Montreal (AFP)
More than 170 years after the mysterious disappearance of the British ship HMS Terror in the Canadian Arctic, unpublished images of the wreckage were released Wednesday: they reveal a well-preserved interior that could shed new light on this mythical expedition.
The Terror is one of two ships of the English explorer John Franklin's expedition, part of Britain in 1845 in search of the Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic.
Surprised by the cold, the 129 sailors of the expedition were stuck a year and a half in the ice before dying of hunger or cold.
The circumstances of the greatest tragedy of Arctic exploration, whose precise date is unknown, have remained unclear since. The first ship, HMS Erebus, was found in 2014 in the same area.
Images taken by divers and submerged submersible robot reveal intact artifacts of life on the ship, whose wreckage was found in 2016 at a depth of 24 meters off King William Island in the Northern Passage -West east of Cambridge Bay.
"We had the impression, while exploring the HMS Terror, that it was a ship recently abandoned by its crew, seeming to have escaped the passage of time", said in a statement Ryan Harris, director of the archaeological project and pilot of the remotely operated vehicle used for the searches.
During 48 dives, including seven with the robot, "in water that was near zero degrees or less," the team obtained images of more than 90% of the boat's lower deck.
A rudder covered with seaweed, a sailor's berth buried under the silt and anemones, dishes and bottles intact: everything is there, as if the ship had been abandoned precipitously 170 years ago.
The sediments that have covered the room of the ship's captain, Francis Crozier, have allowed the preservation of his office, in which researchers expect to find scientific instruments and maps.
The research was conducted in partnership with Inuit organizations, whose oral reports passed down from generation to generation, helped locate wrecks.
Only the captain's personal quarters remain inaccessible due to a closed door. The researchers hope to find written and sealed documents that cold water and sediments may have preserved.
© 2019 AFP