In search of Franklin
Photo: John Harrington’s Arctic adventures were a sideline to his career as a teacher and vice- principal. Photos: May Truong.
Over the course of 10 Arctic expeditions, John Harrington, mechanical technology ’63, looked for Sir John Franklin, who went missing in 1845 while searching for a Northwest Passage. Harrington never found Franklin, but he helped find three Franklin lifeboats, several encampments and countless artifacts. His team gathered the remains of 14 of Franklin’s 128 crew members for study at McMaster University, later returned for burial. And they found proof the desperate crew had turned to cannibalism in an attempt to survive.
“The telltale sign is knife marks at the joints to dismember the body,” Harrington explains. “Our team was the first to find evidence of this.”
People have long been fascinated by the mystery of the Franklin expedition. When it set off, “It would have been like the space shuttle going to the moon,” Harrington says.
The expedition never returned. Franklin’s two ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, were only recently located in the icy waters after years of speculation. A tin container found under a stone cairn in 1859 confirmed that the ships were abandoned April 22, 1848 and Franklin was dead.
Harrington became involved when his friend Barry Ranford made a discovery he believed related to Franklin. Harrington caught the excitement, and made his first trip in the summer of 1993.
“We helped archeologists measure, document and excavate a site about the size of a football field,” Harrington says.
Ranford and Harrington also found the wreckage of a lifeboat and human bones on another site, the impetus to return in 1994 and 1995.
Photo: A sketch from Harrington’s diary chronicling each expedition.
After Ranford’s death, Harrington led seven more trips, all aiming to find out as much as possible before the forces of nature destroyed the evidence.
At 74, Harrington thinks he might have a trip left in him. In the meantime, he’s pondering publishing the extensive diaries he kept of each expedition.
“Looking back, we did 10 serious trips, worked hard, contributed to the knowledge base – and had a heck of an adventure.”
John Harrington will be speaking at Alumni Weekend on Oct. 14 at the School of Image Arts, 122 Bond Street from 12:00 - 12:45 p.m.