During the investigation of the sunken ship “Erebus” during Sir John Franklin’s expedition carried out by Canadian underwater archaeologists last year, many marine artifacts and personal belongings of the crew were found and described.

Investigators made 68 dives to the Erebus crash site over 12 days between September 5-19, 2023 and recovered numerous items, including weapons, shoes, coins, clay bowls and medicine bottles.

Underwater archaeologists discovered a thermometer, a drawing ruler for drawing parallel lines, a leather-bound book and a fishing rod with a brass reel in one of the cabins thought to have belonged to Lieutenant Henry Dundas Le Vesconte.

Franklin’s expedition

The purpose of the expedition of the British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin was to explore the sea route across the Arctic Ocean and find the shortest route through it – the Northwest Passage (along the northern coast of North America). via the Canadian Arctic Archipelago).

The sailors set off in May 1845 on two ships, “Erebus” and “Terror”, but all participants of the expedition disappeared, and the crash sites were discovered only a few years ago. What happened to them still remains a mystery.