Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition

by Owen Beattie, John Geiger, Wade Davis (Foreword by), Margaret Atwood (Introduction)

Overview

“A remarkable piece of forensic deduction.”—Margaret Atwood

The internationally-bestselling account of the Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition, and the thrilling scientific investigation that spurred the decades-long hunt for its recovery—now with a new afterword on the discovery of its lost ships: Erebus and Terror.

“Chilling . . . will keep you up nights turning pages.”—The Chicago Tribune

In 1845, Sir John Franklin and his men set out to “penetrate the icy fastness of the north, and to circumnavigate America.” And then they disappeared. The truth about what happened to Franklin’s ill-fated Arctic expedition was shrouded in mystery for more than a century.

Then, in 1984, Owen Beattie and his team exhumed two crew members from a burial site in the North for forensic evidence, to shocking results. But the most startling discovery didn’t come until 2014, when a team commissioned by the Canadian government uncovered Erebus, the lost ship.

Frozen in Time is a riveting deep dive into one of the most famous shipwrecks of all time, and the team of brilliant scientists that unleashed its secrets from the ice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771641739
Publisher:	Greystone Books
Publication date:	06/13/2017
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	185,038
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Owen Beattie is a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta. He has contributed to many forensic investigations in Canada, as well as to human rights and humanitarian projects in Rwanda, Somalia, and Cyprus.

John Grigsby Geiger was born in Ithaca, New York, and graduated in history from the University of Alberta. His work has been translated into eight languages. He is currently the CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

Wade Davis is an anthropologist, author, and explorer. He is the author of numerous books, including Into the Silence, Sacred Headwaters and The Wayfinders. He has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet, and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.”

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Introduction 1

Part 1 The Skeletons

1 King William Island, 29 June 1981 11

2 A Subject of Wonder 18

3 Into the Frozen Seas 36

4 Puny Efforts 47

5 Isthmus of the Graves 58

6 Region of Terror 67

7 Terror Camp Clear 73

8 Scattered Bones 105

9 The Boat Place 118

10 A Doorway Opens 140

Part 2 The Icemen

11 Across the Precipice 151

12 The Face of Death 178

13 The Evidence Mounts 191

14 Hartnell Redux 201

15 The Royal Marine 222

16 Understanding a Disaster 235

Epilogue 244

Afterword 256

Acknowledgements 263

Appendix 1 List of the officers and crews of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror 266

Appendix 2 Major expeditions involved in the search for HMS Erebus and HMS Terror 269

Bibliography 271

Index 278

What People are Saying About This

William S. Burroughs

A cautionary tale of scholarly merit.
—

Mordecai Richler

Simply compelling.
—

Margaret Atwood

A remarkable piece of forensic detection.
—

Editorial Reviews

Chilling…will keep you up nights turning pages.
—The Chicago Tribune

Peter Gorner

A superb account.
—Manchester Evening News

Toni Holt

Frozen in time is the most remarkable book I have read all year.
—The List)

Alan Taylor

We all gaze in wonderment at the photographs of these men. They make the past real, too real. They are history made flesh.
—The Globe and Mail

M. R. Carroll

01/12/2015
The discovery of the wreck of British explorer Sir John Franklin's ship The Erebus in the fall of 2014 is likely to renew interest in this book, first published in 1987 by forensic anthropologist Beattie and Geiger, now CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, and fortuitously reprinted before the shipwreck was discovered. Franklin was appointed to lead an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic through the Arctic to the Pacific, but the expedition was lost in 1848. A number of relief expeditions revealed only scant information about the fate of Franklin and his crew, and the mystery remained for almost a century. This historical retelling is complemented by an account of the expedition led by Beattie in the 1980s, during which the remains of some crew members were found. It provided important evidence to answer questions about what ultimately killed the men and whether in desperation they resorted to cannibalism. The authors present a richly researched history of the expedition and the following relief expeditions and seamlessly merge the worlds of forensic anthropology and 19th-century history. Reading almost like a whodunit page-turner, Beattie and Geiger capture the thrill of making new scientific discoveries and finding important clues to solve a haunting mystery. Agent: Westwood Creative Artists. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Chilling...will keep you up nights turning pages."— The Chicago Tribune

"... a richly researched history of the expedition... Reading almost like a whodunit page-turner, Beattie and Geiger capture the thrill of making new scientific discoveries and finding important clues to solve a haunting mystery."— Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher