This pencil drawing is inspired by the storey of the Franklin expedition. The aim was to create something weirder and more dreamlike than my usual work.
The expedition was sponsored by John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty. The mission was to find a passage via the arctic for trade with China. In May 1845 the 129 strong expedition sailed from Green hithe Kent, under the leadership of Sir John Franklin. They were in two ships, the Erebus and the Terror. In July two whaling ships spotted the Erebus and Terror in Baffin Bay Canada. No European would see them alive again. When the remains of three of Franklins men were found in 1984, all three of them had high levels of lead in the bodies. It was believed that the solder used to seal the expeditions canned food was giving them lead poisoning. The ships ended up frozen in the ice with the men having to leave on foot, dragging boats behind them. Ill equipped for the freezing conditions, they would have suffered hypothermia from sweating. The dying had to be left behind; Frozen boots had to be removed from feet with hammers, and seals were inedible due to Botulism type E, which the Inuit had developed immunity too. The wreck of the Erebus was found in 2014 and that of the Terror in 2016. The fact that no one survived has only added to the public fascination with the story.
Franklin expedition | Ships, History, Theories, Discoveries, & Facts | Britannica
The Disturbing Disappearance of the Franklin Expedition