The Tragic Voyage of Terror: The Lost Franklin Expedition 

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TWELVE YEARS?! He walked for twelve years?! Oh my God I can't even imagine. Even if the journey wasn't a success, the man was a badass.

“As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket ship was supplied by the lowest bidder.” ― John Glenn

“Lifeboat full of useless stuff”. Some see this as a sign of the crew were impaired by illness and malnutrition, BUT others make a pretty good case that the stuff only seemed useless at first, and each had a purpose….weird, obscure books could be brought to help kindle fires, silverware and curtain rods could be hoped to be traded to the Inuit for seal meat, as metal was rare and valuable in the Arctic, etc.

"They forged the last link with their lives." What a *metal* quote. They literally ended the last chapter of marine exploration with the biggest sacrifice they could have ever given. The search for their bodies literally reads like an epilogue to an epic, with how the people tracing the footsteps of the doomed expedition found the path that the members gave their lives in braving themselves. They say dead men tell no tales, and I have to say, I agree. They don't tell tales. *_They let others tell theirs for them._*

What some people don’t realize is that getting stuck in ice while on a wooden ship doesn’t just mean you cannot move, the ice moves around you and freeze. This can wear down the wood like sandpapering wood. And when it does freeze, it puts immense inward pressure on the hull. So much that it could cause the hull to implode in on itself. Lastly as the hull stays under frozen water longer, the less habitable it becomes, the walls freeze and become covered with layers of ice and the air inside of the hull cannot trap heat as effectively. In older models that include steamers and steam engines, having ice touch your steam engine was extremely dangerous as it could cause the entire engine to explode, blowing the ship up outwards. Being stuck in ice back in the infant days of sailing was an extremely terrifying idea.

Walking for 12 years straight, alone, in the frigid cold year round, with barely a single change in scenery to denote progress sounds like the closest thing to a living Hell I have ever heard. With us keeping their names and story alive almost 200 years later, and the mysteries of their trip solved at last, may all their souls rest in peace. They deserve it.

In regards to the people who made the eventual uncovering of this story possible, a big shoutout is needed to a man named Louis Kamookak. He was a Gjoa Haven Inuit explorer, historian, and forensic archeologist who worked on the Franklin Expedition Discovery project here in Canada, and he was invaluable in his efforts speaking with Inuit elders on their passed down testimonies on the survivors, charting their locations by extrapolating the original Inuit geographical names with their Western equivalents, tracking down and collecting locations of found relics of the survivors' trek south, and his information was key in setting the search areas that eventually found the ships. So much of this story would've remained a mystery without him. He died in 2018.

Fun cannibalism fact (there's something I never thought I'd type): often by the time people have to resort to cannibalism in starvation situations, even eating a whole person would not actually help them at all. The human body needs fat to properly go through digestion and break down what we eat into nutrients to keep us alive. If there's not enough fat in the food you're eating, your body takes it from preexisting subcutaneous fat (the stuff that sits under your skin and that everyone gets so bent out of shape about). When you're starving, one of the first things to go are your subcutaneous fat cells, and once you get to the point where you're resorting to cannibalism, it's likely that the people you're eating also have lost their SubCu fat. This means that while human meat might fill your stomach, that's basically all that it does for you. Ironically, the one place in the body that continues to have fat cells even while starving is- wait for it- bone marrow! But as Wendigoon mentioned, eating human bone marrow is usually a last resort, so you don't have very much, if any, food (even human meat) remaining to take advantage of the fact that your body can now properly process what you're eating and help you survive. ✨️The More You Know✨️

Wendigoon's "As always, thank you for watching" has the same energy as PBS "This program is made possible by viewers like you, thank you" and just adds to the comfort I have listening to him talk about things he is interested in.

My man walked 600 miles, was forced to eat his crew, and still kept walking, you have earned my respect. Rest in Peace

Lady Franklin was the MVP of this story, she was so proud of her husband’s accomplishment and I can’t stop thinking how horrible it must have been for him to never return, yet she never gave up on him even after he was long dead

Recently falling on hard times, I constantly find myself watching documentaries on this expedition. Because no matter how bad of a day I’m having, nothing can be as bad as being stuck in ice for years without contact. Sick, cold, hungry, miserable, dark, and extremely windy and wet.

