Review by New York Times Review
IN AUGUST 2016, the Crystal Serenity, an 820foot luxury cruise liner with 13 decks, a casino, six restaurants and a driving range, set off on its first voyage from Alaska to New York through the fabled Northwest Passage. About two weeks after leaving Alaska, the Crystal Serenity passed by the spot where, in April 1848, two Royal Navy ships, the Terror and Erebus, on a mission to discover and navigate the Northwest Passage for the first time, were abandoned by their officers and crew. The ships, commanded by Rear Adm. Sir John Franklin, had been trapped in ice for more than a year , and were most likely running low on food. Poorly equipped, and dragging lifeboats filled with tons of gear and supplies, much of which proved useless, the hundred or so remaining men first walked east across the frozen sea, then south along the coast of King William Island. None of them survived, but the question of exactly how, and when, and why they died has continued to fascinate amateur and professional historians ever since. Nearly 170 years and untold tons of carbon dioxide emissions separate the world of the Crystal Serenity from the world of the Terror and the Erebus. The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen completed the first successful navigation of the Northwest Passage in 1906, but it is only in the last decade, with the dramatic shrinking of summer sea ice because of man-made climate change, that large-scale luxury tourism in the High Arctic has become a realistic possibility. The differences are stark and obvious, yet Paul Watson's intriguing new book, "Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition," also points to a surprising area of continuity. In 2008, in the midst of the worldwide financial crisis, the Canadian government announced a multiagency government initiative to locate the wrecks of the two ships. The prime minister, Stephen Harper, was motivated more by politics than by an interest in naval history or marine archaeology. He saw the project as a symbolic element of a larger effort to assert Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic in opposition to counterclaims by Russia and the United States. This question of sovereignty had become pressing because the reduction in summer sea ice meant that the Northwest Passage was likely to become a significant trade route, and, perhaps more important, that the massive untapped oil and gas resources of the Arctic might soon become commercially exploitable. When the wreck of the Erebus was finally discovered in 2014, Harper made the announcement at a victorious news conference, where he declared it "a truly historic moment" and went on to claim that the Franklin expedition had "laid the foundations of Canada's Arctic sovereignty." The logic of the latter claim is certainly questionable, since Sir John Franklin was British, not Canadian, but the fact that Harper would make it testifies to the mythic power that had attached itself to the Franklin expedition over the previous century and a half. Asserting ownership of Franklin, and Franklin's story, it seems, is a way of claiming ownership of the Arctic itself. Paul Watson, a former war reporter and himself a Canadian, doesn't display much sympathy for Harper's political machinations, and "Ice Ghosts" works to undermine his prime-ministerial hubris by arguing, fairly convincingly, that the group who really own the Franklin story (and therefore, by implication at least, own the Arctic) are the Inuit who had direct contact with the Franklin crew members back in the 19 th century, and who then passed down their knowledge from generation to generation through oral storytelling. Watson suggests that the Inuit knew all along where the Franklin wrecks were located, but that white men either failed to ask them or, if they did, usually misunderstood the answers they received. The hero of the second half of "Ice Ghosts" is Louie Kamookak, an amateur Inuit historian, born on the Boothia Peninsula just northeast of King William Island, who dedicates himself to gathering and interpreting as many of the Inuit stories about Franklin as he can find, and who, in the end, plays a significant role in guiding the marine archaeologists to the correct search areas. WHILE THERE HAVE been many previous books about the Franklin expedition and its mysterious fate, the notable originality of "Ice Ghosts" lies in the fact that it brings the story right up-to-date, covering not only the discovery of the Erebus in 2014, but also the discovery of the Terror, about 40 miles to the north, in 2016 . The first half of the book tells the story of the original 1845 expedition, and of the many unsuccessful rescue efforts undertaken subsequently by the British government under pressure from Franklin's extraordinarily persistent and energetic wife, Jane . It is a great story, but readers already familiar with it are unlikely to find much that is truly new or surprising here. The book moves up a gear, however, when Watson turns to the more recent past. Watson's prose can be uneven sometimes, but he is at his vigorous best when describing places and people he has met and talked to. He provides sharp and entertaining portraits of the various Franklin obsessives whose experience and expertise fed into the 2008 initiative: men like Walter Zacharchuk, who built his own scuba tank out of a fire extinguisher, glued his own wet suit out of sheets of neoprene and became Canada's first professional marine archaeologist, or Jim Balsillie, the billionaire co-founder of Research in Motion, the makers of the Blackberry smartphone, who ended up buying and refitting a fishing trawler to participate in the search. This book has some flaws. The style can be digressive and occasionally confusing, and I could have done without the more mystical passages concerning Louie Kamookak and the Inuit, in which Watson seems to be reaching for some kind of effect rather than telling us how things really are or were, but it's quick, enjoyable and sometimes gripping reading. Franklin aficionados will certainly want to add it to their libraries, and for anyone interested in the past and the future of the Arctic, it's a much cheaper and more environmentally friendly option than a stateroom on the Crystal Serenity. ? IAN MCGUIRE is the author of "The North Water," one of the Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2016.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 9, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
