33. The lost scientific specimens and records.

By the time of the retreat of 1848, the expedition would have accumulated many scientific specimens including rocks and minerals, animals and plants. There would have been charts of their new discoveries, and the two ships log books. Each officer was expected to produce a diary of personal observations that would be used in the preparation of the final expedition report. Commander Fitzjames reported in a diary posted home from Greenland that Sir John Franklin had told his officers ‘that he was desired to claim all their remarks, journals, sketches, etc., on our return to England’.

Not all of this material could be carried on the 1848 retreat. Before the retreat it is likely that the scientific specimens as well as boxes of records and charts were buried but without conspicuous markers. The location would be somewhere at Crozier’s Landing, where a large camp existed and where the entire expedition assembled for the start of the 1848 retreat. What became of the records carried by the boat parties on the 1848 retreat is unknown. Captain Leopold McClintock in 1859 discovered one of these boats in Erebus Bay. It contained many things, including two skeletons and had not been disturbed by the Inuit. But there were no records present.

Two years later in 1850 with the ship or ships on the west coast of King William Island and before the 1850 retreat, an officer believed to be Captain Crozier died. There are Inuit testimonies of his burial and at the same time paper documents were buried nearby. Both were put into vaults sealed wit cement in a fissure in the ground. The location of this grave and these records remain unknown today. But there are testimonies of a camp in Terror Bay and also on the southern part of Imnguyaaluk Island – a short distance to the west of Terror Bay in the Royal Geographical Society Islands.

So it seems there were at least two occasions when the main records of the expedition might have been buried in the ground. That is in addition to those records left in bottles and cylinders in cairns on King William Island. During the 1850 retreat a boat is believed to have reached Starvation Cove on the American mainland, where some of her crew died. There is Inuit testimony of finding a box of books and papers in this boat. These were given to the children to play with and were destroyed.

So excavation of the two shipwrecks should reveal if the scientific specimens (especially the durable rock and mineral samples and glass bottles with creatures inside them) are still aboard the ships. If not then they will have been buried ashore and the search for the missing samples and records can continue with confidence. Preliminary exploration of HMS Erebus in 2019 revealed that Lieutenant James Fairholme’s cabin had been emptied of his clothing and personal possessions except for a pair of epaulettes found in an otherwise empty drawer. The hold of the ship was also ‘oddly bare’ with few stores and casks. But it is known from Inuit testimony that Erebus came ashore and was salvaged for many years by the Inuit. To date the officers diaries, logbooks and scientific specimens remain missing.

Inuit testimonies suggest that much of the damage to Erebus including her missing masts and empty cabins and storage space may be the result of the salvage work carried out by the Inuit possibly over 8 years or more, rather than ice action after the wreck drifted offshore and sank. It is unlikely that the Inuit would have removed ‘stones’ or geological specimens, so there is still the possibility that records and specimens were buried ashore before the ships were abandoned. Such caches would probably not have markers to prevent the Inuit from digging them up. But their locations were probably described in written messages in cairns nearby. Unfortunately none of these have survived. A new search tool is required and this might be a metal detector in case the buried records are in wooden boxes clenched with nails.

QUESTION. Geological samples cannot easily be destroyed. Are they still aboard Erebus? If not then they were buried on land probably in 1848 before the retreat.