Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition

In May 1845 the Erebus and the Terror set sail from the Thames to find a northern route to the Northwest Passage with a complement of 129 men and officers, enough tinned food for three to five years, thousands of books, a dog, and a monkey. Many sailors and scholars sought their fate ever since. Here Beattie (anthropology, U. of Alberta) and Geiger (history, U. of Alberta) describe the voyage of what has become known as the Franklin Expedition, the efforts to find it, and the probable cause of its failure as found in scattered bones and bodies of a few of the crew found entombed in the permafrost. It seems they did not fail for want of courage or skill, but because that three to five years' supply of food contained deadly amounts of lead solder. This updated edition includes photographs of the exhumations and an introduction by Margaret Atwood. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR