Henry Grinnell
Continuing her homeward voyage with her precious relics, the Prince Albert reached Aberdeen, October 1. The Admiralty identified the bit of rope as being navy-yard manufacture of not later than 1841. The canvas was also believed to be of British manufacture. The meat bones seemed to bear exactly the marks of the ship’s provisions used about five years back, and the relics were identified as belonging to the ill-fated Erebus and Terror.
As soon as it was known among the other searching parties that Captain Ommaney had found traces of the missing expedition, Ross, Austin, Penny, and De Haven began a minute investigation of the surrounding locality and proved that Cape Spencer and Beechey Island at the entrance of Wellington Channel had been without doubt the site of Franklin’s first winter quarters. At Cape Spencer, some ten miles above Cape Riley, a ground place for a tent was found, the floor paved with small stones. About the tent birds’ bones and meat canisters were found. Numerous sledge tracks along the shore were also noticed.
LIEUTENANT OSBORN
Of the examination of Beechey Island, Lieutenant Osborn writes:—
“A long point of land slopes gradually from the southern bluffs of this now deeply interesting island, until it almost connects itself with the land of North Devon, forming on either side of it two good and commodious bays. On this slope a multitude of preserved-meat tins were strewed about; and near them, and on the ridge of the slope, a carefully constructed cairn was discovered; it consisted of layers of fitted tins, filled with gravel, and placed to form a firm and solid foundation. Beyond this, and along the northern shore of Beechey Island, the following traces were then quickly discovered: the embankment of a house, with carpenters’ and armorers’ working places, washing tubs, coal-bags, pieces of old clothing, rope, and, lastly, the graves of three of the crew of the Erebus and Terror, bearing date of the winter of 1845-1846. We, therefore, now had ascertained the first winter-quarters of Sir John Franklin.
“On the eastern slope of the ridge of Beechey Island, a remnant of a garden (for remnant it now only was, having been dug up in the search) told an interesting tale; its neatly-shaped, oval outline, the border carefully formed of moss lichen, poppies, and anemones, transplanted from some more genial part of this dreary region,—contrived still to show symptoms of vitality; but the seeds which, doubtless, they had sowed in the garden had decayed away.
“Nearer to the beach, a heap of cinders and scraps of iron showed the armorer’s working-place; and, along an old water-course, now chained up by frost, several tubs, constructed of the ends of salt-meat casks, left no doubt as to the washing-places of the men of Franklin’s squadron. Happening to cross a level piece of ground, which as yet no one had lighted upon, I was pleased to see a pair of cashmere gloves laid out to dry, with two small stones on the palms to prevent their blowing away; they had been there since 1846. I took them up carefully, as melancholy mementoes of my missing friends. In another spot a flannel was discovered; and this, together with some things lying about, would, in my ignorance of wintering in the Arctic regions, have led me to suppose that there was considerable haste displayed in the departure of the Erebus and Terror from the spot, had not Captain Austin assured me that there was nothing to ground such a belief upon, and that, from experience, he could vouch for these being nothing more than the ordinary traces of a winter station; and this opinion was fully borne out by those officers who had, in the previous year, wintered in Port Leopold, one of them asserting that people left winter quarters too well pleased to escape to care much for a handful of shavings, an old coal-bag, or a washing tub.”
The Graves on Beechey Island