Captain Sir John Franklin, ca. 1847

Publisher: George Tremaine, Kingston, Ontario

Medium: lithograph
Dimensions: 38.5 x 35.5 cm (sheet)

W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana

Sir John Franklin (1786-1847), a British naval officer, made three expeditions to the Canadian Arctic to search for the North West Passage. During the third expedition, which set out in 1845, his ships became frozen in the ice and he and his crew perished. Over the next twelve years, some thirty expeditions set out for the Arctic to discover the explorer's fate. In 1859, evidence of Franklin's death, a note left by a crew member was discovered on King William Island. Searches for the crew still continue, and recently, the frozen remains of three crew members were exhumed and examined. Franklin's remains have never been found.

National Archives of Canada, negative no. C-041438