Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stands on the bow of the HMCS Kingston as it sails in the Navy Board Inlet Sunday August 24, 2014. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld LANCASTER SOUND, Nunavut — This is how Victorian England’s obsession with the fate of a famous explorer, 166 years ago, becomes a key article of Canadian government policy and politics in 2014.
It’s a fascinating tale.
Most of us have heard the frame of the original story; how Sir John Franklin set out in 1845 with his two ships of exploration, Erebus and Terror, and a complement of 129 crew; how the ships, advanced for their time, became trapped in the ice, somewhere northwest of King William Island; how Franklin died, and his surviving men set out across the ice in a desperate bid to reach safety, sometime around 1848.
Members of PM’s Arctic tour group in Zodiaks of the HMCS Kingston and Coast Guard icebreaker Des Groseilliers”. Michael Den Tandt /Postmedia News
Some resorted to cannibalism, the latest exploration evidence suggests; some or all may have been out of their minds due to lead poisoning. All of them died, leaving bones scattered across a swath of one of the most inhospitable and beautiful landscapes on earth.
Lady Franklin, the explorer’s widow, battled to keep her husband’s memory alive, and the search soon captivated the Victorian imagination. A large reward prompted subsequent expeditions, during which the modern map of the Canadian Arctic was drawn. But neither Franklin’s ships, nor his gravesite, were found. And so the mythology of John Franklin was born.
Enter Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Canadian Coast Guard, Parks Canada, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Nunavut territorial government, and a small flotilla of private and non-governmental and corporate partners, including the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, the W. Garfield Weston Foundation, One Ocean Expeditions, the Arctic Research Foundation, Shell Canada and BlackBerry billionaire Jim Balsillie.
Parks Canada’s Ryan Harris briefs Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on efforts to find the Franklin Expedition aboard the HMCS Kingston Sunday August 24, 2014 west of Pond Inlet on the Eclipse Sound. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
This past weekend, all of these parties’ interests converged. A navy patrol vessel carrying Harper and his wife, Laureen, accompanied by representatives from most of the participating organizations and agencies, as well as a contingent of reporters, made the trip from Pond Inlet, through the eastern approaches of Lancaster Sound, to Arctic Bay. This was the first time, as far as I am aware, that a sitting Canadian prime minister has physically travelled through even a portion of Canada’s Northwest Passage.
Sunday the PM appeared unusually relaxed. In a departure from his customary isolation from the media, he chatted and joked with reporters on the deck of the HMCS Kingston, one of two government ships participating in this summer’s search for the Franklin wrecks.
The PM had good reason to be pleased. The weather was unusually fine, with bright sunshine and low wind mitigating the chill. The surroundings were breathtaking. And the plan was, rather amazingly, for once coming together.
What is this plan? In conversations with participants in the Franklin search, military and Parks Canada officials, and in listening to Harper himself, it emerges as follows:
First, the work of the post-Franklin Arctic explorers was never finished; the sea floor in the Arctic Archipelago was never properly mapped or charted. That is being done this summer, in a systematic way, by the four ships — two public, two private — doing high-tech sonar mapping of the seabed in the Franklin zone. Already, according to Parks Canada, the Coast Guard is benefiting from enhanced charts, due to previous summers’ grid searches.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen take a closer look at an iceberg in a rigid inflatable boat Sunday August 24, 2014 west of Pond Inlet at sea on Eclipse Sound. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Second, the Royal Canadian Navy, in participating in this year’s Franklin Expedition, is familiarizing itself and its sailors with the Arctic environment, ahead of the deployment of patrol vessels that are expected to float by the early 2020s — and also helping project Canadian sovereignty across the north. Climate change is expected to make the Northwest Passage navigable by mid-century. In addition to allowing a new shipping route, that will also ease resource exploration. A significant portion of the world’s untapped oil and gas reserves are in the Arctic.
The territorial government is keen on the hunt for Franklin because the federal government’s interest in navigating the far north is speeding new transportation, economic growth and mining development, which Nunavut badly wants and needs. The Conservative government in turn has a broader interest in seeing this happen, because its economic strategy for the country is built on resource development in the north. Franklin’s story is also part of Inuit lore and oral history.
Parks Canada, the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and its partners are variously keen because of the archaeological treasure trove that may be found on the wrecks; the pure curiosity and adventure of the search; or the glory of possibly being involved in solving the greatest enduring mystery in global exploration.
Harper, for his part, appears to have a genuine interest in seeing the Franklin puzzle solved. For lack of a better way to put it, he’s a historical romantic.
He also understands, implicitly, the way in which the search can catalyze and support complimentary aims across the government. Franklin is a symbol; that symbol is being used, to considerable effect, to promote Arctic development, which includes better living standards and prospects for northern people. That’s the way Harper sees it, people familiar with his thinking say. I have no reason to disbelieve them.
In other words, this time, everybody wins. Small wonder there were smiles all around.
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