Canadian photojournalist Watson was on board the Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 2014 when the Erebus, one of two vessels of the lost 1845 Franklin Expedition to conquer the Northwest Passage, was found underwater, remarkably intact, off Victoria Island in the territory of Nunavut. The other vessel, the Terror, was found in 2016, not too far south, in Terror Bay. This riveting book traces the history of the Franklin Expedition and the various attempts to locate the missing ships and their crews (rescue operations began in earnest about a year and a half after the two ships set sail from England, and quickly switched from rescue to recovery). The author, a graceful writer, does a fine job of turning the historical record into compelling drama, and, when he writes about the modern-day quests to find the wreckage of the Terror and the Erebus, he manages to keep us in a constant state of suspense and hopeful anticipation. An engrossing chronicle of a legendary doomed naval voyage and the nearly 200-year effort to bring the Franklin Expedition to a close.--Pitt, David Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Watson (Where War Lives), a Pulitzer Prize-winning Canadian photojournalist, recounts a failed 19th-century attempt to find the fabled Northwest Passage and the 21st-century search that succeeded in locating vessels that had been missing for 168 years. On May 19, 1845, John Franklin began his fourth and final journey in search of the Northwest Passage. Despite his soiled reputation and advancing age, Franklin was made commander of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and their combined crew of 128 men. Fitted with the latest technology, Erebus and Terror set sail from England to the Arctic Ocean. During the winter of 1845-1846, three men died, the ships were twice trapped in sea ice, and Franklin's health declined precipitously. Franklin died on June 11, 1847, and Watson reveals that during the subsequent winter the ships were once again trapped, forcing the remaining crew to relinquish the ships in search of safety. Numerous attempts were made to find the ships as well as the burial sites of crew and commander. Through the diligence of self-trained Inuit historian Louie Kamookak and an array of researchers, scientists, and divers, the sunken ships were found in pristine condition. Watson's meticulously researched tale finely weaves together the many voices and experiences of those who sought Franklin's long-missing ships. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Pulitzer Prize winner Watson (Where War Lives) scores again with this vibrant and thorough history of Sir John Franklin's (1786-1847) doomed 1845 expedition to discover the Northwest Passage. The author delves into Franklin's background and life to explain how he came to captain this voyage, also shedding light on Jane Franklin's relentless badgering of the Royal Navy to send rescue missions to aid her husband. Jane welcomed any and all ideas about where to search, with some of the most accurate locations coming from contacts with the "spirit" world. Also detailed is Inuit Louis Kamookak's attempts to preserve his people's oral history and traditional knowledge, which proved vital in locating Franklin's ships, and Parks Canada's expeditions that found the HMS Erebus and Terror in 2014 and 2016, respectively. Watson was aboard the vessels that discovered Franklin's ships, which makes this reporting especially crisp. There are still plenty of mysteries surrounding the expedition, such as did the sailors abandon their ships, only to later return to them and sail on? VERDICT Watson is an excellent writer with a dry wit and concise style that makes this a must-read for Franklin aficionados as well as for researchers and readers of Polar history and exploration.-Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Intriguing narrative of English explorer Sir John Franklin's fatal fourth expedition to the Arctic in 1845, emphasizing the ongoing drive to uncover the mystery of the icy unknown.Obsessed with the discovery of a Northwest Passage since the 16th century, British explorers weren't going to give up simply because it hadn't been found yet. In this engaging work by Vancouver-based journalist and photographer Watson (Where War Lives, 2007, etc.), a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the George Polk Award, among other honors, the expedition by Franklin, an aging explorer hoping to reclaim lost glory, becomes less visceral and significant than the myriad attempts to find his body and the two lost ships, the Erebus and the Terror. In 2014, Watson accompanied the Canadian Coast Guard Victoria Strait Expedition, which ultimately found the Erebus some 168 years after the initial sinking and broke the news in the Guardian. The disappearance of Franklin and his 129-member crew on the Royal Navy-sponsored expedition of 1845 was full of mysteries, and it constituted the worst disaster in the Admiralty's polar exploration history. After getting stuck in the ice, the ships were eventually abandoned just north of King William Island. A few groups set out across the ice, some men already dead perhaps by botulism from tainted tin cans of food (rather than by lead poisoning, a theory discounted) and others disoriented by starvation and cold. Watson offers a sympathetic account of the Inuit who encountered some of the shipwrecked men and offered them food and supplies, as well as the native shamans who later were able to locate the wrecks (the Terror was discovered in 2016) with remarkable accuracyif the English had only listened. Watson's narrative also closely involves the dogged attempts by Franklin's widow, Jane, who never gave up trying to fund and launch recovery expeditions during her lifetime. A keen, entertaining chronicle of the various attempts to locate a sensationally doomed expedition. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
