![erebus and terror erebus and terror](https://i120.fastpic.org/thumb/2022/0723/14/_c1597cf9c429ee9fcd68cac094a8b414.jpeg)
Unfortunately, researchers have not been able to pinpoint the identity of the owner of the sword. This sword hilt was found in one of the first expeditions aboard the HMS Erebus and belonged to one of the seven or eight members of the British Royal Marines who were brought along to maintain discipline on the ship. For example, divers found a personal item engraved with the name “Fred Hornby”, the Terror’s second mate, in one of the Erebus’ cabins. The fact that items belonging to crewmembers from the Terror were found in the wreckage of the Erebus also reinforces that hypothesis. According to Inuit accounts from people who saw the ships in the 1800s, they say they saw footprints in the snow and smoke coming from the ship where the Erebus currently is”, added the archaeologist. “But now, we’re thinking maybe they did reintegrate a ship, sailed down further, and then abandoned it again. The story was more linear before: the crew abandoned the ships, they started walking and died one after other,” said Bernier. So we were forced to reinterpret how they got there. “The location of the ships when we discovered them brought up so many questions. Parks Canada Senior Underwater Archaeologist Filippo Ronca shines his light on the detached ship’s bell of HMS Erebus in 2014. That would also help explain why both ships were found nearly 100 kilometres apart. They were never to return.īut now, increasing amounts of physical evidence and oral history from surrounding Inuit communities suggests that some members of both crews returned to the HMS Erebus and were able to get a bit further in the ship before getting trapped again. Photo by Handout/National Maritime Museum, LondonĪt the time of the discovery, the leading theory surrounding the last days of the crew was that, when both ships became trapped, the members of the expedition ventured off on foot in the hopes of finding safety. HMS Erebus in the Ice, painted in 1846 by Francois Etienne Musin. Two years later, the remains of the HMS Terror were discovered about 100 kilometres north of there. The apparent disappearance of the two vessels remained a complete mystery until 2014, when a Canadian expedition discovered the underwater wreck of the HMS Erebus south of King William Island. Leaving from England, the crew of nearly 130 sailors sought to find a Northwest Passage, but the voyage came to a fatal halt in 1846 when the ships became trapped in the ice in what is now Nunavut. Article contentĪnd some of those discoveries are making them rethink the last weeks of the crews of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, lost during an expedition launched in 1845 by British explorer John Franklin. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.