Franklin's Lost Expedition

Date: May 19, 1845 • Location: Greenhithe, United Kingdom

Captain John Franklin (pictured) departed Greenhithe, England, on an expedition to the Canadian Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage; all 129 men were later lost when their ships became icebound in Victoria Strait.

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, during the Coppermine expedition of 1819 and the Mackenzie River expedition of 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1837 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later, and the entire crew died from starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy.