"They offloaded 5 men who were too ill to continue the journey." They were the lucky ones.

The thought of Crozier potentially surviving years afterwards in the frozen wilderness is truly haunting and sad

“He was simply tired of the arctic” as a soldier stationed in Alaska I feel this on a spiritual level.

I read a very interesting paper on the Franklin's lead toxicity. And it posited that the source was primarily, and overwhelmingly, the water purification system. It's been assumed the cans were the primary source, BUT, despite being the first "batch" from that company, those cans were used many more times on many other ships without incident. And the amount of lead poisoning that could have been absorbed from the food just didn't seem to add up to what they were finding in the bodies. What makes way more sense is the specialized water system on the Terror and Erebus. Because they had steam locomotive engines fitted, which had massive 2000lb/hr water requirements, and seawater would have fouled them quickly, the ships needed a lot of fresh water in reserve to fill the need. Now, the primary source of distilled water on the ships was the Fraser patent stove, which was heated by steam, thus producing potable water for the crew (but only enough for the crew). There was a lead lined water tank as reserve, but if they were to use the engines they'd need a way to produce a lot of distilled water very quickly. Enter the Fraser patent steam heating furnace. A furnace that heats the ship by steam, thus in addition to heating, also produces a lot of distilled water, has the heat to melt ice and snow gathered in a deck tank into fresh water, AND can also supply steam for the Fraser stove. Now in most lead water systems on land, you get a nice calcification build up in the pipes which will naturally protect the lead from the water and vice versa.But on a freshly build heating system of lead pipes, with brand new lead water tanks, there's no calcification buildup. And distilled water does NOT like being pure water, so it desperately tries to absorb anything into it, like lead. And you know what makes that process MUCH faster? Heat. So running hot steam through lead pipes, then gathering the condensate basically guarantees a large amount of lead contamination. Not only were they drinking this water, but also using it to bake biscuits with all the flour they had brought. This would explain the levels of lead toxicity, as well as providing a plausible reason they may have abandoned ship; had a furnace broken from corroding its own steam pipes, it could have been cause to abandon ship. Not just due to the change of environment, but the fact that damp clothing is very deadly for anyone wanting to go outside in the arctic.

fucking crazy that Crozier was still trying to escape the arctic 12 yrs after the expedition first departed imagine being trapped in the great white nothing for 12 full years

With names like Erebus (Darkness) and Terror... Hindsight is 20/20 but damn that's some heavy foreshadowing.

Fun fact about the 1819 franklin expedition where he ate his boots, there was also literal cannibalism. At one point they ran out of food, so some guys went off to hunt. Later only one returned and with lots of meat. Soon afterwards one of the guys at camp died while “cleaning his musket”. To save themselves the remaining crew killed the cannibal, Michel, when he returned from hunting.

The man who stayed home with his wife successfully dodged being eaten

800 Miles… that’s roughly the distance between Denmark and Italy …through snow, low on food and suffering from lead poisoning and scurvy. Fucking insane.

1846/47 was also the same winter when the Donnor Party got trapped in the mountains, snowed in.

"And when I say there is no cannibalism in the Royal Navy, I do mean that there is a certain amount."

As a young child I remember watching the Nova special that featured the 1980s exhumation and autopsies of Beachy Island. My parents would never have let me watch, say, a zombie movie at that age; but a PBS documentary was just fine, right? The faces on those exhumed sailors horrified me for years afterwards.

Been fascinated and obsessed with this mystery for years now... I can't even open a tin of beans without thinking about these poor souls and what they went through....

I watched the show The Terror, and the accuracy of casting look-a-like actors to the real life people is absolutely astounding.

For me, the monster in the amazon series always was just a symbol of all the things the crew could not understand about the far north and the cold and the dangers that were out there or that they only imagined. I'm not normally into horror movies, but man was that series great!

The Terror tv series on AMC was absolutely brilliant. Yes, they added some supernatural elements, which I would normally loathe, but it didn't detract from the story. The performances were stellar across the entire cast and the writing as well. I normally hate when anyone takes liberties with history, but in this case the look and feel of it made me feel like I had traveled back to 1845. Some found the series slow, but I didn't mind the pace. They managed to maintain the suspense and tension until the very end.

