possessed of a delicacy of imagination and a power of perception that one has great difficulty in reconciling with the honest roughness of their appearance. Some years ago an officer, high in command, gave it as his opinion, that men entirely uneducated

made the host soldiers and sailors. Here, however, we find, that the men from before the mast, who contributed to the " Aurora Borealis," are amongst the most exemplary in Her Majesty's service."

Wise words, not written by Erasmus Ommaney, commander of the Assistance, Sherard Osborn or John Ross (who wintered close by and apparently participated in the project) are refered to in third person, but, judging from the depth of them, were maybe written by the very same and legendary McClintock. In the other ships of the Squadron, Resolute and Pioner a similar initiative was carried out under the maybe more known name of "The illustrated Arctic news". In the subsequent wave send by the Admiralty in search of Franklin in 1852, the Belcher squadron, similar newspapers were also edited and published.

Here I post a couple of those pieces of news I have rescued from the book "Arctic Miscellanies: A Souvenir of the Late Polar Search and which surely will make you smile if not laugh. I considered particularly interesting the Muff´s adventure which inspired the title of this post:

THE MAKING OF A MAP: THE RELICS, CAIRNS, BONES AND ORAL TESTIMONIES OF THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION

It´was some years ago, surely in 2012 after discovering Thomas Gould´s map had been digitalized in the Internet, when I decided to put some order to all the information I was acquiring while reading dozens of books related with the Franklin expedition. 

The idea of making a map for my personal use had then much more sense after I read Unravelling the Franklin Mistery and Strangers among us both of Dave Woodman. Two superb books which tried to understand and guess what happened to the crews of HMS Erebus and Terror once they "deserted" the ships. The books compile, describe and try to interpret a good number of objects found in the desolated ground of King William island and also deals with the wide variety of Inuit testimonies  told to the Franklin searchers of all times and which have demonstrated in time they were very accurate.

I have to recognise that after reading those two master pieces, the original narratives of Charles Francis Hall, Schwatcka, Russell´s Potter book "Finding Franklin" and a good number of articles and many other books, I was still lost in the apparently simple geography of King William Island and surroundings and have sometimes problems to understand that a particular cairn was different to other, and where were located all those places that Woodman was speaking about. I had to do something not to get lost together with the Franklin men.

Well, I am not a researcher nor a historian, just an amateur enthusiast of Polar exploration, but I consider myself good at gathering things, and that´s exactly what I did here.  

Logically, my starting point was the map of King William island made by Commander Thomas Gould.  As I mentioned above, The Library and archives of Canada started a project on which they digitalized Admiralty charts of Canadian waters. Among the digitalized maps was Gould´s map of King William Island. 

That map published in 1927, showed everything which had been found in the area till the moment by the searching expeditions of McClintock, Charles Francis Hall, Schwatcka, Rasmussen, Burwash etc. Gould painted in blue the Inuit testimonies and in red the actual relics found. According to Russell, Gould´s map apparently was made at the request of Burwash.

There were other maps like the one which shows Klutschak findings made in 1880, but any had ever put together all the information available at the moment. Burwash had a very good idea. Soon I realised we, Franklinites, needed a more practical tool than a single and static map, no matter how useful and amazing this can be, as Gould map is. A map which could allow us to identify places, edit wrong coordinates, add descriptions and links and add new findings, etc, etc. Don´t forget that searching parties are still visiting King William island and every year it passes, more sophisticated and accurate are the devices used in the search and research. It is foreseable that new items will appear, this time precisely located by GPSs, which modern researchers are currently carrying with them and not roughly and approximately as the former searchers did with the means of their time.

I needed as water in the desert a tool which could be updated instantly and which could place with  precission of seconds of latitude and longitude every item found in that barren ground. 

