Sir John Franklin did lead an expedition into the Northwest Passage in 1845, and it did end in tragedy. Of the 129 men who set off, 105 were still alive in 1848. They did leave a brief note, written by the third in command of the expedition, James Fitzjames, in a tin can under a pile of stones at Victory Point on King William Island before marching off into history. The traditional story is that they all died on or near the island in 1848.
There are Inuit tales of starving men dragging sleds, of tents filled with bodies, of cannibalism and of a ship trapped in the ice in Queen Maud Gulf. That ship was the Erebus, and its wreck, remarkably well preserved, was discovered by Parks Canada underwater archaeologists in September 2014. Study of the wreck will yield information for years to come and fill in gaps in what we know of the expedition. Perhaps one day a search party on a nearby island will stumble upon an oilcloth-wrapped journal or package of documents buried for safekeeping before the last survivors set off to meet their inevitable fate in 1849 or 1850. I hope not. Mysteries are sometimes more fun.