It still amazes me how John Torrington's body was so well-preserved from the extreme cold. Today, you can find bodies in the Italian Alps from World War One, and they look so recent that the local police often get calls about possible murder victims.

Even though she couldn't go out herself, I have to applaud Lady Franklin. She did so much to bring awareness to the situation and try to figure out what happened.

Another thing about the Terror and Erebus' legacy, is that prior the the doomed expedition it took part in some of the important early Antarctic Expeditions. Two of the first named mountains in Antarctica are named after them, Mt Erebus and Mt Terror, meaning that the legacy of the ships continue to live on.

Lady Franklin having the officers get their pictures taken, and buying her husband a monkey for the voyage is just fantastic. Glad to see humans haven't changed much.

I feel so bad Lady Franklin. For the person you love to just disappear and for the government who sent them to their deaths to just do nothing, those years of not knowing must have been torture. She travelled for years until her own death to find his remains. She never once gave up on finding him and only death could stop her. They really were two of the most badass people I’ve learnt about

"The British government hired the lowest bidder to make--" Some things never change. British and American military, both. Also, the lack of praise of Captain Crozier despite him living a lot longer is notable. Probably because he was Irish.

It's a very tragic story, but the fact that after all this time people are still trying to find out everything they can about what happened is as you say a tragic victory. Hell ol boy walked for 12 freaking years, "I am getting the f up out of here and never going to the artic again. Peace." I also find it wonderful that Franklins wife was still alive to see her husband recognized for the discovery and receiving his medal. She obviously loved him a great deal considering the lengths she went to to find out what happened to him.

Man, hearing that the government was like “your concerns are unfounded” and that this woman had to go on a campaign and get powerful friends involved to get any word or investigation going was weirdly uplifting for me. Because it showed me that government also doesn’t care about the rich and well connected. It’s not just poor people who have to fight to get something done.

As a canadian sailor who went in the arctic, going there in wooden ships is MENTAL!!! Even our icebreakers can struggle in its ice...

i have never heard of a more bittersweet ending than crozier and a crewmate finding their goal after suffering for 12 whole years and seeing too many of their men die. this has to be the epitome of "we've won, but at what cost?"

Frozen in ice since 1850's and you could not tell how old those bodies were by just looking at them, thats morbidly fascinating, wonder how many bodies of past times are just laying somewhere in the arctics not yet discovered

there is something so horrifying about a man walking through the wilderness for 12 years having gone through all of this and still failing to find sanctuary, just imagine how life would have been for him holy jeez

When I ever think about expeditions back then, the sheer logistical nightmare of supplies and navigation is enough to make my brain just melt.

Being trapped in the Arctic has to be one of the most terrifying experiences possible. You’re so boned, it’s just a matter of time before your mate across from you is tries to eat you or vice versa because you are so hungry. Truly chilling.

I live in Banbridge (home of Crozier) and I always wondered what it was he did to have a statue of him built in the town. Now I know, and I especially like the idea that the guy walked for 12 years across artic, refusing to give in to the elements

I first read about the Franklin Expedition in a book called "Into the Unknown", which covered human exploration from ancient times to the moon landings in the Apollo missions. I've been fascinated by it ever since, and one of the other theories for the lead poisoning of the crew is that their water supply, which was furnished by the same machine that purified ocean water for use in the ships' steam engines, also had the side effect of giving that water a very high lead content due to parts of the machine being made of lead.

There used to be a documentary about this on Netflix that was like 3 hours long, followed them from camp to camp for the entirety of the journey. it was the saddest story I have ever heard.

Lead poisoning or "saturnism," was a big problem back then. The canning process made life a lot easier for sailors, and soldiers, but they really didn't understand the effects that lead ingestion would have on the brain. Really bad way to go.

