TORONTO — For more than 160 years, the fate of British explorer Sir John Franklin and his men has remained locked in the frozen Arctic, but warming temperatures are threatening to change that.
Canadian officials announced Friday they will lead a new search for Franklin’s two ships, their efforts driven by a desire to assert control over the Northwest Passage and fears that melting ice will allow others to find and plunder the remains.
“Obviously more of this water will be traversable in more parts of the year so we want to find it before Hollywood,” Environment Minister John Baird said after announcing the Parks Canada-led search for the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.
Franklin and 128 hand-picked officers and men vanished mysteriously between 1845 and 1848 on an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. Franklin’s disappearance prompted one of history’s largest rescue searches, from 1848 to 1859, which resulted in the discovery of the passage.
The route runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic archipelago. It gained fame among European explorers who longed to find a shorter route to Asia, but found it rendered inhospitable by ice and weather.
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