We found the wrecks of those ships mainly thanks to the testimony of the inuit hunters and their oral history. Inuits have what could be the most accurate oral history on the planet. Since they have no written history, their lives depended on the accuracy of the information passed down. Sadly, their testimony was ridiculed and denied by England's victorian society. They were insulted and dragged through the mud, because they saw how the men resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. 170 years later, it is thanks to them that the Erebus and Terror were found.

imagine knowing you have to walk 800 miles in a straight line just to reach civilization. nobody walks in straight lines. the earth does not allow such conveniences. that walk was more like 1000+ miles considering the route they would actually be able to walk.

Just a quick note on decoupling the screw propeller: while it is certainly a benefit that hauling the screw inside the hull would protect it from ice, the main reason this was done was because the screw was an emergency propulsion. Early steam engines were inefficient, used coal very quickly, and combined with the small coal bunkers on board this meant they were only used if the ship were dangerously becalmed. The reason you pull the screw out of the water is that trailing a static screw produces a lot of drag.

The food cans are such a hotly debated topic that we will never really know what state the food was in. It has been speculated that the food provided for this expedition was actually considered good by the standards of the time and that the quality went downhill sometime later. I have read accounts that the Navy was using this food source elsewhere in service for years before they began to encounter problems with it. Additionally, while the lead sealing the cans is an issue it was not nearly as much lead as they were receiving from the water system piping and, as scary as this sounds, was not considered an excessive amount of lead exposure over what the average British subject was being exposed to already. Again, this is speculative. Lead poisoning may have been a big factor or might have paled in comparison to the scurvy the crew was certainly experiencing three years into the expedition.

I have never heard of this story. When AMC brought The Terror to the small screen, I began to wonder. Expeditions like these were siren calls to adventurers, either experienced or novice. The show was a very handsome production. I remember having to applaud the production design, props and especially the wardrobe. The cast was also top notch, as well. In that environment, where it is always cold and food is scarce, God only knows what was running through the crews of The Terror and Erebus. They were fighting multiple battles on multiple fronts from within and without and they lost their lives.

Even if I learn nothing new about the Franklin Expedition, which was not the case here, I have to listen to every podcast I encounter. It's so horribly fascinating.

"The Terror" series was phenomenal. An amazingly dark piece of art. The sense of dread and despair is unrelenting.

I was able to go to beechy island and one of my most prized possessions is some rusty tin from the cans.

This expedition was definitely one of history's great "I wish I hadn't tried that" moments.

The Dan Simmons novel "The Terror" is really worth a read. You get a vivid picture of the cold, the dark and the claustrophobia on board the ships marooned in the pack ice during polar night and of the misery and despair of scurvy and exhaustion as they trudged south.

Wow, this had me entranced from start to finish. The idea of anyone not from that area surviving in the wilderness for over a decade is mindblowing.

I’ve watched season one of the Terror three times over. Probably the best thing I’ve watched all year.

Brought here by Wendigoon. This provided even more information on this tragedy. But one last thing… Crozier, as a true Irishman, was just built different.

I feel like it's worth mentioning that Dr. John Rae was the one who reported to the Admiralty that the Inuit had discovered evidence of cannibalism among the Franklin crew. Franklin's wife took offense to that and had Rae's name dragged through the mud for taking the Inuit at their word.

I’ve been to the gravesite of sailors from both the expedition and rescue party. It a cold and desolate place, but rather beautiful when I saw it in daylight.

Getting sick and getting kicked from the trip might have seemed shit luck at the time but getting off those doomed vessels was a blessing lol

I love this story. It was one of the stories (along with the story of the wreck of the Dutch ship Batavia - man is that a hell of a story) which has me considering going into Maritime Archaeology. Hopefully once I have finished my studies for work!

Great video my guy, you clearly put a lot of work into your vids!

If you don’t like stuff, skip ahead. Me: Oh what is it just some bones or something? Well. That face will haunt my nightmares forever now.

Even Lewis and Clark hoped to find a water route to the Pacific. It was one of their objectives. Which is why the took such a difficult and roundabout way west, rowing and pushing a boat upriver on the Mississippi

I have been obsessed with this mystery for awhile now. One thing I watched on another documentary said that the climate at the time was going through a harsher winter than normal. I believe Franklin died of stress from the expectation & condition of the exploration.

Holy cow, this video was a treat to watch. Thank you for your hard work, I can see true care and love went into this video. I’ll be sure to tune in for new content!

12 years he survived. Incredible.

The most fucked up part of the story? Inuits were reporting seeing the ships as early as the 1900s, but the Canadian government flat out ignored them for 110 years because they’re First Nations. The expedition in the 2010s explicitly ignored the local Inuit telling them exactly where to look. It wasn’t until a second crew showed up, listened to the Inuit, and found the ship within literally 3 hours of looking. A 170 year mystery that was solved 120 years ago.

