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Franklin'south Fate. An Investigation Into What Happened to the Lost 1845 Expedition of Sir John Franklin, by John Roobol.

Canterbury/Kent, The Conrad Press, 2019.

No Earthly Pole: The Search for the Truth About the Franklin Trek 1845, by Ernest C. Coleman.

Stroud/Gloucestershire, Amberley, 2020.

Reviewed by Frank Michael Schuster

Since the discovery of John Franklin's ships, no one has attempted a complete reconstruction of the tragic and dramatic events that must have taken place in the Canadian Chill after 1845 or claimed to have solved the riddles surrounding the trek. Richard J. Cyriax's book appeared equally early as 1939, David Woodman's reinterpretation in the early 1990s. His assay of what the 19th century search expeditions had learned from the Inuit led to completely new insights. Dorothy Harley Eber therefore went virtually recording cognition that currently withal exists among today's Inuit nigh the various Arctic expeditions and published it in 2008. The fact that HMS Erebus was actually constitute in 2014 where information technology had sunk co-ordinate to Inuit lore shows how important it was to use oral traditions equally a source. Russell Potter eventually set out to tell the story of the more than one hundred search expeditions and their discoveries and findings, without attempting a full reconstruction. Neither he nor Woodman suspected that HMS Terror had sunk in Terror Bay of all places, where it was discovered in 2016 shortly afterwards Potter's book was published. In event of this discovery, nevertheless, the previous theories are once once more put to the exam. Questions such as whether the ships drifted or sailed to where they are now, or whether there were people – dead or live – on board during the sinking, are withal unanswered, but might now be resolved. That is why near academic, also every bit not-bookish historians, are waiting for at present for news from the archaeologists.

Consequently, ii recently published books, in which the authors claim to take more or less solved the mysteries surrounding the demise of Franklin's expedition, naturally arouse high expectations. While John Roobol in his "enthralling book", according to the publisher's annunciation, "offers a most convincing estimation of what really happened to the lost, heroic expedition," Ernest C. Coleman claims not merely to have uncovered a conspiracy of academics and politicians, solved the expedition'south biggest riddles "and given new answers to all the many smaller mysteries that continue to exist reproduced by others" but fifty-fifty declares: "I have also revealed the possible site of Franklin's grave, the biggest mystery of all."

Similar the physician Richard J. Cyriax before him, the retired geologist John Roobol ready out to solve the mystery from the desk in his study. Just since his book was too bookish for many publishers in 2019 he turned it into a novel chosen Trapped. The publisher that finally accepted this novel then decided to publish Franklin's Fate besides, "with his editing," equally the author states. Unfortunately, he does not say what this meant, because the book sadly contains a large number of small errors that a copy-editor could have eliminated relatively hands. To name simply i of many examples, John Franklin's companion during his first two Arctic expeditions is repeatedly chosen Dr George Richardson before he is finally given his existent commencement name John. Anyone who picks up the volume to learn something nearly the expedition volition exist misinformed or confused past such contradictory information. Fifty-fifty readers who are familiar with the discipline are increasingly unsettled by this and might wonder whether the book, if it already contains so many small errors, does not also contain several larger ones. This is a pity, because Roobol's stated intention was to write a volume aimed at both laymen and specialists.

Non leaving his study, he neither went into the Chill himself nor any annal, but he has at least quoted extensively from the same books by Woodman, Eber and Potter also as printed expedition narratives. However, it is difficult to trace his sources and the literature used, because the years of publication mentioned in the notes next to the author's name are often just as wrong as the page numbers given.

Already in the start affiliate, Roobol tells the story as he sees it. Thereby he creates the impression that everything actually happened that style. Perfectly legitimate in a novel, this is, at the least, irritating in a historical study. It is all likewise easy for inexperienced readers to lose sight of the fact that these are zero more than more or less well-founded assumptions. After some more than introductory chapters on the reliability of the Inuit statements, King William Isle, the Northwest Passage in general, John Franklin and his officers, he returns to his reconstruction of the events, now again pretending at the beginning of each chapter that the events he is focusing on happened that style, before providing insight into his sources and enabling readers to sympathize the genesis of his interpretation. In many cases he follows Woodman's reconstruction, but besides includes more recent testimonies from Eber'south volume. In detail, reports of non-Inuit burn down sites on Imnguyaaluk, one of the Royal Geographical Social club Islands, are a key point in his reconstruction, as he concludes that the crew stayed in that location for a longer period of fourth dimension with HMS Erebus. Despite considerations like these, which make Roobol's volume stimulating, his addiction of declaring his interpretation the only one possible is grating. For example, at the beginning of chapter 18, a well-known Inuit story is mentioned about an Inuk'southward see with sailors on board a send:

"One of these testimonies describes the crew in some particular every bit 'black men'. There is only one place in the sequence of events that can business relationship for such an occurrence."

