11. The most elaborate of the Franklin graves, found by Su-pung-er and his uncle

Captain David Woodman set up a ‘Project Su-pun-ger’ after finding more detailed testimony in Hall’s unpublished notebooks, than was included in Professor Nourse’s summary volume of 1891. When the Inuit learned from the M’Clintock visit in 1859 that there were abandoned wood and metal objects on the north-west coast of King William Island, two men (‘Su-pung-er’ – modern spelling, but ‘See-pung-er’ of Hall and Nourse –  and his uncle) set out to retrieve such valuable materials. At a coastal location ‘above Back Bay, not far from Victory Point’ (near Cape Jane Franklin and Crozier’s Landing), they found a large collapsed tent on the shore and nearby the deepest and most elaborate grave known on King William Island together with a wooden mast. Hall’s unpublished notebook is quoted in Potter (2016, p.161-164):

‘They came to a place where they found a skeleton of a Kob-lu-na (white man) some parts of it having clothing on while other parts were without any it having been torn off by wolves or foxes. Near this skeleton they saw a stick standing erect wh. had been broken off – the part broken off lying close by.   From the appearance both he & his uncle thought the stick, or rather small pillar or post, had been broken off by a Ni-poo (polar bear). On taking hold of that part of the wooden pillar which was erect they found it firmly fixed – could not move it a bit. But what attracted their attentions the most on arriving at this pillar was a stone – or rather several large flat stones lying flat on the sandy ground & tight together. After much labour one of these stones was loosened from its carefully fixed position & by great exertion of both nephew and uncle the stone was lifted up a little at one edge just sufficient that they could see that another tier of large flat stones firmly & tightly fitted together underneath’.

Hall’s account continued (Potter, 2016, p.163):

‘The pillar of wood stood to one side of it – not at the end but on one side.   The part of the stick or pillar standing about 4 feet high as indicated by Su-pung-er on my person & the whole height on replacing the part broken off, about six feet from the ground. As nephew & uncle were in want of wood they spent a good deal of time in digging the part erect loose. It was deeply set in the sand. The shape of this stick or pillar was a peculiar one to these natives. The part in the ground was square. Next to the ground was a big ball & above this to within a foot or so of the top the stick was round. The top part was about 3 or 4 inches square. No part of it was painted – all natural wood colour’.

The post was identified as a topgallant mast and may have carried a flag for signalling the ships, or possibly raising or lowering the wooden ball.

Hall’s account continues (Potter, 2016, p.163)

‘After a while they concluded to go & make other attempts to raise some of the stones where the pillar was found. At last they were successful in raising enough of the stones to see what they covered up. They found a hole of the depth from the feet up to the navel & of a length more than a man’s height & wider than the width of a man’s shoulders & this was all nicely walled with flat stones placed one above another, flatwise. In this vault they found a clasp knife, a skeleton bone of a man’s leg & a human head (skull). There was much water, mud and sand at the bottom of the vault. The sand had been carried in by water, as they thought, running in at the hole that had been made by the wild animal on one side of the vault. Near this vault they saw parts of a human skeleton with fragments of clothing on the limbs. There was no head about these skeleton bones & Su-pung-er & his uncle concluded that the same wild animal that had made the hole in the vault had taken these skeleton bones out of the vault & dragged them where he & his uncle saw them’.

The vault was about four feet deep. This is interesting because ‘Lieutenant Irving’s’ grave at Crozier’s Landing, of similar but cruder stone slabbing is only a foot deep and about four feet long but raised above the ground (see photograph in Potter 2016, p. 176).  Inside the grave opened by Su-pung-er and his uncle was a human skull, a leg bone and a clasp knife. As the grave was at ground level and left open it would soon have filled with washed material. This was not the case with the Irving grave that as built above ground. Captain Woodman led a team for Project Su-pun-ger in 1994 and 1995 without success in locating this grave. They concluded that the grave lies somewhere between Cape Felix and Collinson Inlet (perhaps near Cape Maria Louisa or at Wall Bay). According to Potter (2016) the search continues to the present day by Tom Gross.

The wooden post or mast at the grave, situated on a beach about 3m high, would only be visible from the deck of a ship about 6 km away.

QUESTION.  This grave evidently took a lot of time and trouble to build –more than any other grave.  Is it therefore the grave of Sir John Franklin?