John Torrington and the other mummies of Franklin’s expedition remain disturbing reminders of that 1845 trip by the Arctic that saw the sailors cannibalize their crew companions in their final and desperate days.
Brian Spenceley The preserved body of John Torrington, one of the mummies of Franklin’s expedition left after the crew was lost in the Canadian Arctic in 1845.
In 1845, two ships transported 134 men sailed from England in search of the Northwest passage, but never returned.
Now known as Franklin Lost’s expedition, this tragic trip ended in an Arctic shipwreck that did not leave survivors. Much of what remains are the mummies of the Franklin expedition, preserved for more than 140 years in theice, belonging to crew as John Torrington. Since these bodies were officially found officially in the 1980s, their frozen faces have evoked the terror of this condemned trip.
History discovered the Podcast Episode 3: The Lost Franklin Expedition and the ice mummies that left more than a century after two British ships disappeared during their search to find the passage of the Northwest, a series of frozen corpses discovered on a remote Canadian island revealed the fate of the disappeared crews.
The analysis of these frozen bodies also helped researchers discover hunger, lead poisoning and cannibalism that led to the disappearance of the crew. In addition, while John Torrington and the other mummies of Franklin’s expedition were for a long time the only remains of the trip, since then the new discoveries have shed more light.
The two ships of the Franklin expedition, the HMSErebusy hmsTerror, were discovered in 2014 and 2016, respectively. In 2019, the drones of a Canadian archeology team even explored within the shipwreck of theTerrorFor the first time, giving us another close look at the mysterious remains of this spooky story.
Brian Spenceley The Hands by John Hartnell, one of Franklin’s expedition bodies exhumed in 1986 and photographed by Hartnell’s nephew himself, Brian Spenceley.
Although the destiny of John Torrington and Franklin Expedition Mummies has become clearer recently, much of its history remains mysterious. But what we do know is a disturbing story of horror in the Arctic.
Where things went wrong with Franklin’s expedition
The unfortunate story of John Torrington and Franklin’s expedition begins with Sir John Franklin, an consummate of the Arctic and official of the British Navy Royal. After successfully completing three previous expeditions, two of which ordered, Franklin proposed once again to cross the Arctic in 1845.
In the early hours of May 19, 1845, John Torrington and another 133 men approached theErebusand theTerrorAnd he left Greenhithe, England. Equipped with the most avant -garde tools necessary to complete their trip, iron -coated ships also arrived with provisions for three years, including more than 32,289 pounds of preserved meat, 1,008 pounds of raisins and 580 gallons of pickles.
While we know about such preparations and we know that five men were discharged and sent home within the first three months, most of what happened below remains a mystery. After they were last seen by a ship that passed in the Baffin Bay of the Northeast of Canada in July, theTerrorand theErebusApparently it disappeared in the fog in history.
Wikimedia Commonsan Grasan del HMSTerror, one of the two lost ships during Franklin’s expedition.
Most experts agree that both ships finally were stranded on ice in the Arctic Ocean Victoria Strait, located between Victoria Island and King William Island in northern Canada. Subsequent discoveries helped researchers build a possible map and a timeline that details where and when things went wrong before that point.
Perhaps the most important thing, in 1850, American and British search engines found three tombs dating from 1846 in a disin -managed motorcycle to the west of Baffin Bay called Beechey Island. Although the researchers would not exhumar these bodies for another 140 years, they would prove to be the remains of John Torrington and the other mummies of the Franklin expedition.
Then, in 1854, the Scottish explorer John Rae met the Inuit residents of Pelly Bay, who possessed articles that belonged to Franklin Expedition and informed RAE of the human bone batteries seen in the area, many of which were cracked halfway, rumors that the men of Franklin’s expedition probably resort lived
Knife brands carved in skeletal remains found on King William Island in the eighties and ninety years support these statements, confirming that the explorers were led to deciphering the bones of their fallen comrades, which had probably died of hunger, before cooking them to extract any marrow in a final survival attempt.
But the most chilling remains of Franklin’s expedition come from a man whose body was really incredibly well preserved, with his bones, even his skin, very intact.
The discovery of John Torrington and Franklin Expedition Mummies
John Torrington’s frozen face of YouTubethe looks through the ice. While researchers prepare to exhume the body about 140 years after their death during Franklin’s expedition.
In the mid -nineteenth century, John Torrington surely had no idea that his name would finally become famous. In fact, it was not much known about man until the anthropologist Owen Beattie exhumed his mummified body on Beechey island almost 140 years after his death through several excursions in the 1980s.
A handwritten plaque found on John Torrington’s coffin cover said that the man was only 20 years old when he died on January 1, 1846. Five feet of buried permafrost and essentially cemented Torrington’s tomb on the ground.
Brian Spenceleythe Face of John Hartnell, one of the three mummies of Franklin’s expedition urged the Canadian Arctico during the 1986 mission.
Fortunately for Beattie and its crew, this permafrost kept John Torrington perfectly preserved and ready to be examined in search of clues.
