Beechey Island, Arctic Canada

From Paul Bryers, August 26, 2025

After the Polar Bear was finally 5 km away from us, zodiac landings resumed with haste and valor.

Now that some of the snow had melted, the barren and rugged nature of this isolated and desolate corner of Earth became even more apparent.

Beechey Island is best known for containing three graves of Franklin expedition members, which were first discovered in 1850 by searchers for the lost Franklin Expedition. The searchers found a large stone cairn, along with the graves of three of Franklin’s crewmen – Petty Officer John Torrington, Royal Marine Private William Braine, and Able Seaman John Harrell – but no written record nor indication of where Franklin planned to sail the next season.

During a later expedition, a searcher named Thomas Morgan died aboard the vessel North Star on May 22, 1854, and was buried alongside the three original Franklin crew members.

One can only glimmer what it must have been like for Franklin and his colleagues to have wintered in this area, starved and, for at least these three, died. And all the rest of the expedition died to.