Thanks to an Inuk Ranger’s sharp memory and a little luck, researchers are a major step closer to knowing the fates of two ships that vanished nearly 170 years ago in Canada’s wide and savage Arctic.

The second of the two Franklin Expedition shipwrecks was found earlier this month, Arctic Research Foundation expedition lead Adrian Schimnowski confirmed Monday.

“We found (HMS) Terror,” Schimnowski told the Star via via satellite phone from Gjoa Haven, Nunavut.

“We found Terror in Terror Bay.”

HMS Terror was one of two Royal Navy ships that set out in 1845 on the ill-fated quest led by Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage to Asia. The ships became trapped in thick Arctic ice and all 129 crew members died. The other ship — HMS Erebus — was located in September 2014 in the Queen Maud Gulf, along the central Arctic coastline.

Schimnowski and a crew of nine on the research vessel Martin Bergmann discovered the wreck of HMS Terror the morning of Sept. 3, about 60 nautical miles (97 kilometres) directly north of Erebus, in the centre of Terror Bay.

“It looked like it gently sank to the bottom. It’s settled flat, level on the seabed floor; all the decking and everything is in place,” Schimnowski told the Star via satellite phone from Gjoa Haven, Nunavut.

The crew was led to the ship after member Sammy Kogvik, an Inuk and a Canadian Ranger from Gjoa Haven, recalled an incident seven years ago when he and a friend, on their way to a local fishing lake, stumbled across a ship’s mast sticking out of Terror Bay. Kogvik took a photo, but lost the camera on the way home.

He didn’t bring it up to anyone again, Schimnowski said, until last month, when the Martin Bergmann was travelling through Simpson Strait.

“When he told me this story, it was like an arrow that was directing us to go right to this site,” Schimnowski said.

As the research vessel sailed through Terror Bay, bridge watch Daniel McIsaac noticed something big on the sounder; he called Capt. Gerrard Chidley and Schimnowski, who were just finishing breakfast, to come take a look.

Chidley went up first, then Schimnowski; Capt. David McIsaac, who had just come out of the washroom, also went to the bridge.

“We made a joke right there that maybe whatever (McIsaac) did on the toilet just jumped up on our screen,” Schimnowski said. “But what we really knew was that we’d found something that looked like a ship.”

The crew deployed a smaller boat equipped with a remotely operated underwater vehicle that had a camera. As it descended into the frigid water, it beamed back signs the Terror had been found: images of a bell that looked exactly the same as that of the Erebus; a cannon; a double-wheeled helm on the stern in perfect condition; and captain’s quarters with four windows, glass still intact in all but one. The hatches on the wreck matched with drawings of the HMS Terror, and the ship’s steam engine had an exhaust pipe in the right spot.

“We were positive that what we did find was HMS Terror.”

As the ROV roamed inside an open hatch, more hidden treasures: a mess hall, tables standing; a food locker, wine and spice bottles still in place; china plates with the same patterns as those on Erebus, neatly stowed in wooden racks.

“It seems like everything was battened down for the winter, everything was shut down as fast as possible, and everything seems to be in place,” Schimnowski said.

“We decided to take a detour to see if Sammy’s story made sense, and it was because we listened to him . . . We had to follow his lead, and we found it.”

Kogvik declined to be interviewed by the Star, but his wife, Betty, said her husband called Sunday night with the news.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“I’m speechless,” she said from her home in Gjoa Haven. “I only thought they were going out to the site where they found (HMS Erebus) last year.”

“I’m so proud of Sammy. It’s hard to describe. I’ve got my eyes wide open, I’m so surprised,” she said.

Contrary to prevailing theory, the vessel wasn’t crushed by sea ice in the Victoria Strait, north of King William Island, before sinking. Finding her almost 100 kilometres south and in near-perfect condition — “That’s a shocker,” said Canadian Ice Service research scientist Tom Zagon, who has worked on the search since 2010.

“Terror Bay was not really a super high priority.”

Zagon said naturally occurring Ice flow patterns could explain the Erebus’s final resting place, at the eastern extreme of the Queen Maud Gulf, but not the Terror’s.

“It would be so strange for a ship to end up there naturally,” he said.

That lends credence to the idea that at least some members of Franklin’s doomed crew might have returned to the Terror, Zagon said, perhaps in a desperate attempt to find a road back home again, though he cautioned that theory is — in the absence of more evidence — mostly speculative.

The good news is that, with the Terror in such good condition, chances are good she will yield more clues to what happened to Franklin and his men, Zagon said.

“Any mystery worth pursuing has to be something that you can solve eventually,” he said.

Parks Canada’s mission brief for this year’s search says a small flotilla of ships sailed for the Arctic at the end of August and were to return by mid-September. The search vessels included the Canadian Coast Guard’s icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS Shawinigan and the Parks Canada’s Investigator.

Ownership of both the Erebus and the Terror has been transferred to the Canadian government, and their resting spots are considered historic sites.

Schimnowski said a celebration and feast for the crew with the Gjoa Haven community is being planned for Wednesday or Thursday. It’s important the community is involved, he added. After all, Inuit have been telling stories of the ship’s final resting place for generations.

“This story, the Franklin story, is so closely linked to this community, and also it was Sammy who led us to this discovery . . . We are basically in the backyards of their home and — it’s respect,” Schimnowski said.

“We are here to support the community in any way we can, as they would support us if we needed help. That’s the way of the Arctic, that’s the way of life in the Arctic, everyone helps each other out.”

Read more about: