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Franklin (1819-1822)Franklin, John (1786-1847). Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the Years 1819,20,21, and 22 [...]. London: J. Murray, 1823.
After George Vancouver, the explorer who did the most to advance knowledge of the Canadian coast was unquestionably John Franklin; on the other hand, his tragic fate made him, in the popular imagination of his time, the epitome of a heroic explorer. John Franklin was born in 1786 in Spilsby, England, the youngest son of a cloth merchant, and joined the ranks of the Royal Navy in 1800. In 1818, after a few years' interruption, the Admiralty decided to resume its explorations with a view to discovering the Northwest Passage. In 1819 it set up two expeditions: the first commanded by William Edward Parry and the second by John Franklin. The latter was to proceed overland from Hudson Bay to the mouth of the Coppermine River while mapping the mainland coast. Franklin left England in May 1819 and returned in the autumn of 1822, able to gather only a few geographical indications at the cost of losing several of his men. The explorer had, however, gained a wealth of experience on how to conduct an expedition in those northern regions. Two years later the Admiralty charged him with a second mission similar to the first, and this time it proved to be a complete success. From 1825 to 1827 Franklin managed to map 370 miles of coastline, from one end of the mouth of the Mackenzie River to the other. After serving as lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania, Australia) from 1836 to 1843, Franklin was given the command of a new expedition into the Arctic which was to try to sail through the Northwest Passage. Franklin set sail with two ships in May 1845. Two years later there was still no news of his expedition. His disappearance set off a vast search effort. From 1847 to 1859, more than 30 missions tried to find the missing men. Finally, in 1859, the Francis Leopold McClintock expedition discovered human remains on King William Island, as well as two brief writings confirming the deaths of the members of the Franklin mission; Franklin himself had died on June 11, 1847. Franklin published the accounts of his voyages of exploration from 1819 to 1822 and 1825 to 1827. Half a century later, these accounts fired the imagination of a young Norwegian who would finally become the first explorer to sail through the Northwest Passage: his name was Roald Amundsen.
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