--HELEN KELLER

The next New England Chapter of The Explorers Club presentation will be held on Tuesday February 21st, when we are pleased to offer a special pre-screening of the new film “Arctic Passage,” produced by NOVA, the long-running PBS series created by Boston’s WGBH. This pre-screening will precede the special on-air premiere scheduled for February 28 (8PM EST) on PBS. We plan to have several representatives from NOVA and others who participated in the project on hand (including Dr. Russell Potter of Rhode Island College) with discussion moderated by New England Chapter Vice-Chair Larry Millman, our resident Arctic authority. Here is some background on the film and the story (provided by Dera, Roslan & Campion, publicists for NOVA):

The Film

In this two-hour special, NOVA dramatizes two extraordinary sagas in the quest for the Northwest Passage, the legendary Arctic sea route between the Atlantic and the Pacific that was the prize objective of merchants and adventurers for centuries. First, we probe the Arctic's most enduring exploration enigma: the doomed Franklin expedition, which set sail from London in 1845, with 129 men aboard two Royal Navy ships led by Sir John Franklin and were never heard from again. Poignant clues suggest the expedition became icebound, short of food, and that the stronger members resorted to murder and cannibalism. Or did their own provisions poison them? Now, 150 years later, a team of historians and forensic scientists journey to a bleak wilderness on a quest for the truth behind the Franklin mystery.

The greatest geographical prize of its day was the search for the fabled Northwest Passage through the island maze of Arctic Canada. In 1845, Great Britain mounted an all-out assault with a lavishly equipped expedition that was never heard from again. Then in the early 1900s, a little-known Norwegian adventurer set forth in a second-hand fishing boat and succeeded beyond all expectation. NOVA answers the riddle of
these two attempts—why one failed and the other made it—on Arctic Passage, a two-hour special airing Tuesday, February 28, 2006, from 8 to 10 PM ET on PBS (check local listings).

Hour one of the program provides new details on the Franklin expedition, whose fate was one of the great mysteries of the 19th century. Even today, the manner of the expedition’s demise is an ongoing detective story with clues and new interpretations still emerging 155 years after the explorers inexplicably disappeared. Hour two tells how Roald Amundsen rewrote the book on Arctic exploration by stressing simplicity and adaptability, and in the process discovered the Northwest Passage exactly 100 years ago.

The Story

“For centuries, explorers were convinced that a route could be found through the islands and ice floes of northern Canada that would cut months off the arduous sea voyage between Europe and the Pacific. But every time someone tried, ice blocked the way.

Determined to succeed, the British Navy refitted two warships and assigned its most experienced Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, to command. The vessels were stocked with every convenience and a three-year supply of food, much of it canned—a relatively new technology.

Departing England in 1845, the 129 men seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth. In 1848, the Navy dispatched the first of many search parties, which eventually found the site of Franklin’s first wintering camp on Beechey Island in the High Arctic, including the graves of three seamen.

Modern tests show that the sailors died of tuberculosis but were also suffering from lead poisoning, probably caused by the solder used to seal their tinned food. The finding suggests that the entire crew may have been affected to varying degrees by excessive lead, which causes fatigue, confusion, and paranoia.

Over the years, further searching has turned up a strange collection of clues that point to an expedition trapped in the ice, slowly dying off, desperately devising strategies to escape, and finally resorting to cannibalism. Ironically, as Franklin’s men were perishing, they had periodic contact with native Inuit, who subsisted quite well in the High Arctic thanks to their small numbers and highly evolved hunting and survival skills. There is no evidence that the Franklin party adopted any Inuit methods.

This lesson was not lost on Roald Amundsen, a young Norwegian whose study of the Franklin disaster led him to an entirely different approach. Instead of treating Arctic exploration as a siege, in which a fully modern world is transported en masse to an unforgiving place, Amundsen determined to travel light and live like the Inuit as much as possible.

Where the Franklin expedition comprised over a hundred men, Amundsen’s consisted of only seven; where Franklin commanded deep-water ships, Amundsen piloted a battered 30-year old sealer that had proven its worth at moving nimbly though shallows and ice floes; where Franklin’s men dragged a provision-filled ifeboat across the snow when they had to go overland, Amundsen used an Inuit-style sled and dogs. Success came in August 1905, after two years battling the ice and weather, when Amundsen encountered a whaling ship sailing from San Francisco. He had proven that a path existed across the top of the world for anyone bold enough to take it.

Sincerely,

Mark Allio
Program Chairman