Franklin Expedition Seeks the Northwest Passage
On May 19, 1845, the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror departed from Greenhithe, England, under the command of Sir John Franklin. Their mission was to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage—the long-sought sea route through the Arctic connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The expedition was the best-equipped Arctic venture ever mounted: 134 men, three years’ provisions, steam engines for the ice, a library of over a thousand books, and—for morale and fresh meat—a monkey named Jacko, a Newfoundland dog named Neptune, a cat, and several live cattle.
The two ships were last seen by Europeans in Baffin Bay in late July 1845. When no word came after two years, Franklin’s wife Lady Jane began organizing search expeditions at her own expense. Though searchers eventually found evidence of the expedition’s fate—abandoned camps, scattered bones, and a brief written record—the full story of what happened after the ships became trapped in the ice remained a mystery for over 150 years. The wrecks of Erebus and Terror were finally located in 2014 and 2016.
The tragedy inspired Lady Franklin's Lament, a haunting ballad sung from the perspective of a dreaming sailor. More than a century later, Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers wrote Northwest Passage, which invokes “the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea” as the singer drives across the Canadian prairies, connecting his own journey to the explorers who came before.