In 1845, a crew of men set out to the Arctic to find the Northwest Passage, a suspected route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that was free of ice.
The ill-fated journey is known as the Franklin expedition. It was led by Sir John Franklin, a British explorer, and involved two ships—the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror.
In late 1846, both vessels became trapped in ice in the Canadian Arctic. Franklin died in 1847, and the remaining 105 members of the crew tried to walk across the ice from King William Island to the Canadian mainland.
None of the men survived. The ships would not be found for more than 170 years.
Since then, some of their bodies have been uncovered across the island and the Adelaide Peninsula. Now, a DNA research project has identified the skeletal remains of four members of the Franklin expedition. Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, used genetic mapping to identify the four men.
“It must have been horrible,” said Douglas Stenton, the lead author of the study and an archaeologist at the University of Waterloo.
“It was probably -30 [degrees] Celsius [-22 degrees Fahrenheit], and these men were not healthy after three years in the Arctic.”
First, the researchers extracted DNA samples from the skeletons and compared the samples to DNA from known descendants of the crew members. A genetic match was made for four of the bodies.
Three of the dead sailors were from HMS Erebus, and they all perished at Erebus Bay. They were David Young, William Orren, and John Bridgens. They had joined the expedition in London.
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The fourth sailor was found farther south and was from the HMS Terror. He was Harry Peglar, the ship’s Captain of the Foretop. In 1859, a body carrying Peglar’s personal documents was discovered, but the man’s clothing did not match Peglar’s rank.
The confusion has been cleared up with the latest DNA analysis. The 1859 body was indeed Peglar, although there is not a clear explanation for the type of clothing he was wearing.
“It was interesting to conclusively identify this sailor because the body was found with almost the only written documents from the expedition ever found,” said Dr. Robert Park, a professor of anthropology at the University of Waterloo.
At the time of his death, Peglar was 36 years old. Before embarking on the Franklin expedition, he served in the First Opium War and was involved in anti-slavery operations in West Africa.
The documents found on his body included some poetry, written descriptions of events from the expedition, and his seaman’s certificate.
The research team will continue trying to identify other members of the crew. They have asked any known or suspected descendants to reach out, so they can collect DNA samples and determine their lineage with one of the crew members.
The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
