HMS Erebus (1826)

The ship took part in the expedition of Ross in 1839-1843.

After, during the tragic expedition, Franklin was abandoned by the team. Subsequently, the skeleton of the vessel was discovered sunken in September 2014 after a long search ^[4] .

After two years of service in the Mediterranean , Erebus was re-equipped for service in the Antarctic . On November 21, 1840, a ship under the command of James Ross left Tasmania and headed towards the Antarctic in the company of Terror . In January 1841, the teams of both ships landed on the land of Victoria and began to name the objects of the area in honor of the famous British. The Erebus volcano on Ross Island was named after one ship, and the Terror volcano after another.

Then the sailors discovered the Ross ice shelf , for which they were unable to penetrate and turned east, and at the end of the season they returned to Tasmania. The following season, in 1842, Ross continued to survey the so-called “Great Ice Barrier,” following him east. Then the ships went to the Falkland Islands . In the season of 1842-1843, the ships returned to Antarctica again. Teams studied magnetism, collected oceanographic data, flora samples, and caught birds for ornithological research. Plant samples were described in: The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of HM Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839–1843, under the Command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross .

The birds collected by the expedition were described and illustrated in The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Erebus & HMS Terror. Birds of New Zealand , 1875 by George Robert Gray and Richard Boulder Sharp . The expedition was attended by 23-year-old Joseph Hooker , who later became a famous scientist in the field of botany. On the ship, he was an assistant to surgeon Robert McCormick ^[5] .

Then the ships Erebus and Terror were chosen for the expedition of Sir John Franklin . Both ships were equipped with steam engines from steam locomotives of the London-Greenwich Railway. The engine mounted on Erebus developed a power of 25 horsepower (19 kW) and could move the ship at a speed of 4 knots (7.4 km / h). A 12-day supply of coal was loaded onto ships ^[6] . The hulls of the ships were reinforced with metal structures. Sir John Franklin settled on the Erebus, the ship became the flagship of the expedition. The Terror was again led by Captain Francis Crozier . The expedition received orders to collect data on magnetism in northern Canada and go through the northwest passage . The passage was marked on the cards, both from the west and from the east, however, no one went through it entirely.

The ships were last seen in August 1845 in the Baffin Sea . After the expedition disappeared, a massive search was undertaken in the Arctic. The light on the circumstances of the expedition’s death was first shed by John Ray , a Hudson’s Bay company doctor, who in 1853 questioned the Eskimos and found some things from Franklin’s ships. Later expeditions from 1866 confirmed his findings.

Both ships were ice-covered and abandoned by their crews. All 130 people, trying to break through to the south, died from various causes - hypothermia, scurvy and hunger. During subsequent expeditions until the end of the 1980s, autopsy of the remains of crew members was carried out, it was concluded that poorly made canned food led to lead poisoning or botulism . Judging by the stories of the Eskimos, some crew members resorted to cannibalism, proof of which are injuries on the bones of crew members found on King William Island in the 20th century ^[7] .

In April 1851, the crew of the British ship Renovation spotted two unidentified ships that had frozen into an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland . It was believed that these were Erebus and Terror, but it has now been determined that this cannot be and, most likely, these were whalers abandoned by their crews ^[8] .

On August 15, 2008, the establishment of the Canadian government “ Parks of Canada ” announced the allocation of $ 75 thousand Canadian dollars for the six-week expedition of the icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier to search for ships. An additional goal of the expedition was to support Canadian territorial claims on a part of the Arctic ^[9] .

On September 2, 2014, the team of the Canada Parks institution (part of the Canadian government ), led by Ryan Harris and Mark-Henri Bernier, discovered the remains of one of the ships of the Franklin expedition ^[10] . They were again found thanks to the stories of the Eskimos ^[4] . On October 1, 2014, it was announced that these were the remains of Erebus ^[11] .

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally announced the find.

“This is truly a historic moment for Canada,” said Stephen Harper on Thursday ( September 4, 2014 ). “Franklin ships are an important part of Canadian history. This expedition, undertaken almost 200 years ago, laid the foundations of sovereignty over the Canadian Arctic. ”

Original text

“This is truly a historic moment for Canada,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement Tuesday. “Franklin's ships are an important part of Canadian history given that his expeditions, which took place nearly 200 years ago, laid the foundations of Canada's Arctic sovereignty.”

- Stephen Harper ("The Star", 09/09/2014) ^{[12] [13]}

The New York Times directly indicates that Harper is focusing on Canada's sovereignty over the Northwest Passage . ^[13]

November 6, 2014 it was announced the lifting of the ship's bell ^[14] .

March 4, 2015 it was announced the beginning of the underwater survey "Erebus", which should conduct divers "Parks of Canada" and the Canadian Royal Navy ^[15] .

On September 12, 2016, the discovery of the Terror Corps was announced at the bottom of the bay of the same name off the southwest coast of King William Island ^[16] .

The remains of the ships are included in the National List of Historic Monuments of Canada, without an exact indication of their location ^{[17] [18] [19]} .

• Scott Cookman introduced Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition (2001), which shows the actual events of the expedition and scientific ideas about them by date, trying to shed light on the mystery of a century and a half ago.
• The hero of Jules Verne ’s novel “ Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea ” (1870) at a meeting ^[20] mentions the Erebus and Terror ships participating in the Ross expedition due to difficulties in reaching the South Pole.
• The ships Erebus and Terror are mentioned in Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness .
• In Dan Simmons' novel Terror (2007), the real story of the expedition is intertwined with a fantastic story.
• In Clive Kassler’s novel Arctic Drift (2008), heroes try to find an expedition ship lost in the Arctic to solve the mystery.
• The Erebus and Terror Ships appear in the Doctor Who TV series Terror of the Arctic
• The Terror television series tells the story of a Northwest Passage search involving the Erebus and Terror ships.

• Erebus and terror
• The Wreck Of HMS Erebus: How A Landmark Discovery Triggered A Fight For Canada's History , Buzzfeed
• Could Shipwrecks Lead the World to War? NY Times