Frozen in Time by Owen Beattie Page B

questions that cannot be answered, but M’Clintock was sure of one thing: “our doomed and scurvy-stricken countrymen calmly prepared themselves to struggle manfully for life.” The magnitude of the endeavour facing the crews must have been overwhelming, and the knowledge of its futility spiritually crushing. It also ran contrary to the best guesses of other leading Arctic explorers. George Back, who had explored the river named for him in 1834, was certain Franklin’s men would not have attempted an escape over the mainland: “I can say from experience that no toilworn and exhausted party could have the least chance of existence by going there.” John Rae thought that “Sir John Franklin would have followed the route taken by Sir John Ross in escaping from Regent Inlet.”
    To this day, the route of the expedition retreat confounds some historians, who, like Rae, believe a much more logical and attainable goal would have been to march north and east to Somerset Island and Fury Beach—the route by which John Ross had made good an escape from an ice-bound ship in 1833. Fury Beach was not much further for the crews of the Erebus and the Terror than it had been for John Ross’s crew of the abandoned Victory. It was also the most obvious place for a relief expedition to be sent, and James Clark Ross did indeed reach the area with two ships, five months after the Erebus and Terror were deserted.
    Instead, after quitting their camp on 26 April, the crews moved south along the coastline of King William Island, man-hauling heavily laden lifeboats that had been removed from the ships and mounted on large sledges. Plagued by their rapidly deteriorating health, the crews were then overcome by the physical demands of the task. M’Clintock found what appeared to have been a field hospital established by Franklin’s retreating crews only eighty miles into their trek. He suspected scurvy. Speculation also focussed on the tinned food supply. Inuit later told of some of their people eating the contents of the tins “and it had made them very ill: indeed some had actually died.” As for Franklin’s men, many died along the west and south coasts of King William Island.
    Later, Hobson found a vivid indication of the tragedy when he located a lifeboat from the Franklin expedition containing skeletons and relics. Men from Franklin’s crews had at last been found, but the help had come a decade too late. When M’Clintock later visited the “boat place,” he described his tiny party as being “transfixed with awe” at the sight of the two human skeletons that lay inside the boat. One skeleton, found in the bow, had been partly destroyed by “large and powerful animals, probably wolves,” M’Clintock guessed. But the other skeleton remained untouched, “enveloped with cloths and furs,” feet tucked into warm boots to protect against the harsh Arctic cold. Nearby were two loaded double-barrelled guns, as if ready to fend off an attack that never came.
    M’Clintock named the area, on the western extreme of King William Island, Cape Crozier. The boat, which had been carefully equipped for the ascent of the Back River, was 28 feet (8.5 metres) long; M’Clintock estimated the combined weight of the boat and the oak sledge it was mounted on at 1,400 pounds (635 kg).
    M’Clintock discovers a lifeboat—containing skeletons— from the Franklin expedition.
    Careful lists of the “amazing” quantity of goods also contained in the boat were compiled. Everything from boots and silk handkerchiefs to curtain rods, silverware, scented soap, sponges, slippers, toothbrushes and hair-combs were found. Six books, including a Bible in which most of the verses were underlined, A Manual of Private Devotions and The Vicar of Wakefield, were also discovered and scoured for messages, but none were found. The only provisions in the