illuminator newsletter #34
DIVE SEASON BEGINS
On Thursday, the RV David Thompson reached Gjoa Haven to pick up the diving barge. The next day, she approached Simpson Strait and there shut off her satellite beacon. This is unusual, as normally they leave the beacon on until it’s clear which ship she’s heading toward.
Almost certainly they proceeded to the Erebus as usual, given the faster deterioration of that wreck. However, at a talk by Parks Canada diver Thierry Boyer back in January, when asked about when excavation on Terror might begin, Boyer had answered, “We are looking at doing this this summer.” Even if so, given the challenges Boyer described of excavating a sealed ship filled with silt, we might not expect too much from the first season of excavation on Terror.
On Erebus, assuming more deck beams haven’t collapsed, a likely excavation this year would be a return to the partially excavated seaman’s chest from last season’s work (see issues #29 and #30).
This year’s dive season is thus far tracking a little ahead of 2023, and exactly on the dates of 2022. As such, we may not hear more for about 2-3 weeks.
SINCE THE LAST ISSUE
1 September 2024
The C, The C, The Whitby C. By Alison Freebairn.
Alison Freebairn has travelled to the English seaside village of Whitby to see an exhibition of rare Franklin relics in the attic of a local museum. During her visit, Freebairn spotted that one of the pieces of John Franklin’s silverware seems to bear a crew-member’s scratched initial — perhaps a “C” or a “J”. If true, it is the first new silverware initial found in many years.
This minor Franklin relics collection will be on display in Whitby until Halloween. [They are on loan from Portsmouth’s NMRN, and so this date is likely a hint that the big upcoming Portsmouth exhibition on Franklin won’t begin until November at the earliest.]
https://finger-post.blog/2024/09/01/whitby-c-franklin-spoon/
PHOTOGRAPHY
At some point recently, Historic England’s website quietly added some Franklin-related photography — e.g., an old stereograph of the Waterloo Place statue. But by far the most interesting addition is a collection of 45 photographs related to the re-examination of the Franklin Expedition bones held in Greenwich Chapel. A handful of these same photographs appeared in Simon Mays’ study of the bones (2011) and Huw Lewis-Jones’ article on the monument (2009). Those were published at low resolution, and so it is remarkable here to see something like the gold filling (link) or a number of textile fragments (link) at significantly higher resolution. Radiography of the tooth filling and the cranium (link) are also available, as well as alternate photos of the Victorian flower cross from the 1873 interment (link). It was Simon Mays’ 2011 study, following these photographs, that changed the likely attribution of these bones from Henry Le Vesconte to Harry Goodsir.
[Click the full-frame/“expand” arrows on each image to load the higher resolution. This web viewer is temperamental, and may not always load the higher quality imagery (Firefox worked when Safari/Chrome/Opera did not). The collection description (2K/17901) stating that these photographs were “From an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum” is presumably in error. They do here name a photographer – Ian Leonard – a credit omitted from the Mays and Lewis-Jones papers.]