By Alistair MacDonald
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s latest Arctic tour winds down, another annual Canadian northern ritual shows little sign of abating: the quest for the lost ships of Sir John Franklin.
Every summer for the last five years, the Canadian government has sponsored a six-week search for the Victorian explorer’s ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The British explorer disappeared in 1845 with 134 men while searching for the Northwest Passage through Arctic Canada.
The Canadian government is still searching. Locating the wrecks is seen as one way to bolster Ottawa’s sovereignty over the sea lane Franklin sought. Though the explorer was British, and his expedition a Royal Navy-led one, London has signed over caretaker rights to Canada. Read More »