23.
Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin?
The Victorian establishment quickly decided, as William James Mills writes in Exploring Polar Frontiers, that with his voyage of 1857–1859, Leopold McClintock had confirmed “that Franklin’s men, in making the journey from Point Victory to the Great Fish River, had completed the first crossing of the Northwest Passage.”
Contemporary readers may find themselves scratching their heads. Wait, what? Say again? The Passage extends from Baffin Bay to the Beaufort Sea. Every last one of Franklin’s men died roughly in the middle. They got trapped in the ice of an impassable strait. They did not return home with any geographical news. Obviously, they completed nothing. But never mind.
Building upon the Victory Point record, and ignoring the Inuit he had interviewed, McClintock himself articulated an oversimplification that would give rise to an erroneous “standard reconstruction.” The starving crews, he wrote, had abandoned the Erebus and the Terror in April 1848. “The survivors, under Crozier and Fitzjames, numbered in all 105; they proceeded with boats on sledges to the Great Fish River. One of their boats was found by us, untouched by the Esquimaux, and many relics brought from her, as also obtained from the natives of Boothia and the east shore of King William Island.”
Today, given the discoveries of both Erebus and Terror, and the additional information provided by Inuit testimony, we know that, while some men trekked south and east along the coast of King William Island, a few others returned to one or both of those ships and remained on board as the pack ice carried them south.
Subsequent searchers would find more relics, more bodies, more frozen bones. They would interview Inuit eyewitnesses and excavate gravesites and conduct forensic examinations. They would produce extrapolations and conflicting theories and draw attention to unexplored aspects of the Franklin legend. But nobody has yet turned up another written record—though that may change over the next few years as Parks Canada divers scour the two ships. Of the one-page document he presented to Lady Franklin on her arrival in London, McClintock declared, “A sadder tale was never told in fewer words.”
With that characterization, few would argue. Yet what, exactly, was the truth of that tale? A decade would elapse before the American Charles Francis Hall would return from the Arctic, carrying notes from interviews he had conducted with numerous Inuit, including eyewitnesses—detailed testimonials, harrowing and convincing, that some final survivors of the Franklin expedition had resorted to cannibalism. And more than a century would go by before forensic studies would provide conclusive physical evidence that, with his initial report, the forthright John Rae had revealed a more profound truth about “the fate of Franklin” than the circumspect Leopold McClintock.
But in 1859, the complex truth of the expedition’s “fate” did not matter much, if only because, in her sense of history and how to create it, Lady Franklin stood alone among her contemporaries. Her wide reading, unprecedented adventuring and obsessive visiting of historical sites had taught this astute Victorian that what actually happened at any given moment dwindles to insignificance in comparison with what is perceived to have happened. Jane Franklin understood that, as regards history and enduring reputation, perception creates the only truth that counts. And at controlling perception, she knew no peers.
Ignoring John Rae’s report, so unpleasant and inconvenient, Jane Franklin hailed McClintock as discoverer of the fate of Franklin. She expected her influential friends to do likewise. The closest of them, cognizant of her aspirations, required no specific guidance. On October 11, 1859—not two weeks after McClintock arrived home—John Richardson would turn his back on Rae, his old travelling companion, to laud the captain of the Fox: “The intelligence procured by Dr. Rae was less reliable, as coming from a tribe who had seen neither the wrecks nor the crews themselves, alive or dead, but had got their information and the European articles they possessed through an intervening party. Some of their reports therefore are to be regarded merely as the habitual exaggerations of a rude people in repeating a story.” In fact, McClintock’s informants were also relaying secondhand information.
From the United States, Henry Grinnell sent excited congratulations, observing that McClintock “has acquired a just fame for himself, which the pages of history will never allow to be obliterated.” He added that, as regards Lady Franklin herself, “it is better that I should say nothing, for I have not the command of words to define the estimate I entertain of your character. I am not alone in this; the whole community is with me. I am from all quarters congratulated on the event, as though I had a part in bringing it about; it is you, however, that is intended, through me.”
John Rae as depicted in 1854 in The Illustrated London News. Notwithstanding the accolades bestowed on McClintock, Rae was the one who brought the first authentic tidings of the fate of the Franklin expedition.