The more accurate tha map was evolving the more I realised how useful it could be for others apart of me. So, the past year, when I learnt how to share Google maps in my blog, (before I just shared a .kml file with those who had shown some interest or in facebook groups) I decided to make it public for everybody. Since then, many people have contributed to make it more precise and accurate, however, I am sure there are still mistakes which must be mended. Unfortunately, many of the places are not precisely located, it will take time to correct all those wrong points one by one, and to remove repeated cairns, etc, etc. Olivier Benoit and me know well the mess of Cairns I had in Cape Felix.

The map has evolved since its beginning of a single mass of yellow pins, which are the ones used by default by Google Earth, to a more friendly look on which I have used the wider range of pins available in Google maps. The map, of course includes a layer with the names of the geographical places, without which I at least would be lost, and a layer of Inuit Testimonies, like those blue points marked by Gould, which is still at work.

I made the map after reading many Franklin related books. I think  it is time to reread many of  those jewells, specially Woodman´s ones and to fill the gaps which still does exist.  There must be dozens of relics still to place and cairns to locate, not necessarily built by the Franklin expedition but by the searchers and by the Inuit. I hope that with time the map will be properly finished and that it could be an useful tool for researches and not a mere curiosity made by an enthusiast. To this day the map has been visited 2.250 visits, I am more than proud of that number, that is enough reward for me.

I couldn´t end this post without giving thanks specially to Randall  Oxczevski, who is scanning with zeal from his armchair every single dot and pixel of King William island and vecinity through sattellite images. His contribution to make this map more perfect is unvaluable. I would like also to thank to Russell Potter, whose posts of Visions of the North put essential context and color to many of the pins you will find in the map. Also thanks to Russ Taichman, Peter Carney, Olivier Hubert-Benoit who have made valuable contributions and has made me add some relics and graves which I had missed or didn´t know. 

I hope you will enjoy it my amigas y amigos !

SAILING SLEDGES AND KITES - WE WERE THEREFORE "SHIPSHAPE"!!

It is not completely absurd to think that as sailors were the first on becoming explorers these would make the most of the use of their particular knowledges in every task they would have to develop.

So it not surprising they started to use sails to impulse their heavy loaden sledges almost from the beginning of polar exploration when long journeys, sometimes of thousands of miles, across snowy and icy landscapes started to be performed.

Maybe one of the most known examples of this practice may be Nansen´s expedition to cross Greenland. During that voyage pictures were taken which rapidly become worldwide known after their arrival to the civilized world.

Nansen´s crossing of Greenland

They showed the men walking across rugged ground dragging their sledges, but also discrete squared sails which were suppossed to help them. But of course, it wasn´t Nansen the first of using this advantageous technique. 

In march of 1853 a huge party, commanded by G.N. Richards and Sherard Osborn, and composed by six sledges and about sixty men of the Edward Belcher´s rescue squadron composed of five ships departed from their winter quarters in their attempt to built cairns and leave depots of supplies and boats for Franklin and his men. In doing so, they used improvised sails for their sledges, in the same way that Nansen did more than forty years after. The sledges, which used to hoist the red ensign on them, were beautifully depicted in some of the drawings of that expedition. The sails  were in fact actually the bottom of the tents of 3,5 x 2,7 m approximately. 

From: The last of the Arctic Voyages

Belcher  described his sledge as follows:

"Our Craft was rigged in the most approved Sooloo pirate style, sheer masts stepped into a specially fitted batton, forming an isosceles triangle, with the means of support by shrouds from its extremity, greater by two feet than the width of the sledge, which have also been increased for carrying the ice.boat and out tent bottom was now formed into a well made sail. We were therefore "Shipshape".

The preparations of that early travel should compose an impressive scene. The sight of eight sledges and more than sixty men preparing these sledges at the side of the ships, working excitedly in the midst of a strong cold.

