10. Implications of the ‘All Well’ message.

In late May 1847, Commander James Fitzjames aboard Sir John Franklin’s flagship Erebus completed several naval message forms to be sealed in metal cylinders and deposited by the North-West Passage party led by Lieutenant Graham Gore. He signed them ‘All well’. Shortly afterwards the fortunes of the expedition changed for the worse.

The term ‘All well’ is a rather unusual statement as both ships were trapped in an ice stream without the protection of a winter harbour. As such they were at risk of being crushed by ice movements.  It was a most unsatisfactory position and the expedition had been supplied for three years only. In fact all was very far from being well.  The men were already sentenced to death as the ice would not release them in time and none escaped. By April 1848 at the start of the first retreat, nine officers and fifteen men had died (1848 Record).   Possibly a half of the men did not return from the 1848 retreat and none of the 40 or so men in the 1850 retreat survived. With supplies dwindling in April 1848, the surviving crews abandoned the ships and set out to march 1200 miles to the nearest Hudson’s Bay Company outpost of Fort Providence on the shores of the Great Slave Lake.

Aboard the flagship Erebus Commander Fitzjames kept spirits up and the atmosphere was happy. He and Sir John were surrounded by many of the finest young officers in the Royal Navy. Many were friends and former colleagues of Fitzjames who had selected them. Sir John was the patriarch and nightly entertained several officers at his table. Fitzjames’s brief message ‘All well’ was evidently a political statement and an attempt to keep up morale

In 11th June 1847, less than a month after Fitzjames wrote his ‘All Well’ message, the fortunes of the expedition began to change abruptly. Their respected leader Sir John Franklin died. Admiralty written orders stated that if Sir John died then Captain Crozier, the second in command aboard Terror was to take over the leadership. He was to transfer to the flagship and move Commander Fitzjames to Terror. This never happened as the April 1848 Victory Point record shows Fitzjames signed himself as ‘Captain of H.M.S. Erebus. Why did Captain Crozier not follow the Admiralty instructions so that Fitzjames might have signed ‘Captain of H.M.S. Terror. New data collected by Parks Canada divers from the wreck of Terror found in 2016 in Terror Bay may point to the answer. The Terror wreck has her three masts broken off and lying along her starboard side still attached to the ship by the rigging.  There is reliable Inuit testimony that one of the ships was thrown over by the ice and sank taking several crew members down with her.

Captain Crozier’s first action on taking command of the expedition appears to have been to set up a large camp on King William Island. It had 13 tent circles (enough for the crew of one ship) and vast amounts of portable equipment – far more than was needed for the retreat of April 1848, including a tent filled with the spare heavy-duty warm clothing and a dump of the contents of a ships rope locker including a coil of 5cm diameter rope.

At some time ice movements threw Terror onto her starboard side and her three masts were broken.  Parks Canada divers have found that the longest stump is only five meters long. The dating of the accident is indicated by the wreck which shows she was winter rigged at the time.  That is the topmasts and sails were removed and spars were arranged along the length of the deck to support a canvas awning.   The accident was witnessed by Kok-lee-arng-nun who describe it to Hall:

‘The old man and his wife agreed in saying that the ship on board of which they had often seen Too-loo-ark was overwhelmed with heavy ice in the spring of the year. While the ice was slowly crushing it, the men all worked for their lives in getting out provisions, but before they could save much, the ice turned the vessel down on its side, crushing the masts and breaking a hole in her bottom and so overwhelming her that she sank at once, and had never been seen again. Several men at work on her could not get out in time, and were carried down with her and drowned.  ‘On this account Ag-loo-ka’s company had died of starvation, for they had not time to get the provisions out of her.’ Ag-loo-ka and one other white man – the latter called ‘nar-tar’, a pee-ee-tu (steward) – started and went toward Oot-koo-ish-ee-lee (Great Fish or Back’s River) saying they were going there on their way home. That was the last they saw of them, but heard of them some time after from a Kin-na-pa-too, who said he and his people heard shots or reports of guns of strangers somewhere near Chesterfield Inlet.’

What happened next was told in testimony by an old Inut lady called Ook-bar-loo to Charles Francis Hall (Nourse, 1897, p. 592-3; Woodman, 1991, p.221):

‘She noted that ‘nearly the whole of one side of the vessel had been crushed in by the heavy ice that was about it’, and she thought that this was why ‘the Kob-lu-nas had left it and gone to the land and lived in tents’.

Examination of the two wrecks by Parks Canada divers does not reveal evidence that a side of either ship was crushed. But the accident could explain why Captain Crozier did not take over command of Erebus. If Terror was thrown over in late 1847, then he chose to remain with his men and moved them ashore to what is today known as ‘Crozier’s Landing’. To Crozier this was the coordinated position of Ross’s 1830 Victory Point. The location was about 15 miles south-south-east of the ships, as the 1848 Victory Point record states that:

‘H.M. ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on 22nd April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September 1846.’