To those familiar with the works of Woodman, Potter and others, such a statement must seem downright cool, for the tale about the 'blackness men' is precisely i of the most controversially discussed stories among researchers and, depending on the estimation, may have taken place at any indicate between 1846 and 1848 near Cape Felix, on lath either send, or afterwards board HMS Terror in Terror Bay and not necessarily in 1850 near Imnguyaaluk on lath HMS Erebus, as Roobol believes. Interesting equally his interpretations are, specially where he does not follow Woodman'due south, they should be comprehensible. However, every bit in this case, this is non ever the case: while Roobol in his reconstruction assumes that the meeting of the Inuk with the 'black men' took identify at a time when there were only about a dozen men left on board Erebus, the original source clearly refers to a "great many men". But the author does not even mention this contradiction.

Moreover, information technology is only legitimate to claim categorically that this is how something happened and not whatsoever other mode if one can testify conclusively that other interpretations must exist wrong. Unfortunately, Roobol does non do that either. Alternatives are rarely mentioned, and where they are, non dealt with in detail. If one wants to understand how he arrives at his often quite commendable conclusions, one has to accept into business relationship which presuppositions he starts from. In this case, for example, for Roobol it is impossible that the meeting with the 'black men' could have taken place on lath HMS Terror in Terror Bay considering the ship, every bit he has repeatedly claimed before but never explains, drifted at that place unmanned and was never manned again. He says this conviction is based on the findings of underwater archaeologists. Therefore, he also excludes an Inuit eyewitness report of a fast-sinking transport recorded by Charles F. Hall, merely by declaring the story not compatible with the clarification of the wrecks. This is problematic for two reasons: first, the question of whether the ships drifted or sailed has not nevertheless been answered by underwater archaeologists, and second, the source rejected, though printed in an appendix, is not the just source on the affair. The author himself even quotes the corresponding passage from the trek narrative past Francis L. McClintock in a different context, merely does not utter a give-and-take most the fact that the speedily sinking ship is also mentioned there. Information technology is legitimate to question the authenticity of a source, merely and so one should also be able to explicate why. But Robool does not practice that: he only points out that Woodman also rejected another story by the aforementioned Inuk about an encounter with John Franklin. But Woodman did not do that at all. He rejected non the story itself, which he did incorporate into his interpretation, but Hall's belief that it was Franklin whom the Inuk had met.

This is just ane example of many chains of argumentation within Roobol's reconstruction of events that either start from a weak, barely substantiated initial premise, or even lead to circular arguments. The claim that Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames, who took over the command after Frankin's death, did not become along with each other –leading to a supposed separate in the expedition betwixt the crews of the 2 ships–is another example.

Often repeating premises or key assumptions unfortunately does non aid make Franklin's Fate an "enthralling book" either. It remains at best a idea-provoking one for a knowledgeable reader and an interesting one for a novice, only one that nevertheless should be read with caution.

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Whether i may call Ernest C. Coleman's book thought-provoking depends on your point of view – provoking information technology surely is, peculiarly those parts in which he is not speaking about his own adventures following the track of the Franklin Expedition on King William Isle, only is telling the reader what he things actually happened to the Franklin Expedition.

Unlike John Roobol in his study, Ernest Coleman (like David Woodman) is one of those people who desire to solve the mystery on site. A Royal Navy lieutenant with a corking interest in John Franklin'due south expedition, he made 4 expeditions to King William Island himself in the first one-half of the 1990s, originally with the declared aim of finding John Franklin's grave. After he was subsequently sent into retirement he became an author, writing and lecturing on the Purple Navy, Victorians, polar expeditions, the search for the Holy Grail and much more.


