After 168 years frozen below the ice in Terror Bay, the British Royal Navy’s HMS Terror was located last week by a team from the Arctic Research Foundation thanks to a tip from Sammy Kogvik, an Inuit hunter on their crew. The HMS Terror and her sister ship the HMS Erebus (rediscovered in Queen Maud Gulf in 2014) were part of an 1845 expedition led by Captain Sir John Franklin. The expedition was the most deadly in the polar history of the British Royal Navy, taking the lives of all 129 men, but there have always been questions about exactly what happened. The hunt for the vessels immediately following the disaster was abandoned in 1859 after nothing turned up, and wasn’t resumed for another 150 years.
While the rediscovery presents the opportunity for polar historians to learn what really happened to the Franklin expedition, the motives for finding these historical ships has far more to do with politics and national identity. As the Arctic warms and seasonal ice dwindles, the Northwest Passage may become a viable shipping option through the Arctic, and Canada is anxious to proclaim its sovereignty over the passage. Canada inherited Great Britain’s historical claims to Arctic waters, and a 1997 agreement between Canada and Britain secure Canadian ownership of the ships, with separate provisions for the artefacts and gold that might be found on them. The rediscovery of the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus demonstrate those historical claims to Arctic waters, and focus the country’s attention on a region that is of increasing importance for both the economy and national security.
Local Inuit have not been involved in the discovery of the ships thus far, according to Cathy Towtongie, who runs Nunavut Tunnagavik, an organization that enforces the Nunavut land claims act. But the Canadian government says that it will honor a 1993 Land Claims Act that stipulates joint ownership over all archaeological sites within Nunavut.
