“Tracing One Warm Line”: How Franklin’s ships were found
Dr. Russell A. Potter, FRCGS
“You will … continue to push to the westward, without loss of time, in the latitutde of about 74 ¼ ˚, till you have reached the longitude of that portion of land on which Cape Walker is situated, or about 98˚ west. From that point, we desire that every effort be used to endeavor to penetrate to the southward and westward in a course as direct toward Behring’s strait as the position and extent of the ice, or the existance of the land, at present unknown, may admit.”
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“This ship had 4 boats hanging at the sides and 1 of them was above the quarter deck. The ice about the ship one winter's make, all a smooth flow [sic] & a plank was found extending from the ship down on to the ice. The Innuits were sure some white men must have lived there through the winter. Heard of tracks of 4 strangers, not Innuits, being seen on the land adjacent to the ship.”
-- Ek-kee-pee-ree-a, testimony to Charles Francis Hall
“She says that Nuk-kee-the-uk & other Ook-joo-lik Innuits were out sealing when they saw a large ship - all very much afraid but Nuk-keeche-uk who went to the vessel while the others went to their Ig-loo. Nuk-kee-che-uk looked all around and saw nobody & finally Lik-lee-poonik-kee-look-oo-loo (stole a very little or few things) & then made for the Ig-loos. Then all the Innuits went to the ship & stole a good deal - broke into a place that was fastened up & there found a very large white man who was dead, very tall man. There was flesh about this dead man, that is, his remains quite perfect - it took 5 men to lift him. The place smelt very bad. His clothes all on. Found dead on the floor - not in a sleeping place or birth [sic] ... The vessel covered over with see-loon, that is housed in with sails or that material, not boards, but as Jack [Hall's guide Nu-ker-zhoo] says like Capt. Potter's vessel when at Ship's Harbour Isles in the winter quarters. The Ig-loos or cabins down below as “Ansel Gibbs” not on deck like “Black Eagle.”
– Koo-nik, testimony to Charles Francis Hall
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The party on getting aboard tried to find out if any one was there, and not seeing or hearing any one, began ransacking the ship. To get into the igloo (cabin), they knocked a hole through because it was locked ... one place in the ship, where a great many things were found, was very dark; they had to find things there by feeling around. Guns were there and a great many very good buckets and boxes. On my asking if they saw anything to eat on board, the reply was there was meat and tood-noo in cans, the meat fat and like pemmican. The sails, rigging, and boats - everything about the ship - was in complete order.
From time to time the Neitchilles went to get out of her whatever they could; they made their plunder into piles on board, intending to sledge it to their igloos some time after; but on going again they found her sunk, except the top of the masts. They said they had made a hole in her bottom by getting out one of her timbers or planks. The ship was afterward much broken up by the ice, and then masts, timbers, boxes, casks, &c., drifted on shore ...
-- Inuit testimony, summarized by Charles Francis Hall
HMS Terror
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After much anxious inquiry, we learned that two ships had been seen by the natives of King William’s Island: one of them was seen to sink in deep water, and nothing was obtained from her, a circumstance at which they expressed much regret, but the other was forced on shore by the ice, where they suppose she still remains, but is much broken. From this ship they have obtained most of their wood &c.; and Ooot-loo-lik is the name of the place where she is grounded.
-- Inuit testimony given to Francis Leopold McClintock in 1849
The old man and his wife agreed in saying that the ship on board of which they had often seen Too-loo-ark and Ag-loo-ka was overwhelmed with heavy ice in the spring of the year. While the ice was slowly crushing it, the men all worked for their lives in getting out provisions; but, before they could save much, the ice turned the vessel down on its side, crushing the masts and breaking a hole in her bottom and so overwhelming her that she sank at once, and had never been seen again. Several men at work in her could not get out in time, and were carried down with her and drowned. “On this account Ag-loo-ka's company had died of starvation, for they had not had time to get provisions out of her.”
-- Inuit testimony given to Charles Francis Hall in 1869
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