I vividly recall bringing a book home from the library about this as a kid, because it had cool pictures of ships on the front of it, and I liked pirates at the time. My mom read through it with me, and I remember the horror and dread it filled me with because it was probably my first time hearing about terrible tragedy happening to a group of people. There was no heroic escape or anything that could make this a happy ending. It was just a slow awful way for everyone to die. This tragedy will always hold a special place in my memory because of that, and a surprising amount of emotion came up in me while I watched this

What’s wild to me is that for a time, whether it was a moment, or multiple years, there was a final survivor who had nothing but their own thoughts, and a never ending wilderness to traverse and endure.

i just loved that "i'm awful with technology" at the end. It just solidified the "father who's talking about some weird stuff he found" energy

Huge shoutout to the northwest passage , gotta be one of the top 10 passages of all time

I'm Canadian and I remember being morbidly fascinated by the Franklin expedition, especially the photos of the preserved corpses in our history textbooks. I've also visited Churchill, Manitoba and saw, in a church there, a stained glass window that was gifted by Lady Franklin as thanks for the efforts to try and find the expedition.

This reminds me of the Terra Nova Expedition. It was a British expedition into Antarctica that tried to be the first to reach the South Pole. They all froze to death there, although some of them did reach the South Pole (only to find out that another expedition had beaten them to it by just a month).

I was 9 when they found the bodies in permafrost and I was OBSESSED with learning all about it. My mom was disturbed, her 9 year old daughter was mooning over 130 year old dead bodies LOL

If you enjoy this story, I’d highly recommend reading on Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, also known as the Endurance. One of the craziest stories of survival, as Shackleton got all of his men out alive after the sinking of the Endurance, due to sailing a fortified lifeboat through some of the fiercest winds in the world.

If I die while stranded with a starving friend whose near death, I think I'd rather them eat my body than die themselves. I don't want that to happen, but I'd rather that than my friend die along with me. Now, if they KILL me to eat me, I'll haunt them forever.

Just finished watching The Terror and I loved it! Even without the supernatural twist, the real story is just absolutely terrifying. Being trapped in the Arctic for years without any hope of rescue while hundreds of you are slowly dying off, starving and going mad. It's truly haunting and tragic.

I think Lady Franklin should get a statue, because she's the one who DID NOT GIVE UP in trying to find out what happened to her husband and his crew, and lead to the discovery of the proper path through the search parties, right?

Historians: How could these men have so tragically died? Wendigoon: Their food was bad.

That thought of the Terror and what remained of its crew trying to make it to land was heartbreaking.

I’ve been fixated on this story for weeks now. Watched The Terror, several documentaries, this video. I can’t get enough of this interesting expedition.

The Voyage of the Endurance and subsequent journey of one of it's lifeboats, the 'James Caird' is a similar chilling maritime story that I actually find more interesting than that of the Franklin expedition. Worth checking out if you have not ever heard of it and thought the story told here by Wendigoon was interesting.

I like how this crazy macabre tale starts off so wholesomely. Pet monkey, group photo, little costumes for the monkey...

Lived in Yukon as a kid, coldest town I know in Canada. Had some -80F ish (-62celcius) few decades ago. The belief that fish is an essential part of life in these beautiful desolate lands are part of every family that lives there. Massive respect to the Inuits.

I think there's a point in which logic can no longer fight off superstition, and that line was crossed when they decided to take a couple of ships named 'Erebus' and 'Terror' (i.e. darkness and fear) to one of the most dangerous and inhospitable places in the world.

Whenever I hear stories like these, I'm always reminded of the single most underrated survival story: A. J. Barrington. Him and 2 other gold panners got lost in Fiordland New Zealand for 3 months in 1864, living off sparrows and rats, and discovered two of the most beautiful landmarks in the area that wouldn't be discovered again for 70 years. Barrington kept a journal the whole time, and all three men survived, so we know exactly what happened in their ordeal

Interesting fact: the Terror and Erebus actually a few years prior sailed to Antarctica to try and find the south pole(they didn’t) but because they lasted 4 years in the Antarctic the RNC thought they could handle anything. And even though it 99% didn’t happen the ending shot of The Terror is genuinely beautiful and really tied together the entire series

Amazing how what used to take months to years of travel can now be done in mere hours.