Departure of sledges: From The last of Arctic Voyages

As Edward Belcher described the scene as follows after he accompanied them during the first miles of the trip. The sight had to be, to say the least, a curious one:

The system worked reasonably well, the men could run besides the sledge, sometimes it went so well that the increasing speed provoked small accidents as the one Belcher starred. With his light and  sarcastically usual tone describes in this way:

We left with a gentle breeze, under all sail, going at a very pleasant trot beside the  sledge, until we came upon this rough sea. The velocity of the sledge, caused by the sudden increase of wind under Cape Sicic, tripped all hands up and dragged them astern, face downwards. I was on the sledge, and dropped myself in time to avoid the consequences of the capsize which one of these waves caused. We escaped with one damaged spar ; replaced it, and moved forward more cautiously. This time our engine ran away ; again all hands let go. I was perched, for ballast, on the weather-quarter, across which a long gun-case, three feet six inches, was lashed ;but, as if my neck was destined to be continually in jeopardy, I experienced a gentle summerset, driven at a radius of four feet, with sufficient impetus to derange it; however, I escaped with slight damage, and the sledge upsetting on a lee shore, enabled our crew to regain it.  We now reduced our sail to a latteen until we cleared this frozen ocean, and eventually pitched our tent for the night on a fine gravel beach. 

But even before Belcher´s expedition began to use sails in their sledges, years before in 1851, during the second rescue offensive to save Franklin, McClintock, which was part of the team of Horatio Austin, used the kites supplied by Benjamin Smith as tractile power to be added to the sails already mentioned. The following pictures were painted by Admiral William Smith and are present in the cover of the fabulous book "The Fate of Franklin" by Roderick Owen.

See how the artist properly placed the flag waving in the proper direction.

Sherard Osborn, in Stray leaves described these new devices called kites as follows, though judging from his words, the experience seemed not to be too pleasant:

Kites, which the kind Mr. Benjamin Smith had supplied me with, both as a tractile power to assist us in dragging sledges, as well as a means of signalizing between parties, 
afforded much interest, and the success of our experiments in applying them to dragging weights was so great, that all those I was able to supply gladly provided themselves with so useful an auxiliary to foot-travellers. Experience, however, taught us how impossible it was to command a fair wind, without which they were useless weight, and in severe weather there was some danger, when handling or coiling up the lines, of having to expose the hands and being frost bitten. 

But if we dig a bit further in the history of exploration we will find that Thomas Simpson during his succesful expedition of 1836-39 together with Warren Dease, also used sails for the sledges. I couldn´t find a explicit reference to this in the account of his journey but this picture posted below, apparently corresponds to it. Though they were supposed to be formed by twelve men and three sledges  and not sixteen and two sledges as the picture shows.

EDITED (5/08/2018):

Sails were not only used for sledges. When Parry launched his land trip from the Hecla and the Griper to explore the north part of Melville Island in june of 1820, he used a cart fitted with wheels to carry their baggages and the tents. Why he used a cart instead of a sledge in a ground which at that time of the year was almost completely covered by snow, I guess must be explained by his lack of experience still to come.At the end of the day that was the first winter the Royal Navy men spent in the Arctic. The men also carried backpacks of 12 or 14 kg each, a quite unusual practice not only in the high north, but in other more temperated northern countries. Parry described what his men did as follows:

The breeze freshened up to a gale from the S.S.E. as we proceeded, and the men, as if determined not to forget that they were sailors, set a large blanket upon the cart as a sail, which, upon the present level ground, was found to be of material assistance.  

.../... The men had hoisted one sail upon the cart at first setting off; but the wind being now, as they expressed it, " on the larboard quarter ;" a second blanket was rigged as a main-sail, to their great amusement as well as relief. 

