Franklin's Lost Expedition: Orkney to the Wrecks

After leaving Greenhithe in Kent on 19 May 1845 with 24 officers and 110 men, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror made a short stop at Stromness in the Orkney Islands to take on fresh water. The town was well used to such callers: ships of the Hudson's Bay Company and whaling fleets were regular visitors. From here the two ships sailed for Greenland, a passage of 30 days.

Location precision: The sources name the town of Stromness but not the anchorage; the pin marks the town.

Visitor guidance: Stromness is a working town on Orkney's main island, reached by ferry and road.

At the Whalefish Islands in Disko Bay, on Greenland's west coast, ten oxen carried on the transport Barretto Junior were slaughtered for fresh meat for Erebus and Terror. Crew wrote their last letters home, which recorded that Franklin had banned swearing and drunkenness. Five sick men were sent home, leaving 129. Whalers then met the ships in Baffin Bay in late July 1845. They were the last Europeans to see them.

Location precision: The sources name the Whalefish Islands in Disko Bay but give no exact spot, so this stop has no pin.

Franklin chose the protected harbour of Beechey Island for his first winter encampment, 1845–46. Three crewmen died and were buried there: Petty Officer John Torrington, Royal Marine Private William Braine and Able Seaman John Hartnell. Searchers found the graves in 1850 but no written record of where the ships would go next. In the 1990s the decaying grave markers were replaced with bronze memorials.

In September 1846 Terror and Erebus became trapped in ice off King William Island. The Victory Point note, a pre-printed Admiralty form found in a cairn by William Hobson in May 1859, tells the rest. Its second part, dated 25 April 1848, records that Franklin had died on 11 June 1847 and that the survivors planned to walk towards the Back River. It is the last known communication of the expedition.

Location precision: The pin marks the centre of King William Island; Victory Point itself lies on its north-west coast.

On 2 September 2014 a Parks Canada team found the wreck of Erebus, Franklin's flagship, in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, west of the Adelaide Peninsula. Parks Canada then restricted access to a rectangular area of the bay as part of the Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site. The wreck is a protected site, not a visitor stop.

Location precision: The pin marks the bay, because the wreck's exact location was not released.

In 2016 the Arctic Research Foundation announced it had found HMS Terror in Terror Bay, off King William Island. Its team had been led there by a tip from Inuk crewman Sammy Kogvik, of Gjoa Haven, who had reported seeing a mast protruding from the ice during a hunting trip in 2010. Parks Canada has restricted access to a rectangular area of the bay.

Location precision: The pin marks Terror Bay; the wreck lies in a restricted area of the bay.