illuminator newsletter #36
Upcoming: Terror Camp IV.
Terror Camp weekend starts this Friday. This year’s keynote speakers include Jared Harris, the actor who portrayed Captain Crozier in AMC’s The Terror. Full program details in the link below; registration is free, presentations are online.
https://www.terror.camp/2024-program
Since the last issue.
29 October 2024.
Parks Canada have begun publicly releasing their archaeology reports. The first available, written in 2015, covers the discovery of HMS Erebus. “Additional reports will be published as they are translated and formatted for release.”
Aside from the wealth of information in the text, this first PDF report contains a couple dozen excellent-resolution images of the wreck, a number of which have never been shown publicly before.
26 October 2024.
Nunatsiaq News reports on the imminent release of The Land Was Always Used: An Inuit Oral History of the Franklin Expedition, from the Nattilik Heritage Center, Parks Canada, and Know History. The November 1st publication date has passed without purchasing details. [For a book on oral history, I do hope an audio edition may be released.]
16 October 2024.
One of the amusing things about the original Polar Worlds exhibit in Greenwich was that, if you knew where to look, you could point your camera over the top of the main Franklin cabinet and see the donkey cartoon on the back of McClintock’s sledging smock.
As it turns out, that wasn’t the only time that this particular donkey had been hiding in plain sight. Alex Cross from St Helens, Merseyside, recently wrote me to point out that that same donkey is visible in a photograph from the 1891 Royal Naval Exhibition — in the Nares Expedition display, and pulling a sledge flying Albert Markham’s motto flag. I’ve alerted the curators at Greenwich of Alex Cross’s identification, suggesting a change of provenance from a McClintock smock to a Nares smock. McClintock descendants donated the item, which presumably led to the misattribution to Leopold’s own wardrobe.
Late 2024.
Puhtoorak, Position and Pronouns. By David C. Woodman.
A new article from Dave Woodman revisits Puhtoorak’s testimony in light of where HMS Erebus was ultimately found. [Woodman’s park bench discussion with Marc-André Bernier, previously mentioned in his public talks, is here put in writing.]
https://www.aglooka.ca/puhtoorak-position-and-pronouns/
More James Fitzjames.
Finding Fitzjames is the biggest Franklin Expedition news story since the discovery of the shipwrecks 8-10 years ago. So much coverage continued after the initial announcement, the following is a roundup of the most interesting items since September 24th.
I would add that part of the shock of what happened this past September is that, to my knowledge, no one in 165 years had suggested that among the dead at the Erebus Bay Boat Place would be found one of the captains. An officer, yes — but the Boat Place was a “detachment” in McClintock’s 1859 published account, the site of strenuous manual labour, the hauling of useless “dead weight.” The revelation of the ship’s engineer and now a captain among the dead will permanently altered the narrative of what happened at Erebus Bay.
28 September 2024.
Lead archaeologist Doug Stenton appeared for a 10 minute radio interview on the CBC’s Fresh Air.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/audio/9.6522586
27 September 2024.
Fabiënne Tetteroo, the researcher who tracked down the Fitzjames family descendant for the match, has debuted a newsletter for updates on future James Fitzjames developments. The first issue discusses her reaction to hearing the DNA confirmation from Doug Stenton’s team in Canada. Tetteroo also addresses the possibility that Fitzjames’ remains could one day be repatriated. Followers of Tetteroo’s work will know that she had already been in the process of securing a memorial to Fitzjames in the church at Abbots Langley, purely in terms of Fitzjames’ childhood there, but which now takes on a potentially greater significance if family descendants pursue repatriation of his remains.
https://jamesfitzjames.substack.com/p/first-fitzjames-newsletter
26 September 2024.
Nigel Gambier, the Fitzjames family descendant located by Fabiënne Tetteroo for the DNA match, has spoken to the press. He mentions that he would now like to visit King William Island where his family’s ancestor died (the John Gregory DNA match descendant mentioned a similar desire in 2021).
25 September 2024.
Nigel Gambier has also spoken to the CBC’s radio show Up North for an 8 minute interview (thanks to Fabiënne Tetteroo’s above-mentioned newsletter for the tip on this).
25 September 2024.
The CBC in Thunder Bay did a 4 minute on-camera interview with Stephen Fratpietro, the specialist at Lakehead University who did the DNA work for both the James Fitzjames and John Gregory identifications.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6519176
25 September 2024.
The Verge did a story focusing on Fabiënne Tetteroo’s arrival at Fitzjames historical research after having watched the 2018 AMC television series The Terror.
27 September 2024.
Finally, Franklin Expedition historian Russell Potter covered the story for Canadian Geographic, turning in the finest piece of writing on the news.