But as it is logical to suppose, the use of this type of propulsion wasn´t exclusive of the Canadian arctic, I could find some engravings which shows a slightly different way of doing it but essentialy the same concept in Siberia and Amsterdam:

Siberian sledges

Sledge sailing in AMsterdam

And if we travel in time this towards our time, we see Klondike miners using sails to push their boats over frozen rivers and lakes:

And finally, when we reach our present time, we must amaze ourselves when we behold how this apparently ancient technique have been wonderfully developed to at an extreme degree. It is a spaniard who have made evolve the concept of using the wind to power a sledge i such way that it looks Sci-fi. His system not only serves the purpose of carrying supplies, clothes, provisions and so on, but also the explorers comfortably seated in the sledge while driving this astonishing device. The tents are placed over it, so some of the expeditionaries can even sleep while others are guiding the sledge. I am talking of Ramon Larramendi, pioneer in the use of this marvel, state of the art of wind sledges! What he calls: El Trineo de viento. has allowed him to reach even  the south pole.

What is awaiting ahead us regarding the use of the wind in sledge traveling? Time will say.

TRAGEDIES OF THE ARCTIC SEAS

It may be not your case, surely isn´t mine either, but somehow, part of the glamour we find in the polar expeditions lies precisely in the fact that in many of them  their protagonists were drove to their limits, the limit of their gear, the limit of their provisions and to the limit of their physical and psychological strength which  ultimately cost their lives. 

I have to recognise that sometimes I have felt like those ones in the audience, represented in the picture below, comfortably seated at the other side of the barrier.

But though not everything in the polar regions have been dramas, there have also been stories of incredible success or miracolous survival, the fact is that even in some of those cases, these feats have been stained with tragedies which happened at the same time and which diverted the attention far from the merit of their brave main characters towards others who lost their lifes. That could be the case of Roald Amundsen and his antagonistic Scott, or the case of Nobile´s attempt to reach the north pola and the subsequent rescue, which was darkened by Amundsen disappearance, happened while trying to locate him. So it looks that in some way or another, death has been always present in these kind of stories and, no matter if we like it or not, we must  get along with it.

Returning to the picture, it shows a group of polar explorers floating in an ice floe confronting surely, as it can be judged for their poor state, their coming death. In a pulpit in front of them, there are several crowned men. The one seated right over the poster which reads:

 "Reserved for J.G. Bennet" 

Must be James Gordon Bennet himself, the director of the New York Herald who was behind Stanley´s expedition in search of Dr Livingstone and of the disastrous Jeannette expedition. He, his men a woman who may be Queen Victoria, are  observing unaffectedly the dying men. 

In the adjacent pulpit, you can see a number of men (shall we call them "Scientist?") which look visibly anxious, standing over a poster which reads sinisterly:

 "In the name of science, MORE! MORE!".

In the walls around the stage where the explorers are lying, who almost all certainty are DeLong and his men, are  some other posters where the names of Hall, Kane and Franklin are clearly readible. De Long´s poster is the only which isvisible at the right in the wall, is the only one which hasn´t been torn apart, supporting the idea of its recent setting.

This image, published in the magazine Puck in may of 1882, may be the graphic representation that the times were finally changing and that the world was getting into a totally different and modern age. 

The horrible ordeal of De Long and his men, who perished the autumn of 1881 in the barren lands of the Lena Delta after having tried to reach the North Pole, may have trigged the reasoning that not everything was valid, at least not for the public opinion. So, in a similar way as George Cruikshank satirized John Ross when he returned from the polar regions, Joseph Keppler, author of this and other drawings, decided to show the world  through his powerful cartoons that it was time to end with an age on which the phrase "the end justify the means" was a fundamental rule, an axiom which had dragged many gallant men to a cold grave. 

After De Long expedition, came new modern techniques and a new concept of Polar explorers, like Nansen, Andree, Amundsen, Peary, etc,  who will shake up the existing scenario. It was clear that something was changing and that an inflection point have been passed. Definitely a new age of polar explorers, was calling at the gates of the North Pole, sieging it. 

THE TERROR TV SHOW, JUST ANOTHER OPINION....

Singe I got hooked to the story of the lost Franklin expedition  in serch of the northwest passage I inmediately though it would be worth making a movie or a TV show.