Crozier may have moved his men, the stores, camping equipment and boats south to form a land base – a long haul to the south too. Had he been thinking of retreating north to Fury Beach he might have placed the shore camp to the north perhaps near Cape Felix.  Such actions suggest that Crozier was concerned that Erebus might also be damaged by the ice movements.  His actions suggests that while Fitzjames aboard the Flagship in an optimistic mood was reporting ‘All well’ in May 1847, the far more experienced Crozier was quietly, in the isolation of his ship, reading the books of previous explorers in case the ships were not released and it became necessary to march out. He had evidently done his homework before the accident occurred and decided that going south to areas where good hunting was reported was a better option than heading north.

Like Admiral Horatio Nelson, he would practice ‘personal loyalty’ with his men.  Instead of disappearing into Sir John’s great cabin aboard Erebus, he may have elected to stay with his men in the shore camp at Crozier’s Landing until the winter cold and darkness made it impossible to live there, when both crews would have moved aboard Erebus. Should Erebus suffer a similar fate as Terror, then a land base gave the expedition a chance to live and extract themselves overland. By living with his men he would have been able to set an example and drive them harder for the task of transporting all the stores and equipment needed ashore. No doubt teams from Erebus assisted in the work and the ‘hauly –pully’. Some equipment was also removed from Erebus to make space for both crews over the winter.

The significance of the accident to Terror is shown by the material transported across the ice to Crozier’s Landing. Most significant was the discovery by Canadian forensic anthropologist Owen Beattie and party in summer 1982 in the shoreline mud at Crozier’s Landing, of coils of rope of various sizes. Unlike the organic remains on land, the ropes in the mud were well preserved by the anaerobic conditions and long periods of freezing. One of the coils was of rope about 5 centimetres in diameter (Beattie and Geiger, 1987, p.70), likely to be used only for heavy ship work and not needed on the shore camp. The heavy coils of rope suggest that Erebus’s rope store had been emptied to make room for both crews aboard Erebus overwinter 1847-48.

Beattie and Geiger (1987) made other valuable observations. They reported a series of at least thirteen stone circles marking the campsite. They also saw other stone circles that they attributed to visits by later searchers – mainly Hobson and McClintock in 1859, and Schwatka and party in 1879. Other indications of the seriousness of the accident was a pile of heavy clothing four feet high that had probably once filled a tent. The depot camp was an insurance against either both ships being lost or as a base from which a land retreat might start.

Crozier’s caution evidently paid off as during summer 1847 with the North-West Passage mapped by Lieutenant Graham Gore and his party, Erebus would have been prepared for sailing home in the autumn.  The canvas awning over the deck and the snow walls banked against her sides for insulation would have been removed and the topmasts and sails rerigged.  But all was in vain for summer 1847 did not arrive and the weather remained cold like winter and Erebus was not released.  Crozier’s pessimism and land base now paid off as there was a stocked shore base to be used the following spring as a starting point for an overland retreat to the south.

The 1848 Victory Point message also refers to ‘the late Commander Gore’.   This speaks volumes and indicates that Lieutenant Gore returned safely from mapping the North-West Passage and was promoted to Acting Commander to replace Fitzjames who became Acting Captain of Erebus following Sir John Franklin’s death. Gores untimely death may have been the result of the overturning of the ship as described by Kok-le-arng-nun. Acting Commander Gore may have been honoured by his fellow officers by being buried ashore at Crozier’s Landing – the ‘Gateway to the NW Passage’ that he had mapped. The grave at Crozier’s Landing is a shallow (one foot deep) cyst type and the body was sewn up in sailcloth as there was little time to build a coffin during the crisis. Later the cyst grave at Crozier’s Landing was weakly identified by the Schwatka expedition as that of Lieutenant Irving because of a silver medal belonging to Irving that as found on the side of the disturbed grave.

Meanwhile Terror did not sink.  She remained on her side with broken masts. Over winter 1847-48 she may have been used as a mortuary ship for the men who died. Eventually sometime after 1850 the locked up and sealed ship with her cargo of dead men, was ice rafted 155km to eventually drift south past Cape Crozier. There she was found by the Inuit who entered her and found bodies of men in the bunks.  They got into the hold and cut a ‘window’ through her side. By summer she had drifted into Terror Bay and sank there before much could be salvaged. Terror became a ship that died twice.  First she was probably overthrown in spring 1847 and abandoned.  Later she sank in Terror Bay after 1850. Kok-lee-arng-nun became blind and the deserted Terror had been forgotten and it was assumed to have sunk. She may have come upright again somewhere on her long drift.

QUESTION: Was Sir John ill at the time the ‘all well’ message form was completed?

QUESTION: Was Commander Fitzjames aware of the dangers of ice movement?

QUESTION.  When did Captain Crozier decide to retreat south?