6. Weighing the Inuit testimonies (New Data).

Inuit oral testimonies describing the fate of the lost 1845 Franklin expedition have been collected from 1854 onwards. The most recent collection was made by Dorothy Harley Eber between 1994 and 2008, a century and a half after the 1848 retreat.  I am grateful to Captain David Woodman who has corresponded with me on the reliability of the oral testimonies. With time and repetition the oral testimonies will become more modified and less reliable.  Captain Woodman suggests weighing the provenance of each testimony.  All those older than 1900 AD – those collected in the 19th century by Rae, McClintock, Hall and Schwatka – can be rated excellent. Another important weighing is that there should be multiple sources of the same event. Later testimonies and those of a single source only, must be considered to be less reliable.

Unfortunately testimonies collected at different times are often very different.  The 19th century testimonies tell of the retreat hauling boats, abandoned boats, graves, cannibalism and ships sinking.  The early 20th century testimonies tell of ships off the west coast of King William Island.  One ship was manned and the crew made joint hunting trips with the Inuit. The other ship was deserted with bodies aboard. The manned ship sailed away. The Inuit cut a window through the hull of the deserted ship so that she sank. The latter is Terror in Terror Bay. The modern Inuit have found areas of oil-soaked ground which they report as a ‘fireplace trail’ and a campsite where western men may have cooked over seal blubber fires.

One possibility that must be considered is that the Inuit of King William Island and the surrounding area, had a vast amount of testimony concerning the Franklin expedition and that despite the valiant attempts to collect it, very little was in fact gathered.  Here again the poisoning of Charles Francis Hall is to be regretted that he did not complete his book on the lost expedition using the vast amount of testimony he gathered while living with the Inuit for five years.

A problem encountered during the study of Inuit testimonies is presented by  three accounts of ships sinking collected by Charles Francis Hall from Kok-le-arng-nun. When writing ‘Franklin’s Fate’ I rejected one of Kok-le-arng-nun’s testimonies as I could not understand why there were accounts of three ship sinkings for only the two expedition ships.  However I realise now that I was wrong.  Kok-ke-arng-nun’s testimonies must be regarded as impeccable according to the rules of Captain Woodman.  If he described three sinkings then he is likely to have witnessed three ‘sinking events’ or three ‘apparent sinkings’. Therefore I have reconsidered the role of HMS Terror which is written up here as ‘The ship that died twice’.

QUESTION. Why should the testimonies collected at different times be so different?

QUESTION. How does one reconcile accounts of three sinking with the loss of two ships?