The Arctic: Exploration Timeline
The discovery of Franklin's party. Source: Morris, Charles: Finding the North Pole by Cook and Peary, W. E. Scull, 1909, 288.1845-1873
Sir John Franklin’s expedition aboard Erebus and Terror sails in search of the Northwest Passage. 129 men set off with hopes of finding the passage—but none would return.
Over the next several years, many land and sea expeditions search for Franklin. In 1853, Dr. John Rae, sent by the Hudon’s Bay Company to complete a coastal survey discovers relics of the Franklin expedition in the possession of the Eskimos. In 1959, an expedition led by Francis Leopold McClintock finds a cairn left by the Franklin expedition that told of the death of Franklin and of 24 others, and of abandoning the ship.
Attempts to locate survivors of the Franklin expedition continued in the 1860’s and 1870’s led by American Charles Hall, who died on an expedition under mysterious circumstances in November 1871.
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