5
Isthmus of the Graves
On 4 april 1850, the Toronto Globe published an advertisement announcing a £20,000 reward to be given by “Her Majesty’s Government to any party or parties, of any country, who shall render efficient assistance to the crews of the discovery ships under the command of Sir John Franklin.” A further £10,000 was offered to anyone able to relieve any of the crews or bring information leading to their relief. Finally, another £10,000 was offered to anyone succeeding in ascertaining the fate of the expedition.
By the autumn of 1850, a fleet of ships was combing the Arctic’s waterways for a sign of the missing explorers. The British Admiralty alone sent three expeditions consisting of a total of eight ships into the Arctic. One of the search expeditions, made up of the HMS Enterprise and HMS Investigator under the command of Captain Richard Collinson and Commander Robert McClure, was sent through the Bering Strait; Captain Horatio Thomas Austin, with second-in-command Captain Erasmus Ommanney, was ordered to take four ships into Lancaster Sound, while the third expedition, led by Arctic whaling master Captain William Penny, was sent north into Jones Sound.
As early as February 1849, Jane, Lady Franklin travelled to Hull, a port from which whalers sailed to Baffin Bay, “with a view to plead her anxieties and distresses and to animate the commanders to her cause.” She was among those active in the race to save her husband and his men, and with the help of supporters sent a ship to join in the search. As well, the United States Navy Department assisted New York merchant Henry Grinnell, who outfitted two ships under Lieutenant Edwin J. De Haven, while aging explorer Sir John Ross led an expedition funded by the Hudson’s Bay Company and public subscription.
The Hudson’s Bay Company also sent John Rae, an expert in Arctic survival, to assist with what would be his second search. Rae, who travelled overland and by boat to Victoria Island, would discover two pieces of wood on the southern shore of the island, wood that could only have come from a ship. Yet there was no proof that the debris was from either the Erebus or Terror, and his survey ended on the southeastern corner of the island, where the ice that clogged Victoria Strait prevented him from crossing to nearby King William Island.
Finally, on 12 October 1850, the Illustrated London News was able to report: “some faint gleams of hopeful light have at last been thrown upon the gloom of uncertainty which hangs over the fate of Sir John Franklin and his companions.” For on 23 August 1850, Captain Erasmus Ommanney and some of the officers of the search ship HMS Assistance found signs of Franklin’s expedition at Cape Riley, on the southwest shore of Devon Island. After two years of disappointments, the Royal Navy at last had leads in the search for the missing men. Ommanney recalled:
I had the satisfaction of meeting with the first traces of Sir John Franklin’s expedition, consisting of fragments of naval stores, ragged portions of clothing, preserved meat tins, &c… and the spot bore the appearance of an encampment.
But those relics told only of a brief stop, perhaps for magnetic observation early in the expedition, and gave away nothing in regard to Franklin’s whereabouts.
Ommanney pushed on, combing the shoreline for clues, until a large cairn was spotted high up on the headland of a nearby islet named Beechey Island. Lieutenant Sherard Osborn, commander of the steamship HMS Pioneer, which was also part of the Royal Navy search expedition under the overall command of Captain Horatio Thomas Austin, painted a dramatic picture of the men rushing towards the “dark and frowning cliffs… too steep for even [a] snow-flake to hang upon”:
A boatful of officers and men proceeded on shore. On landing, some relics of European visitors were found; and we can picture the anxiety with which the steep slope was scaled and the cairn torn down, every stone turned over, the ground underneath dug up a little, and yet, alas! no document or record found.
Osborn was undeterred; he still held great hope that more discoveries would follow: “[The cairn] seemed to say to the beating heart, ‘follow them that erected me!’”
A flotilla of search ships converged on the area, among them the Lady Franklin under Captain William Penny. The gritty Scot swore to scour the area “like a blood-hound” until answers to the mystery were found. More traces of Franklin’s crew were discovered on Devon Island, this time at nearby Cape Spencer. Penny found the remains of a hut built of stones, artefacts that included scraps of newspaper dated September 1844, a fragment of paper with the words “until called,” more food tins, torn gloves—and that was all. Then, on 27 August, a breathless sailor brought Penny startling news: “Graves, Captain Penny! Graves! Franklin’s winter quarters!”
Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, ship’s surgeon under American searcher Edwin De Haven, was present when the news arrived and described what happened next:
Captain De Haven, Captain Penny, Commander Phillips, and myself… hurried on over the ice, and, scrambling along the loose and rugged slope that extends from Beechey to the shore, came, after a weary walk, to the crest of the isthmus. Here, amid the sterile uniformity of snow and slate, were the head-boards of three graves, made after the old orthodox fashion of gravestones at home.
The tombs lay side by side in a line with the headboards facing Cape Riley. Two of the grave mounds were “neatly paved round” with limestone slabs. Their inscriptions, chiselled into the headboards, read:
The second was:
The third grave, representing the earliest death, was not as carefully finished as the others, but Kane felt “its general appearance was more grave-like.” The headboard was inscribed: