Sir John Franklin, page 2

Woodman, David.

Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991.

In 1845 two British warships, Erebus and Terror, manned by 129 officers and men under command of Captain Sir John Franklin, were seen disappearing into the pack-ice of Davis Strait. They had been asked by the British Admiralty to find the Northwest Passage and to put an end to the speculations about the details of such a strait. In the end they may have found that passage, but they died in the attempt. Though never seen again, various traces of those who tried to make an escape from their ice-bound ships towards the south have been found, including graves of some of the men. This book reconstructs the mysterious events surrounding the tragic expedition. Woodman is the first to give serious attention to Inuit testimony, and to analyze it in depth. He concludes that the Inuit probably visited Franklin's ships while the crew was still on board and that there were some Inuit who actually saw the sinking of one of the ships. He maintains that fewer than ten bodies were found at Starvation Cove and that the last survivors left the cove in 1851, three years after the accepted account assumes them to he dead. He disputes the view that lead-poisoning was a major contributing cause of the disaster. This is a good detective story, full of insights and is based on fresh research.

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