His newest, beautifully crafted book is for the nearly part an agreeable, self-ironizing business relationship of his journeys to the Arctic and of his attempts in between to set upward the next trek through his contacts inside the Navy and with other people interested in Franklin. As such, the book is certainly worth reading, though Coleman'southward views and perspective on the world and the Navy in full general, and Franklin's expedition in particular, may irritate quite a few readers in the 21st century. Not without reason he has been called a late Victorian in the printing before, every bit he himself proudly relates. He seems to have fallen out of time completely.

Appropriately, the reason why he does not achieve his destination, the northwest of the island and Cape Felix, on his outset try, for him is not then much his inadequate preparation, merely – in keeping with 19th century tradition – rather the uncooperative, lying, thieving Inuit. At least he discovered the remains of a skeleton on Todd Island, probably overlooked in the 1870s.


He undertook the second expedition alone, but had to survive for an actress 10 days on drinking chocolate and Fisherman's Friends after the plane sent to pick him up was unable to country due to adverse winds. He may accept discovered the cairn at Victory Point left by James Clark Ross in 1830 while discovering the North Magnetic Pole there. At least that seems quite possible by comparing the photograph printed in the book with the cartoon from Ross' narrative. The exact location of Ross's Victory Bespeak is still disputed today and, as is articulate from the and then-called Victory Betoken Note, 1 of the few letters from the expedition ever to be found, was already disputed or at least unclear in 1848. But while Roobol sees this every bit further confirmation of the alleged abiding conflict betwixt Crozier and Fitzjames, Coleman's account of his experiences makes it clear that the trouble Franklin'southward men faced perchance was much simpler: lack of orientation. On an island of nix but gravel, boulders, rocks and some tundra, roughly the size of the US country of Connecticut or the old County of Yorkshire in England, orientation is difficult even without snow and ice, especially since the compass is useless due to the proximity of the magnetic pole. Identifying places on maps in such a landscape is anything but piece of cake, fifty-fifty for officers who know how to handle maps, equally Coleman's experience shows.


The 3rd expedition was larger in one case again. Coleman was joined past, among others, Peter Wadhams, the then manager of the Scott Polar Inquiry Establish in Cambridge/UK, and a French film crew, because he was convinced that he had discovered Franklin'south grave and 2 burial mounds side by side to it during his earlier trip. However, the archaeologist in accuse, who had flown in peculiarly accompanied by a geologist, was of a dissimilar stance. Both thought that the supposed grave and the mounds were natural and that all the other traces pointed out to them were not the remains of the Franklin trek either, contrary to Coleman'southward stance. The expedition and so visited the remains of a boat farther n, on Prince of Wales Island, possibly dating from the mid-19th century. Resolute-based meteorologist Wayne Davidson had heard most information technology from local Inuit and was willing to show the site to the expedition. For those who have been interested in the Franklin trek for a long fourth dimension, however, this discovery is equally non new. After Coleman'southward expedition, the find was now known at least among experts. In 1999 Davidson himself went public with information technology by presenting photos and his reflections online on one of the first websites almost the Franklin Expedition. Ten years later, the page disappeared, reappeared in 2013 and disappeared once more subsequently some time, but can nonetheless be found in versions saved at that time.


Coleman undertook the quaternary and last expedition with Cameron Treleaven, not simply a Canadian antique specializing in the polar regions just also a trained archaeologist. Unsurprisingly, given the writer's distrust of bookish men in general and archaeologists in particular, they did not get along very well every bit a team and left the Arctic separately.


Had Coleman left it at publishing a travelogue, we would accept had before us a sometimes funny, mostly interesting book, from which we tin can not only learn something about the continuing interest in Sir John Franklin's last expedition and late 20th century expeditions to the Arctic, just also one from which the mindset of the officers of the Victorian Navy becomes clear in a surprising manner –being mirrored in the opinions, thoughts and deeds of the writer. But Coleman had, after all, set out to solve the mystery of the Franklin Expedition and find the Holy Grail of Franklin seekers – Sir John'southward grave. Not only that, only he wants to clear the expedition of the stain of failure. 
Since the Purple Navy was the best in the world, Coleman is convinced from the start that members of the Imperial Navy were superior to all others and therefore could neither be cannibals nor insane. For him, this is simply unthinkable. What must non be, cannot be. His reconstruction presented in the last hundred pages of the book is therefore based on these 3 bounds rather than on the sources and available artifacts.


