Canadians Find British Ship Lost for 150-Plus Years

(July 29) -- Canadian archaeologists found the remains of a British ship abandoned in the Arctic more than 150 years ago after it was sent to find two vessels that went missing in their search for the elusive Northwest Passage.

The wreck of the HMS Investigator was detected with the help of sonar technology in the relatively shallow waters of Mercy Bay, off Canada's Banks Island.

It was sitting upright about 36 feet down on the seafloor and was "in surprisingly good condition," said Marc-Andre Bernier, the head of underwater archaeology at Parks Canada. "The reason we were so lucky in a way was because the ship had not moved too much from the place it was abandoned," he was quoted as saying in London's Daily Telegraph.

Jim Prentice, Canada's minister of the environment, told the BBC: "It's an incredible sight ... a remarkably intact British sailing vessel."

The Investigator, captained by Robert McClure, had been sent from Britain to search for two ships lost in an ill-fated expedition headed by Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage.

After making two attempts to track down the missing ships, however, it became trapped for two years in the frozen Arctic waters, and McClure ordered it abandoned in 1853.

But now it's credited with doing what Franklin's still-missing HMS Erebus and HMS Terror had apparently failed to do.

The Investigator "is the ship that sailed the last leg of the Northwest Passage," Bernier said, according to Agence France-Presse, "and in doing so McClure and crew were credited with finding the Northwest Passage."

He noted that the ship's 60-man crew spent two winters in the Arctic "not knowing if they were going to survive," according to The Associated Press.

The graves of three crew members believed to have died from scurvy were also found, and researchers will stay at the site to see what else they can discover. The rest of the Investigator's crew was eventually rescued by another Royal Navy patrol.

Although planning for the search was made over a number of years, the remains were found quickly after the team waited three days for the ice to clear.

"It's incredible," Prentice told the AP. "You're actually able to peer down into the water and see not only the outline of the ship but actually the individual timbers."

What puzzled the Toronto Globe & Mail was why it took so long to find the vessel in the first place.

Unlike the mystery of the Erebus and Terror, the Investigator's location was not such a deep secret. The captain and the ship's surgeon both published accounts of what had happened, and other crew members told of their icy experiences.

"There is, in other words, a fairly exhaustive historical record associated with Investigator," the newspaper said. "Where real mystery does lurk is with the whereabouts of Erebus and Terror, and the possibility that discovery of either vessel might cast some light on the fate of Franklin."

According to Prentice, the Investigator discovery at the weekend supported Canada's historical claim to the region, the BBC said, adding that the issue of sovereignty was of increasing importance as the melting Arctic ice has added to shipping companies' interest in the Northwest Passage.