The expedition wasn´t just another polar trip, in fact it was and still is, the biggest and more misterious tragedy which happened at those latitudes. For that reason, it seemed impossible to me it wasn´t ever put on a screen.

The story

It is true that making a movie or a serie about the Franklin expedition is not an easy task, not only because the difficulty of simulating a polar enviroment on which it happened, but because telling just the story of what directly related with it, we would have a very limited idea of what realy happened there. It would be necessary to go back on time towards its protagonist´s past, John Franklin to contextualize properly the expedition and to understand well who was that character. Same applies to his wife, we would be missing a very important aspect of the story if Lady Franklin´s intervention before and after the expedition sailed to the north.

Lady Franklin played a notorious role in the process on which her husband was chosen to command that ultimate attempt to locate the northwest passage, though maybe, the reason for what is more known, was for the impressive media campaign which she launched to press the Admiralty to organize the rescue missions after John.

The searching for the whereabaouts of John Franklin, which was carried out by tenths of expeditions, there would give lots of material to talk about, in part because they were essential to finally discover and cross the passage.

I guess that it was necessary to put limits, otherwise, gathering all these elements and those not directly related with the "polar issues" would likely  imply a task impossible to execute, if done, there would be needed ten seasons or more.

But  there are precisely those indirect elements which really add the needed salt and pepper to make a success of a TV show based on the Franklin expedition, and not a boring melodrama where at the end of the day we will end tired of seeing exhausted men starving, cold and dragging huge sledges episode after episode.

We find, for instance, in this dressing so fundamental, love stories condemned to a fail, like Crozier´s relationship with Franklin niece, Sophie Cracroft, fact which fortunately finds a prominent place in the show.

However, in my opinion, it shouldn´t have been left apart other ingredients like for  instance, the likely love triangle among Lady Franklin, John Franklin y James Clark Ross.  Something which could have perfectly have had place during the Ross´s visit to Van Diemen´s land in the voyage of discovery of the Antarctic continent while the Franklins were governors of the prison island.

It could have been introduced in the script, as flash backs the also likely flirtations of Lady Franklin when traveling all along the Mediterranean sea while Franklin was appointed to serve in Malta before departing to the Arctic.

It would have been a nice surprise if it would have appeared the spectral revelations of the deceased Weasy Coppin who reveal to her sisters and father in a mysterious way, through letters proyected in a wall, the whereabouts of the lost ships.

Revelación espectral

It would have been almost unbelievable for the spectators the fact that a small balloon  would make its appearance in England, after crossing the Atlantic ocean, reporting in an attached message about the exact location of the ships. That was such an incredible feat that everyone who studied the case reached the conclusion that it was not more than an hoax, very well fabricated, but an hoax.

The appearing of two mysterious ships frozen in a drifting iceberg in Baffin bay, which for long time was thought could be the Erebus and Terror, would have left us open-mouthed.

Surely, the dialectical conflict between the lquacious Charles Dickens and John Rae, bearer of the first bad news which came from the north regarding the ultimate end of the lost explorers, will entertain us because the controversy arised by the reception of those scandalous news about the practice of cannibalism which he brought to the VIctorian ENgland of the time.

From the paper to the screens

In time, I was conscious that a movie with a duration of an hour and a half or two hours wouldn´t have been enough to tell not even the prologue of the story. There was a first failed attempt by the hand of the canadian director Jean Marc-Vallé who, after the discovery of the Erebus in 2014, made public his intention to direct a film based on the book "On the proper use of the stars" by Dominique Fortier. Never again was heard about this project till Ridley Scott came to rescue, this time not to say it was going to be made a film but a TV show, something with much more sense. With the back up of Ridley one could already anticipate that the lack of means were not going to be an issue to develop the show. Now, the question was, which story would be put into the screen?