Ahh for just one time, I would take the northwest passage, to find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort sea.

Wendigoon never misses with the most well researched and intriguing stories

"They forged the last passage with their lives" This is both an awesome, metal, beautifull and sad quote to be known by.

For anyone interested, Michael Palin of Monty Python and travel programs fame wrote a book about the history of the Erebus. It details the entire history of the ship leading up to the its disappearance and then its rediscovery. I would also recommend the book Ice Ghosts for a more in depth look into the context of the Franklin mystery, how it impacted the natives in the Nunavut area, the story of Lady Franklin and the recent rediscovery of the ships.

Lady Franklin moved heaven and earth to find her husband. Love is a powerful thing....in the end they both died (in her position if it was a spouse of mine....id do the same thing). Alot of people died this truly is a sad event, they tried and did the best they could.

Conspiracies, analog horror, grim history, and pleasant Sunday school religion. No wonder you got a million subscribers so quick, it's like having a cool dad tell you awesome stories.

I’ve hiked 15 and 20 mile days in my life.. well prepared and supplied, in favorable weather, and on pre-laid paths. I can only imagine the horrors of walking 600 miles over the course of 12 years through the brutality of the arctic with gear not meant for that purpose. Also, love the balloon and vids Mr. Goon forge on!

I can highly recommend the graphic novel "The Worst Journey in the World" by Sarah Airriess that tackles this story. She's been working on this this book for over a decade now I think and it is absolutely incredible, both in the artwork and the information in it! The Scott Polar Research Institute is also very involved in it.

Sometimes I start out a video completely uninterested in the subject matter but you do such an awesome job of telling the story with such enthusiasm and you sell it so well that I wind up loving it before we're even halfway in. You had me literally daydreaming longingly about taking a hike through Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, FFS!

I swear you have one of the best voices for thrilling/mysterious storytelling, I just get sucked in everytime

This was also part of the inspiration for the song "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers. I love that song, and all of Roger's music in general, but after learning about this in depth I finally realized he was making a specific reference in one of the lyrics... "Leaving weathered, broken bones and a long forgotten lonely cairn of stones" Man that's way more chilling knowing exactly what he's referring to.

Franklin's real problem was thinking Kings Williams Island was a peninsula and connected to the mainland on the south side. If he had known it was an island at the time he would have been able to sail south of the island and avoid the icebergs coming in from the north that he eventually got stuck in. This was the real key to the northwest passage, The Rae straight.

I have been obsessed with the Franklin expedition for years. I’m so glad I am around to see them find the ships it is mind blowing to see the video from inside the ship knowing some of what happened to it.

If anyone hasn't seen it, I would highly recommend The Terror series. It manages to craft great characters and story around what little we know about the actual expedition alongside some of the best atmosphere I have seen on television. I'd just suggest going in with the understanding that it's a fictionalized version of the actual events. It's mostly really accurate, but if you're watching it as a pure retelling there's some stuff that would probably be really annoying.

OMG when I was a kid I was fascinated with this voyage. There was a book in my local library with detailed pictures and everything. I mostly looked at the pictures of the corpses. People thought there was something really wrong with me.....

Supposedly one of my teachers is friends with a woman who was on one of the arctic expeditions where they found one of the lost ships of the Franklin expedition (I can’t remember which one). They weren’t up there looking for it, it was for some biological research or something, and they were going about their business when in the distance they saw the mast sticking up from under the ice. She brought back a narwhal tusk for him from the expedition that he still has on his mantle

Something that was shown in the Terror mini-series was the dog going from the crew mess to the officer's mess and the men joked about how the dog was a higher rank than the other sailors. While the Terror mini-series shows some supernatural creatures being responsible for the loss of the expedition, it is still worth watching.

I remember when your channel was so small and I knew that you'd hit one million one day, I know i'm just a stranger but I'm really proud of what you've accomplished on this platform.