For Coleman, cannibalism is as unthinkable amid civilized Englishmen equally it was for the increasingly socially pivotal evangelical upper-middle class from the mid-19th century onwards. That is why the Chill explorer John Rae, the bearer of the unbelievable news, is also for him "a charlatan with a poisonous hatred of the Royal Navy". Equally evidence of this, he cites above all that the Hudson Bay Company man Rae considered Royal Navy surgeon Sir John Richardson, his companion on the overland search for John Franklin, to lack vigour and be overweight and the sailors under his command to be "almost bad-mannered, lazy and careless". This, of course, amounts to sacrilege for Coleman, who does non want to see that the seamen accepted to ships certainly had problems with the unfamiliar demands of overland travel, while Rae had the wrong expectations. By the aforementioned argument, Cameron Treleaven would too accept to exist accused of hating the Navy later on the joint expedition with Coleman, for in some ways this trek mirrors the epitome Coleman has of Rae and Richardson. While the older Coleman was running out of breath, the younger and fitter Treleaven dashed ahead, which Coleman again found strange, reckless and careless, while at the same fourth dimension criticizing the Canadian for sleeping longer than he did. Here, too, different worlds had collided and not for the first time i has the feeling that the author is projecting his own experiences and ideas back into the by.

Simply since Coleman cannot deny, for instance, the cut marks found on the bones of some of Franklin'due south men, he not only tries to ignominy the piece of work of the forensic anthropologists and archaeologists, just too declares them to be proof that the sailors were treacherously massacred by the warlike Inuit, which in turn would fifty-fifty exist confirmed by reports from the Inuit themselves. This, however, puts Coleman in problem more than one time. Since he considers the British to be not only morally simply besides technically superior, which they actually were, they must take been so weakened by scurvy that they could no longer defend themselves properly. Every bit a counter-argument against the cannibalism thesis, however, he had previously argued that it had not been necessary to eat each other at all because there was enough food. After all, he himself had encountered plenty of game on King William Island. Apart from the fact that he ignores the completely dissimilar climatic conditions at the time, one wonders why Franklin'south men should have suffered so severely from scurvy in the commencement place. Although he otherwise condemns the Inuit tradition as unbelievable, since they were flatterers and liars – which his ain experiences have confirmed, he suggests – he has to requite acceptance to 1 story at least, because it seems to support his own thesis of Franklin's men being massacred by the Inuit. The story of Adam Beck, the Inuit interpreter of one of the later search expeditions, who claims to take heard well-nigh this massacre from the Inuit near Cape York in Northwest Greenland and reported this to the British. But this contradicts Coleman's merits that the Inuit did everything they could to go along this story secret out of a sense of guilt and to continue the search parties away from the site of the issue. So Coleman comes upwards with an explanation, claiming that in order to prevent the ships from sailing on and to go along them in Greenland equally long as possible then that his people could go along to trade lucratively with the British, Brook but transferred the story, which was common knowledge amidst the Inuit, from King William Island to Cape York. Except that Brook came from southern Greenland and the Inuit from the northwest were no more than his people than those beyond Baffin Bay. But from a colonial point of view this is irrelevant, for about 19th century Britons these Eskimos were all the same anyway and related to each other – this obviously did not alter for Coleman 170 years later, even if he himself would probably resist beingness chosen a Scottish Highlander.


None of this is disarming, but for Coleman it offers a satisfactory explanation for the demise of the expedition, because a error of their own, every bit has been discussed by historians and other scientists since the 1980s, is ruled out for Coleman from the very beginning, as is the fact that the trek is supposed to accept perished from lead poisoning, because one of the side effects of lead poisoning is mental confusion and that cannot and must non be.