Could they really have been walking in the cold and dark for that many years ? I can’t imagain how that would be possible

If that was crozier, he must have been one heck of a survivalist.

To think that with steam engines actually meant for ships(and fuel for more than 12 days) Erebus and Terror might have made it..But yeah...putting a partly disassembled steam locomotive with 25 HP on them was cheaper.. Edit:To clarify..the tug that pulled Erebus out of harbor had a bit over 200 HP engines...

Franklin: Uses military grade vessels with a combined weight of over a 1000 tons, over a hundred crew members and government sponsorship in order to claim the northwest passage but ends up dying in failure. Amundsen: Takes 6 people with him in a modified 45 ton fishing boat and claims the northwest passage because he can.

The terror season one was a great show.

The Terror Tv Series is bloody brilliant! What a great video. Thank you!

I ran into a old British veteran during a DDay convention back in 1982 His great grand uncle served on the Erebus . The family never heard from him again and assumed died

Great video! Learnt some new info here, the bit about the Inuit finding one of the ships is really interesting and very spooky too knowing what had gone on. Appreciate the warning about THOSE photos too, I find this mystery fascinating but I have watched videos where they just put them up and more than one book on the subject has them on the cover!

Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

Found your channel literally just this morning, when I watched this video. Holy shit man... This stuff is pure gold!

My grandmother was an Amundsen. I often think of CPT. Crozier, and his wisdom in navigating this passage. I loved the show ‘The Terror’. Ross was depicted brilliantly in this show. Franklin was played beautifully by C. Hinds.

You should totally talk about The Endurance expedition led by Ernest Shackelton

Great content! Good job, and if I could suggest: please add map with indications on what you are mentioning, instead of repeated cuts of the same picture; that would put things in better perspective. Keep up the good work 👏

Stan Rogers song about The Northwest Passage is so good, now this video shows up and you have given it new life. Thanks so much

I just found your videos and am blown away by the quality all around, from the details, sound quality, your voice and reading quality. I love hearing videos on my way to work and this is definitely a channel ill use and am glad I found!

Always had an interest in this, one of my ancestors was among the crew of the first Ships that went looking for them.

It was homeward bound one night on the deep Swinging in my hammock I fell asleep I dreamed a dream and I thought it true Concerning Franklin and his gallant crew With one hundred seamen he sailed away To the frozen ocean in the month of May To seek a passage around the pole Where we poor seamen do sometimes go Through cruel hardships they mainly strove Their ship on mountains of ice was drove Only the Eskimo with his skin canoe Was the only one that ever came through In Baffin's Bay where the whale fish blow The fate of Franklin no man may know The fate of Franklin no tongue can tell Lord Franklin along with his sailors do dwell And now my burden it gives me pain For my long lost Franklin I'd cross the main Ten thousand pounds I would freely give To say on earth that my Franklin do live

I love maritime history. I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve seen this channel. Very cool idea you have here, I look forward to a rainy day off to watch everything.

Your videos are brilliant man! Somethin about maritime mysteries is just perfect to fall asleep to. Keep up the great work brother youll blow up in no time! Godspeed!

Superbly well-presented post on all levels. Surely no shortage of maritime horrors - bring 'em on! Deserves more subs - just added mine.

Fun fact: two of the newest maps added to TF2 Halloween rotation were named Erebus and Terror, named after these ships

Oh man I been excited for you to cover this one

@5:36 - Just a niggle: It's a commonplace that Francis Crozier was rejected out of hand to command the expedition, and rejected specifically because of his Irish background. In fact, however, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Haddington, had consistent misgivings about Sir John Franklin's fitness for the job (due to his age and health) when Franklin's name was mooted, and apparently privately approached Crozier to offer him the job at the end of 1844. Crozier, racked by depression, turned Haddington down. He wrote about it to his friend, Sir James Ross, as to why he turned it down. "In truth, I sincerely feel I am not equal to the hardship. I am, in truth, still of opinion as to my own unfitness to lead. You, on that subject as well as all others, know my whole mind." (30 December, 1844) It is the great irony of Crozier that the command was nonetheless thrust on him in the worst possible circumstances in June 1847, when Franklin died during the expedition's third summer, while the ships were frozen in pack ice off King William Island.

Great video again, worth the small wait!

Recently found your channel, love the content. Your videos are teaching me some cool history and very interesting

Historybuffs also did a video covering this story as well for those interested.

