After watching the documentary “Buried in Ice” about the Franklin Expedition I become interested in learning more about this voyage. Specifically, I wanted to know what came of the ships. After doing a little research I was able to learn a lot more about the expedition. It was actually fairly easy to find information on the Franklin Expedition which I found surprising because I had never heard of it prior to class.
A lot of the articles that I was finding dated back to the Fall of 2014. It turns out that on September 7th, 2014 the remains of a ship were found underwater. On September 30th, the remains were officially identified as the remains of the HMS Erebus, one of the two ships of the Franklin Expedition. The ship had originally disappeared in 1846 when it became trapped in ice during the search for the Northwest Passage. Before September 30th nobody knew what had become of either ships.
The remains of the ship were found by a private-public Canadian research team called Parks Canada. They employed underwater archaeologists to dive countless times underwater to look at the remains. They were able to identify the ship as the HMS Erebus using artifacts that had been found on board the ship. The researchers were especially excited that they had found the HMS Erebus because it was believed that this is the ship that Franklin would have lived on. Researchers hoped to uncover his body and finally figure out what happened to him. There are many theories about what happened to his body but most popularly people believe that he either perished on land with his crew or that he was given a burial at sea prior to the entrapment in ice.
Unable to find Franklin’s body or any bodies at all, the researchers still conduct dives down to the ship remains today. In fact, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently announced that the Parks Canada research team will be launching another search operation titled “Operation NUNALIVUT 15.” This is the 15th year in a row that Canada will be launching this search on the HMS Erebus. The operation will consist of 11 days of ice diving and underwater archaeology. The operation began April 1st and concluded on the 22nd. The results from this operation are still being determined but it is known that Franklin’s body still has not been found.
I doubt that after 15 years of searching the Canadians are going to give up now. It’s fascinating that after so long they are still able to find new information each time. I think part of their success can be attributed to developing technology. As our technological abilities progress every year our research capabilities progress as well making it possible to learn anything and everything you ever wanted to know.

Sources:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/franklin-expedition-ship-found-in-arctic-id-d-as-hms-erebus-1.2784268

http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/article-template-standard.page?doc=operation-nunalivut-begins-in-the-high-arctic/i7ynwo9l