In his attempt to discredit the scientists and expose their alleged conspiracy, Coleman does non even observe how much he is preaching to the converted. The thesis of lead poisoning equally the main reason for the decline of the Franklin Expedition is indeed, every bit Coleman has correctly observed, no longer tenable. But while this is just a good example of how a scholarly contend plays out over decades, Coleman sees it every bit a conspiracy of scientists using the Franklin Expedition and the lead poisoning hypothesis as a way to accelerate their careers. However, if you lot look at the biographies of the people the author accuses, you quickly see that this is non the case, at to the lowest degree non amid the scientists. 
But anyway, the book more or less openly denies the competence of the scientists, since they are non prepared to accept the author'south claim that the place he discovered was Franklin'due south grave and that the two hills behind it were burying mounds raised by Franklin'south men. Even though after his 3rd expedition he alleged that he had never claimed that it was Franklin's grave and now repeats this in the corresponding affiliate, at the kickoff and at the terminate of his book he now claims again that it mayhap is Franklin's grave unless, that is, the captain lies in ane of the burial mounds.

Coleman constantly contradicts himself, and the reader's defoliation reaches a climax in the search for the reply as to what Coleman thinks is in the mounds, let alone how and why they were erected.
Even more cool, however, is his political conspiracy theory: No i disputes that the and then Canadian prime number government minister, Stephen Harper, used the discovery of HMS Erebus in 2014 for political purposes to bolster Canada'due south claim to the Northwest Passage in low-cal of the disagreement with the US over whether it is an inland waterway or an international passage, and Russian claims in the Chill. To assume for political reasons, that the ship is not fifty-fifty where it is claimed to be, or that information technology is non HMS Erebus at all, seems absurd, but is Coleman's caption for the ships non being where he thinks they should be. The most he is willing to concede is that they could have drifted to where they are at present. His caption is even less disarming then Roobol's. Coleman merely declares it to be impossible that they could have been manned once more and sailed there, since all 60 men of the crew were needed to sheet the ships. This too is incorrect. HMS Hecla, a sister ship of the Erebus, for case, was sailed from the west coast of Africa to St Helena by so few men that when she arrived at the isle she was thought to be a ghost send, for yellow fever had claimed near the entire coiffure. Having afterward been sold by the navy, she returned to the Arctic as a whaler with her rigging unchanged just less than one-half the number of men than at the time she had sailed through the Arctic under Edward Parry's control. With the claim that all hands were necessary to sail the transport, Coleman shows that even in an area in which he claims to be an proficient – that of the Royal Navy – he does not actually know his way effectually, at to the lowest degree not if it comes Lord Nelson'due south Navy, though he tin rightly claim to accept served on Nelson's flagship. Merely HMS Victory is now a museum transport lying idle in the harbour. He never seems to have sailed on a existent sailing ship, otherwise he would know that his claim, similar so much of the last part of this book, is not true. While John Roobol's theories are on shaky ground, Ernest Coleman'due south theories go more and more inconsistent and outlandish, so that one cannot really take them seriously.


Equally for the traces Coleman found on King William Island, one can certainly debate whether they are indeed human being traces and if so, whether they could actually accept come from Franklin's expedition. The homo brain automatically tries to identify familiar patterns in chaotic images so that humans are ameliorate able to orient themselves, ever expecting to see what is almost familiar to them. Maybe this is the very reason why Ernest Coleman saw navigational aids, anchors, boats or graves in the rubble. But peradventure there is indeed more to see. Since he non simply described what he saw in the first part of his book, but also photographed it, I can only recommend that readers look at the pictures in the book earlier reading the captions and ask themselves: What am I seeing? This helps at least a niggling flake non to lose ane's orientation in this volume equally many have done on King William Isle, and to exist able to form one's own picture more easily in the end.

What remains of these two books, but fourth dimension will tell. They are surely not what their authors desire them to be: the mystery's solution. Most likely we will never know in every detail, what happened on Male monarch William Isle dorsum so, only every book sparks the imagination and keeps the word going.

Bibliography

Trapped. A Novel, by John Roobol.

Canterbury/Kent, The Conrad Press, 2019.

Finding Franklin. The untold story of a 165-twelvemonth search, by Russell A. Potter. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen'south University Press, 2016.

Sir John Franklin's Final Arctic Expedition: A Chapter in the History of the Royal Navy, past Richard J. Cyriax. Plaistow and Sutton Coldfield: The Arctic Press,1997. (reprint).

Strangers Amongst Us, by David C. Woodman. Montreal: McGill-Queen'south University Press, 1995.

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