Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada

Wall Bay, King William Island

        A small group of people including Joanne Laserich of Cambridge Bay and Margaret Bertulli, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, flew to a drumlin inland of Wall Bay on northwestern King William Island.  The purpose of the trip was to determine whether two features, a long mound and an irregular patch of black rocks, located by Joanne Laserich and Tom Gross of Hay River earlier in the summer could be cultural features related to the final Franklin expedition of 1845.  The expedition had abandoned its ships, H.M.S Erebus and Terror, after having been beset in ice off the northwestern coast of the island and trekked its length.  The discoverers of the feature had posited that the long mound could be a mass grave and that the patch of black rocks could have been Franklin's grave.  Both features proved to be natural but two Inuit artifacts, bone and whalebone implements, were recovered from the second feature.

O'Reilly Island

         A limited survey of the islets north of O'Reilly Island was conducted by Margaret Bertulli, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, in conjunction with a team sponsored by Eco Nova Multimedia Productions to search for Franklin's lost ships, H.M.S. Erebus and Terror.  This area, west of Adelaide Peninsula, was a good place to hunt seals and caribou; and several of the islets have numerous tent rings, caches, and large scatters of animal bone.  The occupations of the islands are related to the Historic and contemporary Inuit as well as their Thule ancestors.

Cape Crozier Expedition, King William Island

        The 1997 Cape Crozier Expedition, consisting of John Harrington, Derek Smith and John MacDonald, had two objectives: to survey the west coast of the Graham Gore Peninsula; and to collect the human remains scattered on the surface of NgLj-3, the Schwatka site, and to inter these remains in a cairn.

        The Schwatka site was rediscovered in 1993.  It is the location where at lest three of the Franklin crew perished after abandoning the ships.  This is likely the location of the lifeboat and human remains which Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, U. S. Army, had found in 1879.  In 1994, the surface distribution of the artifacts and human remains was mapped.  In 1996, the displacement of the remains due to natural causes was considered serious enough to make a recommendation to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre that they be gathered, placed in a metal container and a stone cairn built over the container.  This was done and a plaque was placed on the cairn.

        The west coast of the Graham Gore Peninsula was surveyed between Little Point and Cape Hodgson.  The purpose was to discover Franklin-related sites as well as Inuit sites with mid-nineteenth century European artifacts.  The objective was to determine whether the Franklin crews had travelled along the western coast of King William Island on their trek to the Back River.

        Thirty sites were discovered; they range in age from Thule to the latter half of the twentieth century.  The majority of sites are prehistoric and consist of 1-10 tent rings, often associated with caches.  Five of the sites are twentieth-century Inuit hunting camps and two are multi-component, having both prehistoric tent rings and either a modern cache or cairn.

        Only one site, near Cape Hodgson, appears to date to the Franklin period and is European.  It consists of a large tent ring, unusual in the choice of wall rocks and the positioning of six exterior rock piles surrounding the ring.  The rock piles are presumed to have held ropes which would have pulled out the sides of a tent--a European feature.  No artifacts were discovered that could precisely identify the tent's occupants.  The modern cairn, mentioned above, was also located near Cape Hodgson and is likely European in origin.  This cairn had been partially dismantled.

        The 'European-style' tent ring may have a Franklin crew origin--it could represent the remains of either a small survey crew or a post-abandonment camp.  None of the Inuit sites revealed any mid-nineteenth century artifacts which suggests that the crews did not follow the western coast of the Graham Gore Peninsula after abandoning the ships, or did not leave materials in their wake which the Inuit would have found useful.

Waters South of King William Island

        A survey of the waters south of King William Island was organized by Eco-Nova Multimedia Productions of Halifax, Nova Scotia to search for the remains of Sir John Franklin's ships, H.  M.  S.  Erebus and Terror.  The survey was conducted from the icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier along the northwest shore of the Adelaide Peninsula.  The operation involved the collaboration of several federal and territorial agencies including Fisheries and Oceans, Canadian Coast Guard; Canadian Hydrographic Services; Geological Survey of Canada, Energy, Mines and Resources; Department of National Defence; Parks Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage; and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.

         Since the fall of 1992 when the Erebus and Terror had been declared to be of national historic significance by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, the Underwater Archaeology Section of Parks Canada has intensified its ongoing partnership with the Government of the Northwest Territories to ensure the proper handling of these sites, if or when they are discovered.  Parks Canada also initiated the development of a Memorandum of Understanding between Canada and the United Kingdom.  The Memorandum gives Canada the role of representing the owner of the ships, the United Kingdom.  It also gives the ownership of artifacts which may be retrieved from the vessels to Canada, and  was signed on 8 August 1997, days before the expedition began.

        Using two search launches, two zodiacs and the icebreaker's helicopter, the project completed the systematic sonar and depth sounding of over 80 square kilometres of sea bottom in two areas along the Adelaide Peninsula; one area is southeast of Kirkwall Island and the other is northeast of O'Reilly Island.  No underwater wreck was detected; only natural features were defined.

        The shorelines of the islands in the vicinity were searched for debris from an historic wreck.  This resulted in the discovery and preliminary recording of over 100 tent rings.  This part of the project has been previously described in the section entitled O'Reilly Island.  These discoveries are important contributions to the late precontact and recent history of this part of the Arctic.

    The second and southernmost search area, near O'Reilly Island, provided some surface finds which may offer clues to the nearby presence of one of Franklin's ships.  These include copper sheathing fragments from old seacraft or ships.  Of diagnostic value is a heavy gauge copper disk which has been provisionally identified as the bottom of a pewter coffeepot of a type commonly used in England in the mid-nineteenth century.

        This expedition was successful in covering a much larger search area than had been anticipated and in so doing eliminated a large area for future search parties.  It also established a level of recording standards which can be used as a benchmark for future attempts to locate these remains of national and international historic importance.

Josephine Bay, Boothia Peninsula

    Peter Jess of Jessco Logistics Ltd., Calgary, Alberta went to Josephine Bay, about 80 kilometres northwest of Taloyoak, to look for a ship under the ice.  Eight people went on the trip.  A wooden post had been sighted under the water and there was speculation that this was a ship's mast.  The crew spent five days looking under the ice with rotary side scan sonar, but nothing was found.  The bottom of the bay is smooth with the odd outcrop of rock and is covered with gravel and baseball-sized rocks.  No further work is planned.