![]() Eventually, the two meet and that is when the pace starts to pick up. This is a key turning point in the modern search because in these converging lines of fate, while he’s doing his research, experts in archaeology and history are also doing theirs. As he went around talking to people, he realized he could perhaps also answer some of the mysteries about the Franklin expedition. As an adult, he did research into Inuit oral history. Eventually, he came to understand that the story was connected to the Franklin expedition. That story stayed in Louie’s mind and he became determined to try and figure out where that place was. She also finds what appeared to be rabbit droppings but was likely the shot for Royal Navy rifles. One was a knife, which Kamookak thinks from her description was probably a butter knife. Talk us through the Inuit stories about Franklin and Louie’s contribution to the final discovery.Īs a child, Louie Kamookak heard a story from a woman named Humahuk, who describes going as a girl with her father and discovering some items. One day, Weesy’s aunt said to her daughter, “Why don’t you ask Weesy if she knows where Sir John Franklin is?” One of the key figures in the modern hunt for Franklin is an Inuit named Louie Kamookak. The children were convinced they were communicating with the ghost of Weesy. Weesy’s brother would see it and run and smash his face against the wall, causing his face to bleed. Their description was not like a ghost we would imagine from films but a hovering blue light. While he was away on business for three months, his children said Weesy was always around. His daughter Louisa, who was known as “ Little Weesy,” died in the summer of 1849. She was eventually contacted by a Captain William Coppin, a wealthy shipbuilder from Londonderry, Ireland. Among Lady Jane’s nearly two hundred journals and two thousand letters are some that describe her dabbling in the paranormal, going to seers and clairvoyants, to connect to her husband. It also took a weird detour into the paranormal, didn’t it? Franklin’s disappearance became what we today call a media circus. The earliest archival footage at National Geographic is from the 1903 Ziegler Expedition, a failed attempt to reach the North Pole. Through all of this extraordinary effort and the help of others, including Charles Dickens, she forces the Admiralty to send out search expeditions. It’s an extraordinary letter coming from a woman who has broken protocol by writing as a citizen from London, not through diplomatic channels. She even wrote to Zachary Taylor, the president of the United States. So we don’t need to worry until at least 1848.” She kept insisting that they search and even began to fund her own expeditions. The Admiralty kept saying, “They have enough food for three years. She would also hold meetings in that apartment, which was known as “the fortress,” where former explorers and experts would roll out maps of the Arctic. She even took an apartment near the Admiralty building in London so she could watch the comings and goings. She takes the Admiralty and various other institutions in her way and simply bowls over them. ![]() But when she has to deal with Sir John’s disappearance, she’s far from shy. The descriptions of her as a girl are that she was extremely shy. Back in London, Franklin’s intrepid wife Jane begins a campaign for what you call “the longest, broadest and most expensive search for two lost ships in maritime history.” Tell us about this extraordinary woman-and how she mobilized public opinion. On his way south, he ran into an ice trap-and was never heard of again. But they ran into ice so came south again. The last time the expedition was seen was as they’re entering Lancaster Sound, which is the eastern entrance of what we now know as the Northwest Passage. So his wife Jane lobbied and begged for him to be sent on one last expedition. He was an extraordinarily heroic figure but tarnished by politics. He had almost starved to death on an overland expedition, and became known in the press as “ the man who ate his boots” because he ate his shoe leather to get out of the Arctic alive. This was his fourth Arctic expedition, his third as commander. How do you do that? You go back to where you became a hero, and that is the Arctic. His wife, Lady Jane Franklin, an extraordinary woman, was determined to help him rehabilitate his image and his career. He had had a terrible time as governor of what was then called Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, where he was politically stabbed in the back and recalled to England by the colonial office, his reputation in tatters. Franklin disappeared in 1848 while searching for the Northwest Passage.
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