Many years ago, explorers wanted to find a way by sea from Europe to China. In 1845, John Franklin left England with 134 men to look for a route through the Arctic.
Franklin's ships had everything they needed. They had enough food in tins for three years and thousands of liters of lemon juice to stop disease. They also had two libraries with 3,000 books, excellent maps, scientific instruments, musical instruments and a new invention: a camera.
Franklin and his men left England on May 19th, 1845, and they sailed without problems across the Atlantic towards Canada. When Franklin arrived at Baffin Bay in July 1845, things were going very well for the expedition. On July 26, some sailors saw Franklin's ships when they were entering the bay. That was the last time that anyone saw Franklin and his men alive.
Then, in August 1850 some sailors found the first signs of the Franklin Expedition while they were searching on Devon Island: some old food tins, some papers, and, something very strange, the graves of three men. The men all died in January 1846 while Franklin was waiting in Baffin Bay for the ice to melt. But why did they die? What happened to them? And where were the ships and all the other sailors? The mystery of the Franklin Expedition was growing stronger...
{The last message}
Jane Franklin was John Franklin's wife. She wanted to know exactly what had happened to her husband. In July 1857, she sent an expedition to the Arctic. A year later, on an island in Baffin Bay, they discovered one of Franklin's sailors. He was lying in a boat at the edge of the sea ---- dead.
Near the dead man, they found a small stone house. Inside the house they found a note. It was the last message from the Franklin Expedition.
April 25th, 1848
We arrived here in September 1846 ---- nineteen months ago. Our ships
are trapped in the ice and we cannot move. The men are dying ---- 25
men are already dead. Captain John Franklin died on June 11th, 1847.
We left the ships two days ago. Our only chance now is to walk.
So, Franklin and his men died in the Arctic ---- three years after they left England. Without any food, their only chance was to walk to their deaths in the ice. The Franklin mystery was solved.
But was it solved? Why were there so many sailors dying when they left the ships? Franklin had excellent maps of the area. Why did he take the wrong route? There were still questions to be answered...
{Mystery solved?
1984, 140 years later}
Dr. Owen Beattie was a scientist at a university in Canada. He wanted to know why so many men died on the Franklin Expedition.
Dr. Beattie began by thinking about the first men who died on the expedition. They were all young and they died after only six months at sea. Twenty more men died the next year. There was something very strange about this and there was only one way to discover what it was.
In 1984, Dr. Beattie went to Baffin Bay with a team of scientists. There, they opened the graves of the three Franklin sailors. Because of the extreme cold and ice, the bodies were in perfect condition. Beattie took small samples of hair and skin and then put the bodies back into the graves.
Back at the university, Beattie made an incredible discovery. From the hair and skin, he found that the three men died from lead poisoning. They had nearly 100 times more lead in their bodies than normal.
But where did the lead come from? Beattie looked closely at some of Franklin's food tins and found the answer. In those days, tins were closed with lead. Usually, this was not a big problem, but these tins were not made correctly. Lead was inside the tins. It was not the ice and cold that killed the men. It was the 8,000 tins of food that they were eating.
Lead also affects the brain. It makes it difficult to think clearly. We can now understand why John Franklin made so many poor decisions.
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Baffin Bay
Devon Island
Jane Franklin
John Franklin
Owen Beattie
the Arctic
bay
expedition
explorer
extreme
grave
incredible
instrument
lemon
poisoning
route
sample
solve
trap