Team finds ship missing in Arctic for over 150 years

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20100728/missing-ship-100728/
Team finds ship missing in Arctic for over 150 years





The location of Mercy Bay, N.W.T. is seen in this image courtesy Google Maps.




A British ship that had been missing in Canada's Arctic waters for
over 150 years was found in just 15 minutes by a team of Canadian
archaeologists.

A nine-member Parks Canada team discovered the wreck of the HMS
Investigator on Sunday when ice cleared temporarily on Mercy Bay.

The Investigator, under the command of Capt. Robert McClure, had been
dispatched from Britain in January 1850 on a mission to rescue an
earlier expedition led by Sir John Franklin, which had been missing for
roughly three years.

Like Franklin's earlier mission, the Investigator became stuck in the
ice and the crew was forced to abandon it after two years -- though the
expedition was later miraculously rescued.

Parks Canada's chief of underwater archaeology Marc-Andre Bernier
told reporters on Wednesday that the Parks Canada team landed on the
shores of Mercy Bay on July 22, a remote site in what is now Aulavik
National Park on Banks Island to begin their search for the
Investigator.

They set up camp near a supply cache that had been set up by the Investigator's crew when the ship became stuck.

Mercy Bay -- so named by McClure -- is often covered in ice,
sometimes all year round, adding to the difficulty of the search. When
the Parks Canada team arrived on July 22 the bay was iced-over, Bernier
said.

But on Sunday night a brief window opened when the ice cleared, and the team quickly got to work.

"They started the search using side-scan sonar which to simplify is a
tool we tow, a torpedo-shaped piece of equipment we tow behind the
vessel which sends a sonar signal and creates a picture of the bottom,"
Bernier said in a Wednesday conference call with reporters.

"We had an opening, the lead archaeologist Ryan Harris and his team
were on the boat with the fish in the water, the side-scan in the water,
and according to what he said after 15 minutes they had an image of the
wreck."

Arctic waters preserved wreck

The wreck, which appears to be in reasonably good condition, was
found in about 11 metres of water, and parts of it were actually visible
from the surface when conditions were calm and the light was right,
Bernier said.

He said the Investigator appears to be sitting upright on the bottom.
The rigging is no longer standing, likely taken out by the ice, but
traces of it appear to be present on the ship's deck.

"Once the ship was located a few more images were taken to try and
get a better picture and then unfortunately the ice came back and it was
impossible to do anything until yesterday afternoon," Bernier said.

The team hopes to soon have an opportunity to send down a remote
operated vehicle (ROV) equipped with a camera, in order to get a better
look at the wreck.

He said the ship has barely moved from the place it is believed to
have been abandoned, contrary to early Inuvialuit reports that the ice
had carried the vessel out to sea.

Three grave sites discovered

Bernier said the team intends to continue to gather information, and
piece together a more complete history of the ship and its crew.

The team also found what it believes are graves belonging to three of
the members of the Investigator's crew, who did not survive the ordeal.


The Investigator's story is particularly important, Bernier said,
because McClure was credited with discovering the final leg of the
Northwest Passage.

The cache left by the crew also had a significant cultural impact on
the native population, a generation of whom continued to visit the site
in search of copper, iron and other materials.

Another trip is planned later in August to locate Franklin's two lost
ships, the HMS Terror and Erebus -- both of which have been deemed
National Historic sites -- off the coast of Nunavut.

When you name ships like "Terror" or "Erebus", of course they are gonna get lost in the ice.

The North Koreans probably went back in time, then sunk it with advanced nuclear submarines.

They should have went back in time to win the war!

They didn't do that because they wanted to show how powerful they were, and that they didn't need that type of advantage anyways.

Im sorry, excuse me for questioning the wisdom of our Glorious leader.

Don't distrust your glorious leader again.