# 150 Year Old Search Nears Conclusion



## Arcb (Aug 13, 2016)

Not sure if this is a story that has had an international following or if it is of strictly Canadian interest, but as a very amateur history enthusiast I have been following every development with keen interest. My smaller boat is named after one of these vessels, the Erebus- the personification of darkness.

Sir John Franklin and his crew embarked on a well funded and well equipped voyage with the goal of discovering the North West Passage. Both ships became ice bound. The crew evacuated the ships and attempted to make an overland passage in search of salvation. The crew lived for a considerable amount of time before all 129 crew perished from exposure, starvation and who knows what else.

The vessels were so well provisioned search parties were dispatched for many years after their disappearance.

The Terrors wreckage was discovered by a joint team including Parks Canada and the CCG in 2014. The Erebus wreckage was discovered in 2016.

Just recently, the archeological remains were gifted to Canada and the Inuit people by the UK.

Here is the recent article as well as an older documentary on the search.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4170856/franklin-expedition-gifted-canada/


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## Capt Len (Oct 9, 2011)

Also a long time interest in Arctic history .Cruised The Beaufort out of Tuk for years but never got that far north. Often wondered what caused the really deep holes in the flat delta west of Tuk.Must be fairly recent or the river sedimentation would have filled them Then I had this brain fart 'news' item for your consideration. 
More than 1400 pingos on the Tuktoyaktuk Penninsula have long been a tourist attaction and a minor curiosity for passing scientists who considered them to be simply upswellings of pure ice in the permafrost. No one considered the real hazard lurking in the lower depth of frozen earth. Before the last ice age a layer of peat and other detritus was laid down and then as the earth was depressed by the formation of ice,algae growing on the ice continued to filter down for eons to form methane hydrate crystals .As the earth depressed further ,the Mackenzie River deposited a layer of sedimentation over the entire area. The deeper deposits formed natural gas and oil but the shallow deposits remained as methane hydrate which is stable at lower tempurature. As the Ice Age ended many methane outgassing eruptions occurred.causing a positive feedback loop as methane is a major contributor to the green house effect. In only ten thousand years most of the ice melted and a new relatively stable climate prevailed. Now ,with man's contribution to global warming, a further warming is occurring and it's only a matter of time before the pingos burst and the methane cloud wipes out the population of Tuktoyaktuk.


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