Within three months, encouraged by Jane Franklin, McClintock was proclaiming that he had ascertained the fate of the Franklin expedition. William Arrowsmith, a leading cartographer, responded to him by observing that John Rae had not only already ascertained the fate but had been recognized and rewarded for doing so. In March 1860, McClintock wrote to Rae complaining of Arrowsmith’s tone.
Responding from London, Rae entered into what became a testy correspondence. By suggesting that McClintock had merely confirmed and clarified his own findings, and that, in future, other searchers would shed additional light on the fate of the Franklin expedition, he originated an argument that stands up in the light of subsequent history. Rae wrote:
It is very generally allowed that the information brought home by me in 1854, together with the numerous relics bearing the crests and initials of fourteen of the officers of the Erebus and Terror, were sufficient evidence that a large portion of both Franklin’s ships had died of disease and starvation in the neighbourhood of the Back River and King William’s Land on or previous to 1850, and that these were the last survivors of the party. I was told also that the ship or ships had been destroyed by ice.
Your information does not contradict that brought by me in any important fact, and proves the correctness of the Esquimaux intelligence even in regard to the route followed by the unfortunate people on their way to the Back River. You leave 102 persons out of 129 unaccounted for, except through information similar to that from which mine was obtained—my interpreter was perfectly acquainted with the dialect and language of the Esquimaux of Repulse Bay, many of whom I had known in 1846–47, and had always found with a few exceptions honest and truthful.
There are other more minute particulars that I might dwell upon, but the great fact that a large portion of Franklin’s party died of starvation and (leaving little doubt as to the fate of the remainder) at a certain locality which I named correctly on or before 1850, was communicated by me in 1854 . . .
W. Arrowsmith showed me your note to him, after perusing which I scarcely think his note to you can be called intemperate. I write in perfect good feeling, as I hope people may do in a matter of opinion on a subject where there always will be two sides of the question, perhaps three, were another expedition to go out and find the journals of some of the latest survivors.
From Dublin, addressing his letter “My dear Rae,” Leopold McClintock replied:
I quite agree with all you state as to the information and relics brought home by you in /54; they afforded circumstantial evidence as to the fate of a large party, probably the last survivors of Franklin’s crews; and the impression was strong as to the sad fate of the whole. But positive proof was wanting, therefore in /55 Anderson was sent out by the government, but he was unable to do more than confirm your locality of Montreal Island. In /59 I confirmed more of your report and found such further traces and records as have cleared up the fate of the whole expedition. Now it is evident that as these traces were unknown to the natives themselves, no information respecting them could have reached you; therefore these skeletons, records, several cairns and a boat, besides articles innumerable, are my discovery.
Also, by having been able to judge of their equipment from specimens seen, of their state of health, and of the absence of game upon the coast they travelled, I have shown that they could not possibly have reached beyond Montreal Island and must have all perished . . .
This should not be confused with the information you received respecting those who died upon the mainland. All native information whether obtained by you or I must be limited to the SW shoreline of King William Island, since they have not visited the NW coast. But you will see that I have managed my work as to be independent of their testimony altogether.
My object in the Fox was to examine the whole of the unexplored area between the Barrow Strait beaches and Anderson and I did so. Had your information as to locality been conclusive this great labour would have been unnecessary. Now in spite of these additional and important facts, Arrowsmith does me the injustice of giving you credit for the whole, and simply mentioned me as having “fully confirmed” you, and talks of “the first intelligence of the Fate” as if anything could be discovered twice.
To this, John Rae responded: “I must confess that your able arguments do not in any material point alter my opinions, no more than any thing I could say would be likely to alter yours. Your information although of course fuller than that obtained by me does not account for 102 persons or about 3/4 of Franklin’s party, except through Esquimaux testimony which you say you managed to be ‘wholly independent of.’”
The exchange continued, wending into details of less relevance. John Rae had already presented the decisive argument, when he suggested that more differences would inevitably arise, especially “were another expedition to go out and find the journals of some of the latest survivors.” The great hope today, of course, is that maritime archaeologists will find journals, letters, or other written documents aboard the Erebus or Terror.
