Bayne, N;
(2020)
Why Ross Survived When Franklin Died: Arctic Explorers and the
Inuit, 1829–1848.
Why Ross Survived When Franklin Died: Arctic Explorers and the Inuit, 1829–1848
, 35
(1)
pp. 67-9.
10.14324/111.444.ljcs.2020v35.004.
Preview |
Text
ljcs3520200004.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
The Franklin expedition disappeared in the High Arctic in the 1840s, looking for the North-West Passage. After a long search, contacts with local Inuit revealed they had all perished. Could the Inuit have saved Franklin’s crews? The experience of John and James Ross is instructive. A decade earlier they led a smaller party to an Arctic region near where Franklin’s crews landed. They made friends with an Inuit community and learnt useful skills in clothing, diet, shelter and transport. This enabled them to survive four Arctic winters and come home safely. But the Franklin expedition was poorly placed to benefit from Inuit contact. They were too numerous and had no interpreters. Trapped in the ice, they did not seek out Inuit villages. Leaving the ships, they turned towards a desert region and abandoned useful equipment. The wrecks of Erebus and Terror were only discovered in 2014 and 2016, again thanks to Inuit guidance. Britain has transferred the wrecks and their contents to Canada. They will be jointly held by the government and the Inuit people, whose contribution to the Franklin story is finally being recognized.
Type: | Article |
---|---|
Title: | Why Ross Survived When Franklin Died: Arctic Explorers and the Inuit, 1829–1848 |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
DOI: | 10.14324/111.444.ljcs.2020v35.004 |
Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ljcs.2020v35.004 |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | © 2020, Nicholas Bayne. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited |
Keywords: | John Franklin, John Ross, James Clark Ross |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10124550 |
Archive Staff Only
View Item |