The identification of remains from the ill-fated Franklin expedition has shed light on the horrific toll the Arctic voyage took on its crew—and specifically on the expedition’s third-in-command.
The expedition set sail from Greenhithe in England in May 1845 on a voyage to map and transit the Northwest Passage—the long-sought-after waterway through Arctic Canada connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. Sir John Franklin commanded the expedition, which was comprised of 129 men on board two ships, the Erebus and Terror. The crew was last sighted entering the eastern opening to the Passage in Baffin Bay and was never heard from again.
Rescue groups launched multiple expeditions to try and locate the crew. They found tantalizing hints, such as a trio of graves on Beechey Island, where the ships had spent their first winter, but little else until 1859, when searchers found a cairn with a note on nearby King William Island.
The note, dated May 1847, reported the status of the expedition and concluded by declaring “All Well.” But in the margins, an update added 11 months later and signed by Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames, the second-and third-in-charge, noted that all was no longer well at all. Franklin was dead (as were eight other officers and 15 men), the ships were trapped in the ice and had been abandoned, and the crew was setting off southward across land.
Evidence of Cannibalism
Inuit testimony described white men struggling across the snow and ice and falling dead as they walked. Inuit also told searchers that the men had resorted to cannibalism in an attempt to survive—an assertion that outraged a disbelieving English society.
When, in 1997 researcher Anne Keenleyside closely examined bones that had been discovered on the island, she found tell-tale scratches, scrapings and other markings indicating that muscle had indeed been stripped from them and that Inuit reports had, in at least some cases, been true.
A research team led by Douglas Stenton of the University of Waterloo was able to extract DNA from some of the bones and began a search for surviving descendants of the crew in an effort to identify the dead. Their first success came in 2021 when they were able to confirm some bones belonged to John Gregory, who was an engineer aboard Erebus.
Meanwhile, as interest in the Franklin expedition continued to grow, new discoveries only deepened the mysteries of its fate. The wreck of the Erebus was discovered in 2014 and that of the Terror in 2016, both far south of where they had been recorded as being abandoned. How had they made it that far? Had they been carried by ice and/or currents? Or had some crew returned to the ships and sailed them down? A 2018 BBC TV drama series, The Terror, posited a supernatural explanation for the crew’s demise and imagined that a couple of the crew survived among the Inuit.
Family Tree Points to Living Relatives
Among those who watched the series was art historian Fabienne Tetteroo, who had not previously heard of the expedition but who subsequently resolved to learn more. She began investigating the life of Fitzjames, the officer who had co-signed the cryptic note, for a masters’ dissertation. In the course of her studies, she constructed a comprehensive Fitzjames family tree and tracked down two descendants, a father and son living in England, whom she put in touch with Stenton and his team.
In September 2024, Tetteroo submitted her paper, with the title “Finding Fitzjames;” just days later, Stenton announced Fitzjames had indeed been found. Publishing in the Journal of Archeological Science: Reports, Stenton and co-authors Stephen Fratpiero and Robert Park revealed that, thanks to Tetteroo connecting them with Fitzjames’ descendant, they had identified a jawbone as belonging to the officer. On the bone, knife marks revealed the terrible truth: he had been cannibalized after he died.
While news reports focused on the cannibalism in often lurid (and inaccurate) tones, those who had been studying the expedition for years focused on the fact the jawbone had been located just 50 miles south of the note that Fitzjames and Crozier had left. How soon did he die after signing that note? Did others die at the same time? Or, as some have speculated since the discovery of the wrecks, had they reached farther south and turned around to return to the ships?
“We know that Fitzjames and Crozier said they were going to set off south,” says Stenton. “So until I see some pretty persuasive evidence otherwise, I take them at their word. They probably died on their way south a few weeks after leaving the note.”
A Devastating Struggle for Survival
Having spent much time investigating the sites where the bones were found, and experiencing first-hand the brutality of conditions in the region, Stenton is sympathetic to what the expedition members endured.
“There have been many occasions where I just stopped and reflected on where I'm standing,” he says. “I remember one day, it was snowing and hailing, just an awful day, and I found myself reflecting on all the others who had been there and what they had been through.”
In a statement when their paper was published, Park and Stenton called for empathy for what the survivors had to do to try and stay alive. “It demonstrates the level of desperation that the Franklin sailors must have felt to do something they would have considered abhorrent,” said Park.
For Tetteroo, confirmation of Fitzjames’ fate hit home especially strongly, given that she had spent the previous three years immersed deeply in getting to know him.
“He was very intelligent and curious,” she says. “Personally, he just loved learning the world, and he loved opera and literature, and he felt so fortunate that through his work in the Royal Navy, he was able to see so much of the world. He had been dreaming of going to the Arctic ever since he was young, so he must have been so excited to be finally going to the Arctic on the Franklin Expedition.”
When she heard the news of Stenton and Park’s discovery, she was hit by the realization of what had befallen him. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at the portrait of him she had hung on her wall. And she cried.