Just finished “The Terror” by Dan Simmons (the show of the same name is based on the book but there are some pretty interesting differences) last night. Can’t recommend enough. Although, without giving too much away, it does incorporate some fantasy horror elements so it’s not a cut and dry retelling of what happened. Either way it’s a really good book. There is a book simply called “Erebus” that was recommend to me that is nonfiction to my knowledge. If that interests you more.

The process of sending ships to free a ship trapped in the ice, which then also get trapped in the ice, reminds me of when Charlie and Dee kept putting cats in the wall to get a cat out of the wall on It's Always Sunny.

Franklin: "looks like we're going to winter here" Me 2 minutes later: "so I'm getting a lil' bit hungy. Which crew members would be the least missed"

You would love the story of the voyage that inspired “Mody Dick.” The one mortician lady did a fantastic video about it and it is so fascinating.

I've always been fascinated with a similar story to this from the age of early Antarctic exploration which I'm not sure if you've made a video on, but it's the failed expedition to Antarctica by Robert Scott and his other English companions. Scott led two expeditions to the Antarctic, one of which he didn't return from. At the time of the second expedition, he was attempting to become the first man to reach the South Pole, but he was beaten by his rival Roald Amundsen - not least of which due to Scott's stubborn decisions to use items like wool to keep warm instead of furs, which became heavy and wet very quickly & wouldn't dry easily. He also used horses who struggled with the snow and ice rather than sled dogs, and I believe even tried powered snowsled ski things that stopped working early in the trip. Morale for the failed trip only fell further on their way back from the Pole thanks to deaths, including a self-sacrifice from one of the explorers, Oates, who knew he was holding the group back. After asking that he be left to die a few days before, one evening he allegedly said "I am just going outside and may be some time" before walking out into the snow never to be seen again. Scott and his two remaining men were found dead about 20km (~12.5 miles) from his next supply depot, stopped by a blizzard & exhaustion. It's believed part of the reason they were so sluggish is because Scott insisted on carrying with him extremely high-quality fossils that he found during the return trip, and Scott apparently wasted days examining and unearthing these fossils during the run back. The fossils that were found with him actually proved that Antarctica used to be connected to the other continents, and I actually got a chance to see a few of them while I was in university. Awesome video! Love your content

“For just one time, I will take the northwest passage to find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea”

The photos of the crew, they haunted my imagination as a kid. Theres something about this story thats more visceral than others. Its almost like they’re all still out there, waiting to be rescued. Thanks for the video, it scratched the content itch

One of my ancestors, Joseph Dalton Hooker, was a good friend of Charles Darwin and was a botanist. One of his first expeditions was on board the Erebus and the Terror and it was the last major voyage of exploration made by sail. Cool stuff to hear about the Erebus and the Terror from you.

By the way, both ships returned (in spirit/name) during the First and Second World War. The Navy built two Erebus-class monitors (light cruisers/heavy destroyers armed with a single massive battleship turret for shore bombardment) and named them Erebus and Terror.

The Terror and Erebus were sailing ships that had been constructed for the war of 1812. While putting steam engines in ships was new, top of the line technology, the engines put in these ships were actually 10 year old retired train engines. There were more efficient and smaller, lighter engines available, but like the rations, it seems the people who paid for the expedition were interested in cutting costs. Hard to say what part that played, except there was a massive amount of coal on both ships where more stores could have gone, it also would have made them sit lower in the water.

I can't ever hear about the Franklin expedition now without thinking of Dead Space 3 as the shuttle Issac uses to go from orbit to ground in the game is named after Crozier. Fittingly the shuttle that still works after the 200 years that passed is named for the man who supposedly was the one of the only ones still going after the expedition fell apart. The space station is Roanoke, the other shuttle that crashed was named Franklin, there's the Shackleton and more lol. In hindsight, naming things after ill-fated explorers is never a good idea if you plan to live. Great video as always!

I too love Maritime Horrors, and I'm glad to see someone appreciates both history and horror at the same time.

Really hoping that Maritime Horrors gets a subscriber boost from having Wendigoon mention him. All of his videos are well researched and respectfully done, can’t get enough of them.