Some "Franklinite", felt disappointed somehow when it was knew that the script of the show would be based in the fiction novel "The Terror" written by Dan Simmons which was published in 2007, but, what the heck? after all I had always thought that Simmon´s novel had been the passport which had carried the not very well known Franklin expedition to an international scale, and I wasn´t wrong. The upside of chosing The Terror and not the actual story is that, as the novel it was, it had a beginning and an end which one could easily fit in into a limited number of hours.

Once known the project, my initioal disappointment turned into illusion. It didn´t matter what was brought to the screen were the actual story or the fictional one, what I really wanted to see was my beloved ships, the Erebus and Terror sailing again among icebergs in the canadian Arctic and also, all their occupants alive again wandering by the decks or dragging the heavy sledges. All that, I had no doubt about it, would be feasible thanks to the realism which new FX are now being used in the cinematographic world.

But the success the serie is achieving is not only attributable to those FX, the casting has been exceptional, the script has been remarkably donde and the historical researching which has been performed has been really praiseworthy. It is obvious that Ridley Scott team has done its homework and they been well advised.

The show

I was lucky enough to attend the Premiere in Madrid of the first episode and see how Jared Harris (Crozier) and Tobias Menzies (Fitzjames) were interviewed. There were numerous anecdotes whoch made laugh loudly all the audience.

Me at the right and my childhood friend Daniel at the left.

John Franklin is brilliantly performed by CIaran Hinds, an excellent actor who many will know for having worked in several TV shows, among others Rome and Game of Thrones, and also in many other movies and series. Ciaran does it very well, though he wouldn´t have been my choice to interpret the affable and kind John Franklin only for the fact that he is not bald, and Franklin was. THat was one of his more visible physical features.

The most beautiful Gretta Scacchi, also regular of TV shows, some years older than in the picture below, perform Lady Franklin  in a very credible way. She in the few scenes on which appears, shows, like in the actual facts, how she was the engine after Franklin, the one who pushed him to get the position of command in the expedition which eventually will cost his life, and also, how she was the one who shaked the world to find her husband after his disappearance.

Gretta Scacchi

After the premiere I not only got out fascinated after the interview to the two main actors but, after watching the first episode, I ended absolutely captivated by the realistic atmosphere which the creators have achieved to reenact. The setting, the ships, the characters, all was very real, in less than an hout the script team had made me to connect with the story. The sense of immersion was complete. I had an enormous desire to watch the next chapter, it was so huge the hunger that the waiting was almost unbearable.

Now, at last, after watching all the episodes, I can tell that in general it has been done a very good job. It is difficult, as Roderick Owen, one of the authors of one of the best biographies about John Franklin, to make a work valid for a few but at the same time, adecquate for many. Meaning that his work should satisfy the specialists in the topic and the big public as well. It is my believing that the serie has reached that goal.

Dan Simmon´s novel, when saw the light, and the Terror show now, have given an interntational projection to the Franklin expedition. As it was expected, the latter has rised the curiosity of thousands of people who are now haunted and now want to knoiw more about the actual story and its protagonists.  The truth is that there is much more to know and all the information available is simply fascinating. Even today, new things are being known about the men and the story. The shipwrecks recently found in the Arctic are still practically untouched, who knows what wonders and information can keep their holds and cabins the Erebus and Terror?

Restos del HMS Erebus

There is no lack in the ten episodes, of which the serie is composed , a wide spectrum of scenes which bring to our houses in a vivid way the same emotions that the actual story of the Franklin expedition made us felt to every people who read about it. We will taste realistically the brutal cold with which these men had to deal, we will feel the sense of abandonment experienced by the crews when with the pass of the months it was evident they won´t be able to escape from their icy prison. We will feel the tension arise among their captains and also among the sailors.

The details

In spite of the serie is offering us almost ten hour to develop the script, unluckily, this starts short time before the ships were trapped in the ice north of King William Island where finally almost all the men died, skipping the first winter which the expedition spent in Beechey island. It was there were three men died and were buried who will remain frozen under exceptional conditions of preservations as if they had been put in hybernation chambers.