Dressed in a gray cotton shirt adorned with buttons made of shell and linen pants, John Torrington’s body was found in a wooden chips bed, its limbs tied with linen strips and its face covered with a thin fabric leaf. Under its burial cover, the details of Torrington’s face remained intact, including a couple of eyes now bluish, it was still opened after 138 years.
Brian Spenceleythe Crew of the 1986 exhumation mission used warm water to defrost the frozen mummies of Franklin’s expedition.
His official autopsy report shows that he was well shaved with a hair of long and brown hair that since then had separated from his scalp. There were no signs of trauma, wounds or scars on his body, and a marked disintegration of the brain in a granular yellow substance suggested that his body remained hot immediately after death, probably by men who would survive him enough time to guarantee adequate burial.
Standing 5’4 ″, the young man weighed only 88 pounds, probably due to the extreme malnutrition he suffered in his last live days. The samples of tissue and bone also revealed fatal levels of lead, probably due to a supply of poorly canned foods that surely affected the 129 men of Franklin’s expedition at some level.
Despite the full postmortem exam, medical experts have not identified an official cause of death, although they speculate that pneumonia, hunger, exposure or lead poisoning contributed to Torrington’s death and his crew partners.
Wikimedia confirms the tombs of John Torrington and the ships of Barco on Beechey Island.
After the researchers exhumed and examined Torrington and the other two buried men by their side, John Hartnell and William Brana, returned the bodies to their final resting place.
When they exhumed John Hartnell in 1986, he was so well preserved that the skin still covered his exposed hands, his natural red reflexes were still visible in his almost black hair, and his intact eyes were open enough to allow the team to meet the look of a man who had perished 140 years before.
A team member who met Hartnell’s gaze was photographer Brian Spenceley, a descendant of Hartnell who had been recruited after a casual meeting with Beattie. Once the bodies were exhumed, Spenceley was able to look into the eyes of his great -great granddaughter.
To this day, the mummies of Franklin’s expedition remain buried on Beechey Island, where they will continue to be frozen over time.
Recent research on the destination of John Torrington and Franklin’s expedition
Brian Spenceley The preserved face of John Torrington about 140 years after he perished.
Three decades after the researchers found John Torrington, they finally found the two ships in which he and his crew companions had traveled.
When theErebusIt was discovered in 36 feet of water on King William Island in 2014, 169 years had passed since it sailed. Two years later, theTerrorIt was discovered in a bay 45 miles away in 80 feet of water, in an amazing state after almost 200 years underwater.
“The ship is incredibly intact,” said archaeologist Ryan Harris. “You look at it and it is difficult for you to believe that this is a shipwreck of 170 years. You simply do not see this kind of things very often.”
Parks Canadathe Parks The team of Canada divers were held seven dives, during which they inserted submarine drones remotely operated on the ship through various openings such as squirts and windows.
Then, in 2017, the researchers reported that they had collected 39 samples of teeth and bones of the members of the Franklin expedition. Of these samples, they were able to rebuild 24 DNA profiles.
They expected to use this DNA to identify the members of the crew of several burial sites, look for more precise causes of death and rebuild a more complete image of what really happened. Meanwhile, a 2018 study provided evidence that contradicted long -date ideas that lead poisoning due to poor food storage helped explain some of the deaths, although some still believe that lead poisoning is a factor.
Otherwise, the big questions are still unanswered: why were the two ships so far from each other and how exactly they sank? At least in the case ofTerror, there was no definitive evidence to explain how it sank.
“There is no obvious reason toTerrorhaving sunk, “Harris said.” Was not crushed by the ice, and there is no rape in the helmet. However, it seems to have sudden quickly and suddenly and was gently established to the bottom. What happened?”
Since then, these questions have left researchers looking for answers, which is precisely what the archaeologists did during a 2019 drone mission that entered theTerrorfor the first time.
That’s an error.There was an error. Please try again later.That’s all we know.It was a state -of -the -art container and according toCanadian geographical, was originally built to navigate during the War of 1812, participating in several battles before his trip to the Arctic.
Reinforced with thick iron veneered to break the ice and designed to absorb and distribute the impacts equally on its covers, theTerrorIt was on the plant forms for Franklin’s expedition. Unfortunately, this was not enough and the ship finally sank to the bottom of the ocean.
Using remote controlled submarine drones inserted in the young and skylights in the crew cabin, the 2019 team made seven immersions and recorded a fascinating lot of images that show how remarkably intact is that it is remarkably intact thatTerrorIt was almost two centuries after he sank.
Parks Canada, the underwater archeology team in the comets room of the officers aboard theTerror, these glass bottles have remained in virgin conditions for 174 years.
Ultimately, to answer this question and other similar ones, there is much more research to do. To be fair, research actually just started. And with modern technology, we are very likely to discover more in the near future.
“One way or another,” said Harris, “I’m sure we’ll reach the bottom of the story.”
But although we can discover more secrets ofTerrorand theErebus, John Torrington’s stories and the other mummies of Franklin’s expedition can be lost in history. We may never know how his last days were on the ice, but we will always have the disturbing images of his frozen faces to give us a track.