I learned of the Franklin Expedition by reading Dan Simmons' book 'The Terror', which the show was based on. To call it "taking creative ilberties" is an understatement lol. But that's one of Dan Simmons' strengths. Taking real life events and locations and putting his own twist on them, usually mixing some kind of mythology into it.

Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

Despite doing a degree in History in the UK, I've never heard this specific tale - you told it fabulously and it would be great to have more episodes like this

Go watch the miniseries. Its absolutery spectacular. The acting of Jared Harris and Tobias Menzies was top notch.

These story’s are so great but also so frustrating. The idea that these men were forced to eat tainted canned food, then seen as evil for being forced to do whatever it took to survive is truly tragic! I understand that the cannibalism was a mindset set in the time period, but it does make you wonder how much longer they could of held out if they had proper food.

I just have to say poor Jacko, Neptune, unnamed kitty, and cattle. They didn't know what they were getting into.

I know I was warned, but I still wasn't close to ready for how preserved those bodies were. Great video! No sleep for me tonight.

What an amazing but horrifying story. At one point it is mentioned that someone may have gone back to the Terror to try and pilot it but failed. I just want to point out how scary that must've been. You know that feeling you get walking through a completely empty and quiet house? I imagine that was the same feeling for whoever came back to the ship. The only sound is the wind and maybe waves, meanwhile he's walking completely alone through a dark and abandoned ship that was filled with life not long before. RIP to all of those brave men.

The AMC series is based on the book The Terror by Dan Simmons - that’s were the creative liberties come from. It’s a book adaptation of a fictionalised retelling of the story. The book is amazing btw, highly recommend it

Not many people can sit in a small room and keep an audience engaged for 50 minutes. Forget the camera settings. Stay focused on the content. Just keep the shutter speed double whatever your fps is and and keep up the good work. I’m aware this is late so if redundant, please forgive. Also, more arctic or Antarctic exploration please.

"Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage, To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea/ Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage, And make a Northwest Passage to the sea" This part of maritime history is one of my favorites!

Toplighting with your level of light exposure can make this really harsh shadow over areas of your face, you can mitigate that by having the source of light more in front of you and adjusting the exposure to accomodate. All in all though, looks and sounds fantastic! Love your vids!

Love the video. Franklin Expedition has always fascinated me; it went down "in my backyard" so to speak, and the Nova documentary (1985/86?) really sparked my interest. I've studied it extensively since then. My only issue with popular interpretation is the "12 years in the Arctic" legend of Frances Crozier (some accounts say James FitzJames). This is completely implausible for too many reasons to even list, but here are the major ones; 1) the entire crew was already REALLY sick. You don't live 12 years when you're already dying of scurvy and lead poisoning, 2) some people say that 1) is answered by "well, he got help from the Inuit"...so the Inuit, who are VERY mobile people, kept him alive for 12 years without getting him home? Civilization was NOT "500 miles away", the British kept many unmanned (but stocked) forts and caches that were MUCH closer than that, and Crozier definitely knew this, 3) John Rae was in the area, and interacting with the Inuit concerning the missing expedition, as early as 1853/54. At this point the expedition had been in the area 8 years, but (apparently?) the Inuit weren't like "HEY, there's a dude over this way you might wanna see". Doesn't make sense. Let's keep in mind that alot of the information, that is now considered common knowledge, was obtained by CF Hall in the mid 1860s; he was a journalist in a time where "sensationalism" was beginning to take hold, and was additionally asking the Inuit about (often second-hand) information of an event that happened 2 decades prior.

This is such a tragic story. And not one I would have heard of without your channel. The dedication to research and thorough delivery of information while still remaining respectful of such tragic events is absolutely stunning. Keep it up man, you're doing great.

The wife got all her family and gathered her friends on asking for their help, even asked their small time writer friend *Charles Freaking Dickens* no one important just a historical figure in writing, and got him making missing posters. (Yeah did more than that, but that's pretty much what happened.)

I love how Wendigoon puts his "thank you for watching" at the start of the video instead of the end. He wants you to know ASAP that he's grateful and I respect that.

The TV show is actually based on a book called the terror that is excellent