17. The missing boats.

For the 1848 retreat of 105 officer and men, four large boats were probably specially prepared. The ships each carried a pinnace and two whale boats, as well as others. The 1848 retreat probably used two pinnaces and two whale boats. A pinnace was found and was described in detail by McClintock (1859) in Erebus Bay. A second large boat was later found nearby by In-nook-poo-zhee-jook. The fate of the other boats is uncertain. Only one boat took part in the 1850 retreat and this ended up at Starvation Cove, although the sledge was not found. There remains no explanation for the two ‘lost’ boats of the 1848 retreat. There are however some reports of boats or sites where wood shavings and wood fragments show where boats or sledges were broken up by the Inuit.
A second boat on the Adelaide Peninsula.
There is a possibility that two boats were found by the Inuit on the Adelaide Peninsula. One is the famous boat at Starvation Cove where about ten dead men lay well wrapped beneath an overturned boat. But another report talks of a boat not overturned but with dead men inside. Knut Rasmussen in 1923 was told of this other boat place at Qavdlunarsiorfik (Stenton, 2018, site 33) on the east coast of the Adelaide Peninsula not far from Starvation Cove. Three Inuit hunters had found the bodies of six white men in a boat (Rasmussen, 1931, p.131). Rasmussen visited the site and found many bones and pieces of cloth and leather footwear scattered about. It is uncertain if this is another description of Starvation Cove which is nearby on the Adelaide Peninsula. Dr. Doug. Stenton treats it as a different site, and if so it may one of the missing boats of the 1848 retreat.
A boat in Chantrey Inlet.
Dorothy Harley Ever (2008) collected modern testimony from the Inuit of Gjoa Haven about a century and a half after the 1848 retreat concerning a possible boat in Chantry Inlet (perhaps the boat at Starvation Cove) and also of a boat mast.
The boat testimony was collected from Tommy Anguttitauruq (Eber, 2008, p.81):
‘The Back River people in the springtime, in March, April, and May and probably in June, would go to Chantrey Inlet area, near the Montreal Island, and around the area they found a lifeboat – I heard only one boat; I’m not sure if there was one boat or two. There were no people around it. These Back River people used anything they could to break it up. They made all kinds of holes with rocks and broke up the boat as much as they could so the white people would not be able to use it to attack them. They thought the white people were planning to attack – they thought they were hiding somewhere in the area. They were afraid of them. After a few years those boats were still there, so they started taking them apart in order to use the nails and the piece of steel on the bottom – the keel. That piece of steel they pounded up to make harpoons and spears’.
So there are some possibilities for the two ‘missing’ boats of the 1848 retreat. Roobol (2019) has suggested that if a boat was left at Terror Bay in 1848, then it might well have be reused in the 1850 retreat and ended up at Starvation Cove. The large sledge with it might have been taken to Montreal Island either by Franklin’s men or the Inuit, where it was broken up by the Inuit. The fourth boat of the 1848 retreat may have reached Douglas Bay were seven men died and the sledge was abandoned and later broken up by the Inuit. The boat may have gone on by water to reach Chantrey Inlet where the rest of the crew died. There is testimony about a pair of boat masts sighted far out in the ice but unreported by the Anderson search expedition of 1855. This story is described later.
Testimonies about small boats or dinghies. .
Both Erebus and Terror each carried a 12 foot dinghy. However there seem to be too many small boat testimonies for just two dinghies. The next size boat up was a gig at twenty two feet carried by both ships. Perhaps some of the reported ‘boats’ were in fact gigs. In-nook-poo-zhe-jook described to Charles Francis Hall that when the deserted Erebus (the Utjulik ship) was found she had four boats hanging at her sides and a fifth boat above the quarter deck.
Two brothers provided testimony of finding a deserted ship with many bodies aboard Rasmussen (1927, p. 241) and Klutschak (1968, p.209). There was a boat hanging over one side. It was cut free by an Inut who wanted it for a meat trough. But the boat fell end down onto the ice and was smashed.

Dorothy Harley Eber (2008) also collected new testimony about relics, perhaps cached by the Inuit, found on Montreal Island and on another island known as Umiaktalik (the place of the boat) a short distance to the south east. Testimony about a boat mast was collected from Mark Tootiak (Eber, 2008, p.80):
‘Relics (some think they might have come from Inuit caches) were found on Montreal Island in Chantrey Inlet and, a short distance southeast, at an island known as Umiaktalik– ‘the place of the boat’ – which Qallunaat call King Island. (An island called Umiaktalik appears on a map in Schwatka’s Search). Mark Tootiak says ‘There is a big wooden mast there you can see underground. My brother-in-law lifted it up and put one side on top of a rock. It’s still there. My stepdad used to tell me that when he was young he found pieces of glass there.’ And Mark once found a relic himself. ‘I was looking around and I saw a big spike – old, old copper, all green with a square head’.
After Erebus sank, the Inuit found a small boat ashore in Wilmot Bay on the west side of the Adelaide Peninsula. Klutschak (1987, p. 65) suggested that it had drifted to the mainland after the ship sank.
The Anderson expedition of 1855 searched Chantry Inlet (described later). Years later it was learned that near the west side of Montreal Island the trail of a small boat that had been dragged across the island was found. It was followed to the remains of a boat that was broken into small pieces on the eastern side of the island. The matter was not reported to Anderson. It is unlikely to have been part of the 1848 retreat where 105 men set out probably with four large boats. Inuit testimony shows only one large boat was taken on the1850 retreat. So this small dinghy inside Chantrey Inlet on the escape route through Back’s Great Fish River might tell the tale of a previously unknown escape attempt by a small number of crew. The most likely time and place for such an event would have been in summer 1849, when Erebus with about a half of the men was trapped for one or two years in the Terror Bay – Imnguyaaluk Island (in the Royal Geographical Society Islands) area. Although Erebus was trapped, there might have been an opportunity at the time of the summer thaw to transport a dinghy across the ice to a lead and set off sailing to the south. The presence of the boat on Montreal Island, slightly less than a half way down the estuary, suggests the escape attempt failed in its objective to sail along the entire length of Chantrey Inlet to reach either Back’s Great Fish River or the Mackenzie River.
QUESTION: Did one of the boats of the 1848 retreat reach the Adelaide Peninsula/ Chantrey Inlet area?
QUESTION. Was there an attempt to escape by a small party in a dinghy though Chantry Inlet?

• This topic was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by John Roobol.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Admin.