Sir Martin Frobisher



"The noble flames that glow'd in his stout brest could ne're be quencet, nor by that ice opprest".



Martin Frobisher made three voyages to the Arctic between 1576 and 1578. He went in search of the fabled North-West Passage, a seaway said to connect the North Atlantic with the North Pacific – and a short cut from Europe to the Orient.



He was soon distracted by the discovery of what he thought was gold-bearing ore. Frobisher found neither gold nor an open seaway to the Pacific but he did discover what is now called Frobisher Bay, South of Baffin Island.



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

They shoot seahorses don't they...



In 1776, Captain James Cook set sail on his third and final voyage in HMS Resolution. The main aim was to explore the northwest coast of America and locate the North-West Passage.



John Webber, the expedition’s official artist, captured this scene of the crew shooting walruses, or "seahorses", in 1778.



"On the ice lay a prodigious number of sea-horses; and, as we were in want of fresh provisions, the boats from each ship were sent to get some," Cook wrote.



Webber painted the event in a way that would emphasise the bravery of the men - with huge walruses looming preposterously large compared with their attackers. The men thought the meat inedible.



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

Meeting the locals



In 1818, Captain John Ross kickstarted a new round of expeditions in search of the North-West Passage.



As interpreter, he took a Greenland Inuit called John Sacheuse, who had sailed to Scotland two years earlier aboard a whaler, learning English on the voyage.



While in Scotland, Sacheuse developed a passion for drawing and took lessons with Scottish artist and engraver Alexander Naysmyth.



This engraving by Sacheuse shows Ross and his men exchanging knives and mirrors with a group of Inuit they met while exploring Prince Regent's Bay in northwest Greenland.



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The man who ate his boots



John Franklin became famous after the disastrous Coppermine Expedition of 1819-22, during which he and his men were forced to eat lichens and leather to stave off starvation.



Franklin's second overland expedition in 1825 was more successful and he charted almost 2000 kilometres of Canada's north coast.



In 1845 he set off on a third trip in search of the North-West Passage, this time with two ships, Erebus and Terror, 129 men and supplies for three years.



Franklin, his men and the ships vanished, and their fate remained a mystery for years.



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

HMS Erebus in the Ice, by Francois Etienne Musin



Erebus was one of the two ships that took John Franklin and his 129 men to the Arctic in 1845.



The ships had reinforced hulls to resist the pressure of the ice. They were also fitted with steam engines and screw propellers so they could get up extra speed to break the ice.



The last time the ships were spotted was in July 1845, when a whaling ship saw them near the entrance to Lancaster Sound in Baffin Bay.



It was Franklin's bad luck that the ice opened up to a greater than normal extent, allowing him to penetrate as far as King William Island - before freezing again and trapping the ships.



The ships were later crushed by the ice and sank. They have never been found.



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

The expedition's last record



The British admiralty sent its first search party in 1848.



There would be 30 such expeditions, some privately funded by Franklin's wife Jane.



In 1853, John Rae learned from the Inuit that the men were dead and bought items they had scavenged from the men.



Then in 1859, Francis McClintock, sent by Lady Franklin, confirmed the worst. His party found this record under a cairn.



It bore a note dated April 1848, saying that Franklin had died in June 1847, and that the survivors had left the ships and were heading overland.



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

Relics from Franklin's last expedition



Francis McClintock, sent by Lady Franklin to uncover her husband's fate, returned with an assortment of artefacts.



In May 1859, the searchers found an abandoned boat mounted on a sledge at Erebus Bay, King William Island.



Inside the boat were two skeletons and a strange collection of equipment, including a large number of silk handkerchiefs, towels, soap and toothbrushes and a small library of books.



More useful was this pocket chronometer.



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

Dressed for the Arctic



Francis McClintock took part in several searches for the Franklin expedition. He pioneered the use of man-hauled sledges.



In 1857, Lady Franklin chose him to lead yet another search, paying for it with money raised from public subscription.



These are the overalls he wore to keep fine snow out of the woollen clothes he wore beneath.



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

Snow goggles



Among the possessions McClintock found in an abandoned boat at Erebus Bay were some spectacles with blue-tinted lenses (above).



The aim was to protect the wearer from snow blindness, a form of temporary blindness caused by prolonged exposure to bright sunlight reflected off snow and ice.



The Inuit had their own ingenious version, made from a piece of wood with a slit that limited their field of vision (below).



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

Medicine chest



The crews of Erebus and Terror had landed just south of Victory Point, King William Island, after abandoning their ships in 1848.



In 1859, Francis McClintock and his men discovered a huge amount of abandoned equipment there, including an enormous pile of winter clothes, heavy stoves, iron hoops, scientific instruments and this heavy mahogany medicine chest, "the contents in a remarkable state of preservation".



(Image: National Maritime Museum)

Inuit recycling



The Inuit made good use of the items they found that had belonged to the Franklin expedition.



This knife, bought by the McClintock party in 1859 from Inuit they met on the Boothia Peninsula, is made from salvaged materials.



In his account of his trip, McClintock mentioned buying seven such knives.



"The knives are made either of iron or steel, riveted to two strips of hoop, between which the handle of wood is inserted and rivets passed through securing them together. The rivets are almost all made out of copper nails, such as would be found on a copper-fastened boat."



(Image: National Maritime Museum)