On today’s blog, we will be discussing polar exploration and the 129 doomed men on the ill-fated expedition that went in search of a northern passageway to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. We’ll also discuss the Endurance expedition’s new findings.
So let’s begin with a more common and happy ending story. We’ll get to Gena’s macabre moment later. Have you heard of Ernest Shackleton? He was a famous Irish polar explorer. He had already gone on one exploration of Antarctica as a third lieutenant but his health didn’t fare so well. He returned home and a couple years later in 1908, would return as captain of his own ship to explore the Antarctic area. A sledging party let my Ernest Shackleton found the magnetic south pole. They returned to camp to find that their ship and rest of the crew had left 2 days early. The sledging party built a fire to signal the ship which luckily they saw and returned for the rest of the crew. Shackleton and his crew returned to the British crown where he was knighted for his work.
Endurance
He was then sent on another expedition for more exploration in the Antarctic area with his ship the Endurance. Here he and his crew hoped to cross the entire land of Antarctica but their ship got stuck in the ice in 1915 and sank. Everyone had to abandon ship. They set up camp in a safer area. Then Shackleton and a small number of men left in lifeboats to find help. They were able to return to Antarctica and pick up the rest of the crew. No lives were lost. The crazy part of this story is, about 107 years later in 2022, on the anniversary of Shackleton’s burial, the Endurance was finally found in the Weddell sea. BBC has a whole article with pictures of what the ship looks like in its final resting place. It was really neat to see for sure because it’s basically frozen in time. There is some damage to the ship, but for the most part the ship is pretty well intact. The other crazy thing is that it has been designated as a monument and cannot be disturbed so no one is allowed to touch it. Now these are brief notes and clearly don’t go into all the details surrounding the hardships the Endurance had to endure on their journey. But it does have a happy ending. Our next story on polar exploration does not have such a happy ending.
129 doomed men
The journey begins when under the command of Sir John Franklin, 128 men set sail to find the “Northern Passage'' which was believed to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Arctic inlets. They set sail in May of 1845 in two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror. After two months at sea, the ships would be seen passing Baffin Bay, up by the tip of Canada where those islands are on North America’s northeast side. After passing the Baffin Bay, the sister ships and its crew would never be seen again by Europeans…rescue missions were launched.
The expeditions found various clues to what happened to the expedition such as a trio of graves at one site, abandoned sled with skeletons and personal items, and a note somewhere indicating that Franklin had died along with 23 other men. The sister ships had been caught in the ice for 18 months. Survivors decided to abandon ship after that. Local Inuits reported white men slowly perishing after their ship got stuck and slowly sank beneath the ice. That is all that was known about the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus…until 2014 when the Erebus was rediscovered. HMS Terror was discovered 2 years later in 2016. Scientists were at first a little baffled because the discovery of the ships caused more confusion than answers. One ship was found about 60 miles from where archeologists originally thought it would be, which is leading them to believe that some of the crew was able to free the ship from the ice and try to sail home. Due to the ships being in the freezing Arctic waters, there are parts of the year that they can’t really do their research. The most recent research I was able to find was from 2020. Researchers have recovered 350 artifacts from the wreckages, this also includes another naval ship that sank after getting stuck in the ice during a search for the sister ships.
Gina’s Macabre Moment
Due to research being ongoing at the moment, the true story is a little hard to pinpoint but archaeologists and researchers have a little bit more knowledge at least. Inuit oral tales, tell of piles of bones that had been snapped. This led original researchers to believe the ship’s crew likely had to resort to cannibalism to survive, but there was never any evidence until 1990 when bones were discovered on King William's Island (Canada). It was here that they found knife marks on the bones which belonged to that of the crew based on DNA testing done. The knife marks indicate that the flesh was cut from the bone. They also found bones that had been cooked and then snapped and the marrow drained from them. This is likely the last stage of cannibalism.
Here is where the info gets a little crazier…the ship's crew had plenty of provisions aboard the ship and yet they left it all and ended up resorting to cannibalism. In 1991, researchers found a fair amount of lead in the bones of some of the crew found on an island. Which led researchers to believe that the men had been being poisoned all along their journey. The pipes that ran the water to and from the tank were made of lead, a majority of the food came in tin cans, and a lot of the medicine that the doctor would have given out also contained lead, arsenic, and other ingredients the FDA would frown upon today. DNA results from the hair of the doctor of the crew lead researchers to the conclusion in 2018 that the lead poisoning of the crew was no more than that of all the Europeans back home which means the men did not die of lead poisoning. However scientists believe that the impact of the lead poisoning could have made the journey for help much more difficult for them which is likely how they died.
And there you have the hi-story of polar exploration. If you have any ideas for future podcasts, comments, or questions message us at hi.stories673@gmail.com. Also to hear the funny retelling of this same story, be sure to check out our podcast on all major platforms: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/DRoNhC5EBub Also check us out on Twitter (hi_stories673) and Instagram (hi.stories673)! Thanks for reading!
Comments