near King William Island two winters earlier, the crew had a desperate plan: head south to the Canadian mainland, and cross hundreds of miles to the nearest Western settlement. None would survive.

Fitzjames was part of an expedition led by Sir ... became the commander of HMS Erebus once Franklin died, but his ship became ...

The only written record ever found of the disastrous Franklin Northwest Passage expedition of 1845-1848 ... erected on the western shore of King William Island, near where Franklin's ships had ...

and left under a cairn on the north west of King William Island. It read: “Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June 1847 and the total loss by deaths in the Expedition has been to this date ...

In the murkiness shrouding the wrecks of the Franklin Expedition, the mysteries ... his men after the ships were beset in ice off King William Island in 1846 and deserted two years later ...