Sir John Franklin

written by McCall, illustrated by Nick

Hello, I'm Sir George Back. I was on both expeditions with Sir John Franklin. I can still remember the day I met him. I was working at a milk factory. He overheard me talking about working on a ship. Then he came over and interrupted me. He asked me if I wanted to work on his ship. I was so excited. After that we became good friends.

In 1801 Franklin entered the British Navy. He fought in Trafalgar. On his first overland expedition in N Canada, we crossed the barren grounds from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Coast at the mouth of the Coppermine River. We explored eastward along the coast for 175 miles. We set off on May 1819.

We soon ran low on supplies. He hesitated before turning back. Soon we were forced to eat old shoes. Next, we split up. Now Franklin was sick, but we got help from the Indians, a few miles away. We knew the Indians from before because we had gotten supplies from them earlier.

On our second expedition in 1825-27 we went up the Mackenzie River and surveyed another long stretch of the Arctic shoreline. We moved westward to Return Reef & eastward to the mouth of the Coppermine. From Coppermine we went to Great Bear Lake where we built Fort Franklin.

Franklin served (1836-43) as governor of Van Diemen’s Land. After, he set out on the Erelous & the Terror in 1845 to search the Northwest Passage.

Three years later, our disappearance caused a widespread search of the arctic. Forty expeditions were sent in search to find us. In 1847 Franklin died, later to be joined by his crew.

Nothing was found until 1853-54. John Rae found records saying that Franklin's ships had been frozen in the ice between Victoria's Island & King William's Island. After Franklin died, survivors abandoned the ship. Nobody survived…. including me.