Owen Beattie and John Geiger brought them to light in the 80´s to perform autopsies respectively on them to try to elucidate the causes of the disaster , or at least one of them. One of the theories their studies supported was that the crews were poisoned by the lead of the welding of the food cans which they carried. That investigation made of their book "Frozen in Time" a best seller and one of the most significant works about the subject.

The picture of John Torrington´s corpse, one of the men buried in Beechey island and subsequently exhumed by Geiger and Beattie, has become an iconic picture of the expedition. It appears in the cover of almost all the editions of the book Frozen in time, however, this character does not appear as such in the show. In his place, the death of David Young and his burial, make a wink to Torrington´s death and the other tow happened in Beechey island.

The actor who plays Young, has an outstanding likeness with John Torrington, so it happens with the coffin and the corpse disposal used in the sailor´s entombment. This way, it is perfectly well simulated the actual event.

About what really happened during the expedition little is known, so in reality, at the time to write the final script, besides of following the content provided by Simmons´s novel, there is plenty of room for imagination. It is known that the expedition spent a first winter in 1845-46 in Beechey island where there were buried the three men mentioned above, it is also known that Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames left the only written record in the northwest coast of king William Island. On it, it was said among other things that Franklin had died in june of 1847 and that 9 officers and 15 men had been lost. It was also said that the expedition had circunvalated Cornwallis island northwest of Beechey island and that they had spent two consecutive winters trapped in the ice off the north tip of King William island. A last annotation said that the ships were abandoned and that the remaining men will depart towards Back river, ocated in the north shore of the continent. A dramatic final note, which didn´t presage anything good because it indicated the carry out of a long and harsh hiking through horrid barren lands almost empty of game.

Note left in King William island

The record was signed in april of 1848 and it was found in 1859 by the expedition of Leopold McClintock. Their mortal remains, found in boats, abandoned campments, or scattered on the ground, will end telling their tale. Besides physical evidences, there were Inuit testimonies on which it was told how the natives came across some of the survivors, stumbled upon their death bodies or got into the abandoned ships while they were still beset in the ice. These stories were told by the Inuit to the explorers which come to the north searching for Franklin and allowed that part of the story could be reconstructed through the haunting, tragic and horrific tales they told.

 Facts or fiction

The Terror TV show reenacts numerous events which are considered as true which appear like cornerstones through the script, and also many which are pure speculation and are food for debate, or are just  based on events of other expeditions which happened before or after the Franklin´s one.

One of the actual facts of more relevance set in the show may be the moment the note mentioned above was signed and put into the cairn in King William Island, a scene which has been performed with such faithfulness till the point that the writting of both captains imitate perfectly the actual ones.

As it was expected, the poisoning coming from the welding of the cans occupy a visible place, but not critical, to justify the tragedy as it was indicated in the book. Scurvy also has a place, a serial killer common in this kind of expeditions which used to leave a trail of loose teeth, old wounds which started to bleed again,  stiff articulations and then the death.

It happens a mutiny, about which many historians and scholars have especulated, there are also situations on which disabled or sick men are abandoned in the camps. It is setting out, though it is never seen in the serie, the possibility that some men could have come back to the ships to reman them. Even the pets have a place of honour, specially the monkey Jacko, about who I developed some time ago a theory on which I gave him certain protagonism in the final, and yet unsolved, outcome of the expedition.

For all who are well immerse in the actual facts, it has been a pleasant surprise to see characters who one didn´t think he would find in the show, as it is the case of the controversial John Ross, who in the fiction ask Franklin visibly worried with a deep voice if he has a escape plan. What in fact Ross told Franklin is that he would go to search for him if he doesn´t shown up after a second winter, and that was precisely what he did though some time after what he promosed and in spite of his advanced age to participate in those kind of voyages. Ross knew well the dangers Franklin was facing because he himselg had barely survived four winters trapped in the northwest passage years before.

