Franklin’s Men

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 13, 29 December 1925, Page 5

Franklin’s Men

“ Polar Clouds Uplift.” RASMUSSEN’S STORY. LOST TRIBES AT HUDSON. London, Nov. 12. lu the midst of the newspaper furore created by the conflicting statements us to what happened between Grettir Algarsson and Commander Frank Worsley during their Arctic expedition un tlie “isianu,” a quiet announcement was made to the liuyal Geographical Society by tne Danish explorer, Dr. Knud Rasmussen, which partly withdrew the veil from a famous Polar trageuy jr bU years ago. This was the disappearance of the expedition which set forth under Sir John iranklini who at one time had been a Governor of Tasmania) to discover the Noith-West Passage. Rasmussen, who recently penetrated the Passage during the course of his three and a half years’ expedition to study the habits of the Eskimos, discovered the remains of two of FranKiin r s men. He built a cairn over the bodies as they lay. and above the cairn hoisted at hail-mast the British and Danish flags. ‘‘ We were glad to feel, as they perhaps might have been glad to feel,” he said simply, ‘ ‘ that the work for which they gave their lives was still going on. ’' The discovery was made througn Rasmussen’s meeting, at Felly Bay (that white had silent place so often mentioned by Jack London), with au old Eskimo, Iggiararsuk, whose father had met some of Franklin’s party. The lather’s story, as transmitted to Iggiar arsuk, was dramatically simple. STARVING WHITE MEN. “We were out hunting seals. Suddenly we heard the shouting of strange men from the land. (This was King William Island, to the immediate north of the Territories of Canada. It is situated at the apex of tbn angle made by Victoria Strait, and Ross Strait, as they converge to run into Franklin Strait and the McClintock Channel respectively.) We ran up to them, and saw that they were white men. They were thin, with sunken cheeks, like starving men. ‘ ‘ We took them to our tent and gave them seal meat and blubber. They pointed towards the south, towards tho Great Fish River (on the Canadian mainland), and made signs by which we understand that there had formerly been many comrades together, but. only few were left. “Afterwards, at aonther time, wc found their ship. It was out in the ice between King William Island and Victoria Land. Many dead men were on the ship, and we could sec that they hail died of a sickness.

“Also there was found a boat, with six dead men; there was food enough and it seemed that these also had died of a sickness.

Iggiararsuk gave L'asmussccn details of four spots were lay the bones of Franklin men. Ho found two of thes«» places, one on King William Island, and the other on the shore of Starvation Cove, on that part of the mainland known as Adelaide renrnsula. uu the bodies of the two dead men were still fragments of good sea-cloth. PRIMITIVE PEOPLES. All the iron utensils and tools in possession of the tribe at Polly had come from the Ross Expedition, which had wintered in Victoria Strait a hundred years before. Rasmussen, whose journey covered 20,000 miles from Greenland, along the north of Canada and Alaska to Siberia found a tribe, two months’ sledge journey inland from Hudson Bay, which had never before seen a wmte man. Their mode of 111* was the most primitive known, and they were apparently aboriginal Eskimos. Many other little-known tribes were discovered. They still used bows and arrows, and had never heard of the Great War. They invariably turned out fully armed io meet the explorers, but good rela tions were always established. It is customary among these tribes to kill nearly all their female children at birth, unless they have al-* ready been asked in marriage. Ono woman had killed seven of her babv daughters, yet, when her grown-up son died, she felt his loss so keenly that she cut a hole in the frozen icw of a lake and deliberately drowned herself. A youth who had helped to hang his father was so distressed by the death of his mother that he stripped himself naked and committed suicide by freezing. A father, whose son was to -b« hanged for the murder of two whit* men committed suicide after three futile attempts, so that his boy should not find himself alone on the other side.

DIED AS THEY' WALKED. With regard to the Franklin expedition, it may be recalled that, having set out in the Erebus and the Terror with 134 officers and men, it was last seen in Baffin Bay by i whaler in July, 1845. Fifteen rescue expeditions, several financed by Lady Franklin, were despatched. Many relics were discovered, while skeletons along the coast told their tale uf disaster. A record Ton ml in n cairn contained ‘he history of the expedition down to April, is-fs. An addition in • the handwriting of Captain Fitzjames rccountci! how the Erebus and Terror, having become ice-bound, were abandoned? ITanklin having died board one of the vessels iu 1817. In 1880 an American expedition found additional relics aud skeletons, and the body of Lieut. Irving was brought to Edinburgh and buried. An i-.-kimo woman was tlm last to see the survivors of the Franklin expedition before they perished. Thor, were 10 of them, starving, but staggering on. The end was clos<’ nt hand, for. said she. “they fell down and died as they walked.’’—(Sydney “Sun” cable