- Home
- Diver News Archives
- Government of Canada to Search for Shipwrecks
Government of Canada to Search for Shipwrecks
- By Diver Magazine
- Published 08/15/2008
- Diver News Archives
- Unrated
Lost Ships of Sir John Franklin
Environment Minister John Baird has announced that Ottawa will fund a six-week expedition aboard the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier to look for the former British warships lost during the mid 19th century.
The expedition to locate Erebus and Terror will begin this week. The search platform, Wilfred Laurier, is presently in the Arctic as part of a joint Canada-U.S. undersea exploration program studying the thickness of sediment - to help calculate the extent of the continental shelf.
Erebus and Terror, under command of British explorer Sir John Franklin, were searching for the Northwest Passage. They were last seen by Europeans in 1845 by a whaling vessel off of Baffin Island.
The first search for the ships was launched in 1848, and searchers have been looking ever since.
A series of expeditions headed up by noted Canadian explorer Dr. Joseph MacInnis led to the 1980 discovery of the Breadalbane, a supply ship to the 1852 search by Sir Edward Belcher. Breadalbane was crushed in the ice in 1853. A series of dives were made on the vessel in 1983 with an atmospheric diving system and featured in National Geographic Magazine. Until Erebus and Terror are found, Breadalbane remains the world's most-northerly known shipwreck.
The expedition to locate Erebus and Terror will begin this week. The search platform, Wilfred Laurier, is presently in the Arctic as part of a joint Canada-U.S. undersea exploration program studying the thickness of sediment - to help calculate the extent of the continental shelf.
Erebus and Terror, under command of British explorer Sir John Franklin, were searching for the Northwest Passage. They were last seen by Europeans in 1845 by a whaling vessel off of Baffin Island.
The first search for the ships was launched in 1848, and searchers have been looking ever since.
A series of expeditions headed up by noted Canadian explorer Dr. Joseph MacInnis led to the 1980 discovery of the Breadalbane, a supply ship to the 1852 search by Sir Edward Belcher. Breadalbane was crushed in the ice in 1853. A series of dives were made on the vessel in 1983 with an atmospheric diving system and featured in National Geographic Magazine. Until Erebus and Terror are found, Breadalbane remains the world's most-northerly known shipwreck.