Thomas Blanky, one of the ice masters of the expedition, whose role together with the surgeon assistant Harry Goodsir are key in the show, tells a overwhelming description of that expedition happened along the years 1829 to 1833, on which in my opinion John Ross escapes unfairly mistreated. 

Ian Hart (Thomas Blanky) becomes one of the most charismatic characters of the whole plot. He performes the role of a so weather beaten sailor who doesn´t care to die neither in the jaws of hunger nor of the monster. His attitude in the show towards life or death, to which he faces with good humour , is enviable.

We can also see the renowned Arctic council, a comittee superbly painted by Stephen Pearce in 1850 and which actually existed. It was formed by the most important explorers of the time. In the show, this scene which cannot be missed, the members of the council, exceptical and ironicly confront at an outraged Lady Franklin who resort to it to ask for help to rescue her husband. Lady Franklin is not deterred by the funny comments of some of the members of the council and finally,  shows her strong will and put them in their place.

But maybe, the most satisfying thing of all for me, have been the inphograpic modelling  of the ships Erebus and Terror. It is amazingly realistic. The support of Mathew Betts in that task has been decisive. Through his blog Building HMS Terror, Mathew started some years ago to share publicly the evolution of the building of his model ship of the Terror. An accurate model which incorporates all the modifications and improvements made before the ships departed in 1845. Those modifications included the incorporation of a locomotive steam engine which powered a screw propeller, becoming the ships the firsts on using that system in the northwest passage.

There are other minor details which are delightful for those crazy "Franklinites" among which I consider myself included. We can see how are used with naturalness objects which appear here and there and which are known for us for being part of the unique relics from the Franklin expedition  which were brought to England by searching parties. Almost all of them are under the custody of the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich. Objects like the medicine chest, cuttlery, dishes, chronometers, oars, spikes, glasses, shoes, etc.

We should also thank that the Daguerrotype camera of the expedition appears in a scene, a detail not well known but which make us hope that there could be obtained some images coming from the expedition. It is not completely crazy think they could be still in good shape inside any of the shipwrecks.

There are other scenes which help us to be trasported to the life inside a polar expedition, like the sound of the ice which so many times can be heard during the show, the scene when the sun is saw for last time and when it appears again the next summer, explicit images of amputations of fingers, etc. but also the daily life and routine on board Royal Navy ships of that time, like disciplinary punishments carried out with brutal indifference, funerals performed in the upper deck, and so on.

Finally, in some other scenes, we can recognize with accuracy how are reenact some of the encounters among the Inuit and the survivors described above. Those foggy stories are related and studied in the fascinating books "Unraveling the Franklin Mistery" and "Strangers among us" de David Woodman.

But not all these pieces  fit perfectly well in my expectations, I think I will have omitted without  a trembling hand the presence of certain elements which haven´t been specially of my taste. For instance, the attitude of the villain Hickey, whose performance in my opinion is slightly overacted.  I didn´t like the megalomaniac and bizarre dramatization which makes the character little understandable. His evilness contrasts like the sun and the moon with the totally opposite character of Harry Goodsir, whose surname fits nicely with his angelical attitude.

It is neither convincing for me the creature of antropomorphic countenance who compulsary must appear as it is written the fiction novel which inspires the show. I have had the feeling that the appearance of the monster  made not more than bothering and distracting the attention of the spectator from an excellent  polar survival thriller. I think that if the monster scenes could be omitted with surgical precission, we would obtain a much more compact product.

But despite all these tiny  slip-ups, which surely many have appreciated, in conclusion, the result of this fine job has been a serie which is worth watching because it has reached the fundamental target which I was looking for, it is a serie which conveys an accurate picture, monster apart, of what happened, or may have happened during the Franklin expedition in searching of the northwest passage. So in short, it only remains to say:

Bravo team!