I almost think that some could have survived if they made the trek back to Beechey island. It's half the distance than going south to Backs fish River, they still had a camp set up there, they have hunted game there before, and if anyone came looking, that would be one of the earliest places they would have been found

Great video! I’m in awe of the bravery of sailors who set out on expeditions like this, even though they knew that they might never make it back. It takes a lot of courage to sign up for a journey like this one. May their souls Rest in Peace.

underrated channel

I read another account that said the Inuit that found the ship found some men alive on board, one of which warned them not to go near the tents, presumably because of cannibalism. I wonder which version is true.

One thing is for sure, these were tough men. Thank you for this episode. It was very good.

Just stumbled across your channel today man loving your work time to binge thanks for the quality uploads!

In case you don't know this - Sir is a title that goes with the person's first name and not their surname. So in the case of Sir James Ross it's Sir James nor Sir Ross.

Your channel is growing because of your excellent content, sir. You have a great channel and hope to see you soon reach 50,000 subscribers. I don't think it will take very long.

Good documentary 👍!! I'm a history buff, and know a tiny bit about, The Northwest Passage. My brother and I, had the boardgame 'Northwest Passage' circa 1972 (remember that?). A game, where there were 4, different colored, oil tankers (2"). You toss toss dice, and advance your ship through, the ice routes, picking up barrels of oil (which looked like, orange notebook paper, donuts ⭕), along the way. You'd stick them onto, the ship's smokestacks. Whoever possessed, the most disc's at the end, wins the game. I used to love, playing it!! But, the box itself had some information about, The Northwest Passage, and that's what introduced me, to this.

The mini series that was on the AMC channel about this expedition was AWSOME!

I remember watching the National Geographic documentary when they found the bodies in the 1980s. I was a kid back then, and have always had an interest in the Franklin Expedition since then.

I can’t be the only one thinking of that one Stan Rogers song, right?

Great presentation and case. I love learning about the old explorations of the arctic, and the hardships they faced. They showcase the indomitable human spirit of exploration and discovery.

I don’t know why this popped up in my feed, but I’m glad I watched it. Subscribed immediately thereafter, look forward to more videos. Great work here.

Great watch . I went to Orkney and and found out about John Rae which lead me here. Thanks for posting.

This is a very good video! Quite well presented and very interesting. Thank you! Great job! Bravo!

Ever since I heard about this expedition it stayed with me for a long time. It's really haunting really. For what these men would have gone through to end up as they did hurts me deeply whenever I think about it. But I didn't know some new stuff you bring up here like the potential of a few men making it as far as 1858. To have survived that long I shudder to think of what they would have done to stay alive. I couldn't imagine the hardship. But it makes me wonder if maybe one or two of them might have actually made it and lived for a time.

Fantastic video. The Terror was completely engrossing- highly recommended.

If you enjoy this story, I highly recommend playing The Pale Beyond. The story in the game is different, but the events are similar.

Attention all hands! I now have merch! My channel artist has made up some merch on her teepublic. All funds go to paying her for the wonderful work she does. So if you want to show your support for the channel and the great art she does, pick something up! www.teepublic.com/user/dragonrise_studio/albums/146205-maritime-horrors

Thank you for having uploaded this. Very informational.

Vey, very well done lad. Exceptionally measured and not at all overblown for the sake of theatrics, views or likes. Many a channel could learn from this video.

The Terror is a fascinating book. A whole lot of fiction tossed in, but it’s a great read. I haven’t watched the show as the book was scary enough for me. And then there’s the monster too.

Hey, you mentioned "The Terror"! I loved that book so much and I also watched the TV series. I mean, even without the monster, the story would still be terrifying in my opinion.

I was obsessed with this when I was in 3rd grade! Couldn't stop telling my mom about the cool book with the frozen mummies!

Just found your channel. Can’t wait to watch more! So good.

(For just one time I shall take the north-west passage...)

Wow,such a great video, very informative and entertaining

How am I only just finding this channel?? Wow, man. Great content. Incredibly well narrated. Glad I came across this. New subscriber, bell is rung. 👍💯

A most excellent recounting, well done and thank you once again.

Great video. I've shared it with the Erebus and Terror Facebook group. My only quibble is that you need to work on the music transitions as they're a bit choppy.

Stan Rogers' northwest passage must be listened to after watching this.

Really enjoying the channel, good work. Respects from 🇨🇦.

Informative video. I finished The Terror awhile back so I was interested in reading up and watching some videos on The Franklin Exploration.