Sir John Franklin's ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, set out from England in 1845 in search of the Northwest Passage. The commander and his 128 men never returned.
Human remains resting in a remote Arctic cairn, visible emblems of one of the North's most enduring mysteries, finally have a name.
Franklin's ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, set out from England in 1845 in search of the Northwest Passage. The commander and his 128 men never returned.Three graves were found on Beechey Island, their occupants identified. In 2014, the wreck of the Erebus was discovered through a blend of Inuit oral history and systematic, high-tech surveys just off the northwest coast of King William Island in Nunavut. The Terror was found two years later.
Fitzjames' DNA was isolated and profiled from a single molar. It had been extracted from a jawbone that bore the distinctive marks of man-made cuts, making Fitzjames the first identified victim of the cannibalism for which the expedition has become notorious. Fitzjames' descendants, the family of a paternal second cousin of Fitzjames five times removed, have been contacted but have not yet spoken out.Much is known about Fitzjames' life. He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 12 and sailed in Central and North America, Malta, Syria, Egypt and China before the Arctic. He was known for his bravery and was awarded a silver cup by the City of Liverpool after he dove fully clothed into a river to rescue a drowning man.
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