Frozen in Time by Owen Beattie Read Free Book Online Page B

Northwest Territories, was asked to aid the expedition should word of trouble be received. The company was also instructed to alert native traders to watch for Franklin’s crews.
    In the last few days before he sailed, Franklin may have experienced a premonition of his fate. Suffering from the flu, he was resting at home with his wife, Jane, who had just finished sewing a silk Union Jack for him to take. Concerned about his illness, she draped the flag over his legs for warmth. He sprang to his feet: “There’s a flag thrown over me! Don’t you know that they lay the Union Jack over a corpse?” But on Sunday 18 May, the eve of his departure, with his wife and daughter present, the profoundly religious Franklin read Divine Service for the first time to his crews. And when the expedition sailed from the Thames the next morning, carrying 134 officers and men, most felt the Franklin expedition could not fail. Franklin’s only child, Eleanor, wrote to an aunt:
    Just as they were setting sail, a dove settled on one of the masts, and remained there for some time. Every one was pleased with the good omen, and if it be an omen of peace and harmony, I think there is every reason of its being true.
    The expedition was already out of view when the Times trumpeted:
    There appears to be but one wish amongst the whole of the inhabitants of this country, from the humblest individual to the highest in the realm, that the enterprise in which the officers and crew are about to be engaged may be attended with success, and that the brave seamen employed in the undertaking, may return with honour and health to their native land.
    One week later, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Roderick Murchison, summed up the public mood in a speech: “The name of Franklin alone is, indeed, a national guarantee.” Besides, the geographical obstacles were by now judged to be not all that great: The cumulative discoveries of preceding Arctic expeditions—Parry, John Ross, George Back, and Franklin’s among them—had resulted in the mapping of much of the southern Arctic archipelago. By 1845, stretches of less than 62 miles (100 km) remained to be explored, and it was to close those gaps that Franklin sailed.
    After calling briefly at Stromness Harbour on the island of Orkney, the expedition left Britain for the last time. A transport vessel, the Barretto Junior, laden with stores such as ten live oxen, accompanied the ships to the Whalefish Islands in Disco Bay on the west coast of Greenland, where the oxen were slaughtered for fresh meat and supplies transferred to the Erebus and Terror. Harry Goodsir wrote to his uncle from Greenland that, “we have got 10,000 cases of preserved ready cooked meats on board the Erebus alone so you see there is no chance of starving.” It was also while at the Whalefish Islands that the first tins of preserved meat, carrots and potatoes were opened, and the contents served to the expedition’s officers.
    Franklin also wrote a letter in which he said his final goodbye to Lady Franklin. It was a message full of optimism:
    Let me now assure you, my dearest Jane, that I am amply provided with every requisite for my passage, and that I am entering on my voyage comforted with every hope of God’s merciful guidance and protection, and that He will bless, comfort and protect you, my dearest… and all my other relatives. Oh, how much I wish I could write to each of them to assure them of the happiness I feel in my officers, my crew, and my ship!
    Fitzjames sent home a journal in which he described the journey from Stromness to Disco—as well as many of his companions—and outlined his feelings for Franklin: “We are very happy, and very fond of Sir John Franklin, who improves very much as we come to know more of him. He is anything but nervous or fidgety: in fact I should say remarkable for energetic