Eventually, McClintock would stand revealed as the first of many investigators to add detail and nuance to Rae’s original report, which had been based on Inuit accounts. But in 1859, that truth did not matter. Lady Franklin presented all of McClintock’s sailors with a silver watch, engraved with a likeness of the Fox. To McClintock himself, at a dinner she held in his honour at her home in central London, she gave a three-foot-long silver model of the Fox, which he would keep under a glass in his drawing room.
McClintock had not been home three weeks before Lady Franklin relayed the relics and records he had brought home to Queen Victoria, using as a go-between Franklin’s old friend Edward Sabine, now a major general in the army. From Windsor Castle, the monarch responded with a letter of thanks that paid homage to “the unremitting and praiseworthy efforts of Lady Franklin,” a missive Sophy Cracroft rightly described as “the most charming message of thanks . . . and of sympathy.”
On July 1, 1860, the Queen boarded the Fox with Prince Albert, who, on going below to inspect the cabins, expressed “surprise at the smallness of the apartments.” Before the year was out, Leopold McClintock would be knighted—an honour that would forever elude the plain-speaking John Rae. As well, Sir Leopold would receive honorary degrees in London and Dublin.
Meanwhile, Lady Franklin had arranged for yet another motion to be brought before the House of Commons, this one to reward McClintock. The prime minister, Viscount Lord Palmerston, agreed that, although the official reward had already been paid to John Rae, “this was a fit occasion in which to make, within moderate limits, a grant, over and above the amount already sanctioned.”
Then came a characteristic “Lady Franklin twist.” Speaking in the House, the powerful Palmerston hoped that a monument would be erected to Sir John Franklin in commemoration of his achievement. Another old family friend, the influential Benjamin Disraeli, leapt to support this idea, declaring that such a memorial would be “most gratifying for the country, as it evidently is most gratifying for this House.” The well-rehearsed symphony reached a crescendo with a vote, passed unanimously, to award Leopold McClintock £5,000—and to set aside another £2,000 for a monument to Sir John Franklin.
The accolades accorded McClintock redounded to the credit of Lady Franklin, who, if she had not already done so, now achieved iconic status. The Morning Advertiser wrote of her that she would go to her grave clutching a miniature of Sir John, and the Daily Telegraph designated her “Our English Penelope.” Jane’s brother-in-law Ashurst Majendie exaggerated only slightly in observing, “She now holds the highest position of any English woman.”
Lady Franklin would also treasure an afternoon in May 1860 when the Royal Geographical Society awarded her the Founder’s Gold Medal—the first woman ever so honoured. The citation testified “to the fact that [Franklin’s] expedition was the first to discover a North-West Passage.” It hailed Lady Franklin’s “noble and self-sacrificing perseverance in sending out at her own cost several Expeditions until at length the fate of her husband was entertained.” On all this, Jane Franklin could build.
More than 130 years later, in Unravelling the Franklin Expedition, David C. Woodman would write: “The vague stories [Leopold McClintock] had collected were essentially uninteresting to the British public. They added detail to Rae’s account, and confirmed it, but presented little that was new.” McClintock carefully avoided explicitly confirming the most significant aspects of Rae’s report. Having witnessed the excommunication of the HBC explorer, he wisely made no mention whatsoever of Englishmen eating Englishmen.
McClintock—or rather his second-in-command, Lieutenant William R. Hobson—did discover the only written document that has yet been salvaged from the expedition. But he could not have accomplished that if Rae had not returned with the original information. Sir Leopold certainly deserves recognition as one of the investigators who added detail to Rae’s discovery.
But it was Rae who correctly reported in 1854 that all members of the Franklin expedition were dead. He revealed where many of them died and indicated where others had probably perished. Finally, because he knew enough to believe the Inuit, he divulged the least welcome, yet somehow most significant, truth of all: that some of the final survivors had resorted to cannibalism.
The fate of the Franklin expedition will never be known in every detail. Marine archaeologists may yet find another written record in a waterproof cylinder on the Erebus or the Terror. Louie Kamookak, who is based in Gjoa Haven, continues to seek the grave of John Franklin on King William Island. More searchers may yet add their names to the ever-growing list of those who have clarified the fate of Franklin. The first name on that list, however, will forever remain that of John Rae. The maverick Rae, not the circumspect McClintock, brought the world the first authentic tidings of the fate of the Franklin expedition.