The Inuit Were Right: Shipwreck Find Confirms 168-Year-Old Oral History

Parks Canada/Canadian Press

Sea floor scan image showing one of the missing ships from the Franklin expedition.

ICTMN Staff :

The discovery of a ship that had been missing since 1846 has at least partially solved one of Canada's favorite mysteries; what's more, its location confirms the veracity of Inuit accounts that never squared with the accepted version of what happened.
In 1845, two ships—HMS Erebus and HMS Terror—under the command of Sir John Franklin set sail from England. Franklin's expedition was headed for the Arctic waters above Canada, with the goal of completing the charting of the Northwest Passage. The expedition never returned. Both ships became icebound in 1846, and the crew set out on foot. All eventually died. Those were the basic details of the story, but there existed a controversial extra element: testimony of Inuit hunters, handed down orally, that the ships were seen off the northwest coast of King William Island. While one of the ships was crushed in ice and sank in deep water, the Inuit said, the other drifted southward, to shallower water. What's more, there were still sailors on board... Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/09/10/inuit-were-right-shipwreck-find-confirms-168-year-old-oral-history-156837