Research Catalog

Title

Finding Franklin : the untold story of a 165-year search / Russell A. Potter.

Author

Potter, Russell A., 1960-

Publication

Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 262 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm

Summary

"In 2014 media around the world buzzed with news that an archaeological team from Parks Canada had located and identified the wreck of the HMS Erebus, the flagship of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Finding Franklin outlines the larger story and the cast of detectives from every walk of life that led to the discovery, solving of one of the Arctic's greatest mysteries. In compelling and accessible prose, Russell Potter details his decades of work alongside key figures in the era of modern searches for the expedition and elucidates how shared research and ideas have led to a fuller understanding of the Franklin crew's final months. Illustrated with numerous images and maps from the last two centuries, Finding Franklin recounts the more than fifty modern searches for traces of his ships and crew, and the dedicated, often obsessive, men and women who embarked on them. Potter discusses the crucial role that Inuit oral accounts, often cited but rarely understood, played in all of these searches, and continues to play to this day, and offers historical and cultural context to the contemporary debates over the significance of Franklin's achievement. While examination of the HMS Erebus will undoubtedly reveal further details of this mystery, Finding Franklin assembles the stories behind the myth and illuminates what is ultimately a remarkable decades-long discovery."--

Subjects

• Shipwrecks
• Discovery and exploration, British
• Arctic Ocean > Northwest Passage
• Shipwrecks > Canada, Northern
• Arctic Regions
• Franklin, John, 1786-1847
• Northwest Passage > Discovery and exploration > British
• Erebus (Ship)
• Arctic regions > Discovery and exploration > British
• Canada, Northern

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]- 255) and index.

Additional Formats (note)

• Issued also in electronic format.

Contents

The man who ate his boots -- Bones -- Papers -- Provisions -- Maps -- Rae -- Hall -- Schwatka -- The search renewed -- Ranford -- Woodman -- Ice -- Inuit -- Epilogue: Last man searching -- Appendix: Franklin searches, 1854-2015.

Call Number

JFE 16-10747

ISBN

• 9780773547841 (cloth)
• 0773547843 (cloth)

OCLC

946215391

Author

Potter, Russell A., 1960- author.

Title

Finding Franklin : the untold story of a 165-year search / Russell A. Potter.

Publisher

Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]- 255) and index.

Additional Formats

Issued also in electronic format.

Other Form:

Potter, Russell A., 1960-, author. Finding Franklin. (CaOONL)20169020762

Research Call Number

JFE 16-10747