Every discovery we discussed throughout the semester was marvelous and captivating in its own specific way, but to me, the most interesting sites are those which remain a mystery after decades of research. If the world’s leading experts still aren’t sure what the heck a site is, it’s probably awesome. Stonehenge, for example, has baffled researchers for years, and we are still only scraping the surface of its ritual use. One topic in particular, though, caught my attention. The demise of the crews of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror was extremely unexpected, and is still raising questions to this day. The Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage was a daring venture, but the task was left to only the most experienced sailors of the time. After being trapped in ice, the most logical course of action would be to stay on the ship, and await rescue. The sailors did exactly that, but it apparently lost its appeal after a while. As we discussed in class, these were men who had spent their lives at sea, so any kind of task on land would seem foreign to them. The notion of a 1000 mile trek over Arctic terrain should have been a last resort only, but these men were quick to consider it. Why wouldn’t they just hike north? The journey would have been much shorter, and they could have easily been spotted and rescued by a passing whaling ship. It seems preposterous that the entire crew would agree to travel south, knowing that leaving the ship was almost a certain death wish. Not only was this a terrible idea, but their behavior during the trek just added to the list of possible factors which lead to their deaths. Why wouldn’t they ask the native Inuits for help? Inuits had been known to help travelers in distress, and they were highly adapted to living in Arctic conditions. There are even Inuit accounts mentioning sightings of the sailors, so it seems even stranger that the crew decided to ignore them. What was most interesting to me, though, was the evidence found which indicated autopsies and cannibalistic behavior. Cannibalism makes sense, because many cases have been observed in extreme survival situations, but why autopsies? What would an autopsy possibly accomplish at this point in the expedition? Literally everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, yet the sailors decided that medical examinations of the deceased were still a top priority. Furthermore, these were men from the Industrial Era in Britain– why were they so helpless? They possessed the most advanced navigation technology of the time, but still managed to seal their fates by walking in the least favorable direction. I suppose we will never know exactly what happened, but further research into the matter seems worthwhile. Finding out exactly what occurred during those few years could help us predict human behavior in similar stressful situations, and prevent such tragedies from taking place in the future.