1. Name: Ice Ghosts : The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
2. Author: Paul Watson
3. Genre: Non Fiction/Exploration
4. Book Post No. : 68
5. What is it about? : The disappearance of the 1845 Franklin expedition, with two ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, to find the Northwest Passage, remained a mystery for more than 150 years. What happened to those ships? Did anyone survive? Could the wrecks ever be found? These questions, along with hundreds of others, remained unanswered until finally in 2014, the first breakthrough came. In an expedition led by Parks Canada, Inuit communities and other researchers, the wreck of HMS Erebus was found. Two years later, in 2016, the wreck of HMS Terror was found. This book traces the history of all the expeditions that were undertaken to find what happened to the two ships, from the first one after the disappearance, till the one in 2016. Featuring a diverse set of characters, officials with government support, arm chair researchers, everyday people with an intense interest in the Franklin expedition, Inuit communities and military, Ice Ghosts reads like an adventure novel.
6. How I came to read it? : Upon reading its mention in A History of Canada in Ten Maps, I was once again immersed in the fascinating history of the Franklin Expedition. I even rewatched one of my horror TV shows The Terror which is based on the Franklin Expedition but with a supernatural twist. High quality with superb acting, soundtrack, dialogues and character development, I think its a must watch for Franklin buffs. One commentator on Reddit described it best, “it scratches an itch”. I was curious about the modern day expeditions that discovered the wrecks so I checked my local library branch of FVRL and found this book.
7. Did I like it? : Loved it! Its a superb read. The book starts with description of the Franklin Expedition and with short histories of the ships themselves. Then comes the story of Lady Franklin, wife of Sir John Franklin, who singe handedly kept the search alive for many years. Her persistent efforts led to multiple missions but alas she was not destined to learn much about what happened to her husband in her lifetime. The story then moves onto other expeditions lead by many countries including UK, USA, Norway, Denmark and finally Canada.
There were two threads running parallelly regarding the Franklin expedition-One was what the western world learnt from the first and subsequent expeditions and the other was the oral history traditions of the Inuit world. The latter was ignored for much of the 150 years of exploration until slowly the western world began waking up the clues provided by many Inuit from their oral history. Ice Ghosts does an amazing job of recounting the contribution of Inuit in the search and how their local knowledge of the Arctic was immensely helpful in ultimately finding the wrecks.
I was surprised to know that Parks Canada was the leading agency which lead the expedition which finally found the first wreck. I had only imagined them to be involved in maintaining the National Parks and Historic Sites.
Overall, this is a exciting read for all Franklin buffs.
8. Positives:
- Features the contribution of Inuit folk and communities.
- Reads like an adventure novel.
- Fast paced.
9. Areas of improvement:
- The maps featured could have been placed where needed and not at the beginning of the book. I have ranted about this before in other posts. It seems to be a common issue.
10. Any other personal notes, observations, fun facts etc.
One thing I could never understand about the whole Franklin Expedition was the names of the ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. ‘Terror’ is self explanatory but also Erebus, I later found out, is the Greek God of darkness. Why would you give the ships, used for a mode of transportation already filled with immense dangers and risks, names so dark and terrifying? As a colleague put it, it was almost as if the ships were doomed from the very beginning.