In 1845, Sir John Franklin set out from England with 128 men aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, on a mission to discover the Northwest Passage — a famed sea route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through a group of sparsely populated Canadian islands.
However, what followed was one of the most harrowing and mysterious disasters in exploration history. For decades, historians, archaeologists, and the public have speculated about the fate of a crew that never made it back.
Now, new genetic research sheds light on the ultimate demise of one of the senior officers — and the story his remains tell is as grim as it gets.
Cannibalism Confirmed
The researchers identified the remains of Captain James Fitzjames, second-in-command of the Erebus, through DNA extracted from a molar attached to a jawbone. The bone, found on King William Island in the Canadian Arctic, bore chilling evidence: cut marks consistent with cannibalism.
“Neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves,” said Douglas Stenton, an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo and co-author of the study. This stark revelation confirms earlier Inuit testimony that survivors resorted to cannibalism as they faced starvation after abandoning their ice-locked ships in 1848.
The identification of Fitzjames marks only the second time DNA has been successfully used to name a member of the Franklin expedition. In 2021, researchers identified John Gregory, the Erebus‘ engineer, using similar techniques. By comparing DNA samples from remains with cheek swabs provided by 25 living descendants of the crew, Fitzjames’ identity was confirmed through a match with a second cousin five times removed.
A Desperate Struggle for Survival
For decades, all that was known of the fate of Franklin’s crew were scattered relics. There were a few graves on Beechey Island, cryptic messages in cairns, and tales of starvation and madness passed down by Inuit hunters who crossed paths with the dying men. The ships themselves vanished, swallowed by the Arctic’s frozen maw. Franklin’s expedition became synonymous with a grim, tragic heroism —sailors who had battled the forces of nature and lost.
The Franklin expedition’s fate has long been a subject of speculation, intrigue, and even fictionalization. AMC even made a show about the expedition called “The Terror”. While novels and TV series have dramatized the crew’s descent into madness and despair, the real story may be even more tragic.
The expedition sailed into the Canadian Arctic in 1845, but by 1846, both ships became trapped in thick ice near King William Island. Their last known encounter with a passing ship was in late July 1845, near Lancaster Sound. From there, Franklin’s party ventured into the labyrinth of ice-choked channels that formed the Northwest Passage. Then, silence.
Dark Writings and Bones
More than 30 search and rescue missions set sail to find the crew, but they found nothing. It was as if the sea had swallowed them whole. Then finally, in 1859, a tattered note co-signed by Fitzjames was found tucked inside a stone cairn on the island.
The note contained two separate handwritten messages. The first was from May 1847, confirming that Franklin was in command of the expedition, which was going well. But the second note, dated April 1848 tells a much different story — it mentions how 24 people, including Franklin, were dead.
The 105 remaining crew members, now leaderless, abandoned their ships in a last-ditch effort to reach the Canadian mainland. None survived.
Later searches, informed by Inuit testimony, revealed skeletal remains scattered across the island. In some cases, the bones showed signs of butchering. Researchers recovered more than 400 bones at one site alone, including Fitzjames’ jawbone, providing direct evidence of the crew’s cannibalism.
After 170 years, recent discoveries have lifted the veil on the desperate final months of the crew. “It demonstrates the level of desperation that the Franklin sailors must have felt to do something they would have considered abhorrent,” said Robert Park, another co-author of the study.
The Story of a Tragedy
Inuit witnesses had long reported seeing survivors of the Franklin expedition resorting to cannibalism, but those accounts were dismissed by 19th-century European explorers. DNA and forensic analysis have now confirmed what the Inuit had known all along.
The ships themselves, the Erebus and Terror, were discovered in 2014 and 2016, respectively, well-preserved under the Arctic ice. The location of the ships, however, was surprising — Terror was found far south of where the crew had supposedly abandoned her, implying that the ice may have shifted or that the ship was later re-manned and sailed a short distance — possibly hoping to reach Inuit communities or open water — before being lost again.
These finds, along with the DNA analysis of the remains, have provided fresh insights into the expedition’s final days, but many questions remain unanswered. Why did everything go so horribly wrong? Why did the crew resort to cannibalism?
The discovery of Captain Fitzjames’ remains may mark the beginning of more identifications to come. The research team continues to seek DNA samples from descendants of other crew members, hoping to give names to the remains found across the Arctic landscape.
The skeletal remains of these sailors, frozen in time and scarred by their struggle for survival, tell a story that has been waiting to be heard for more than a century.
As the researchers note in their paper, “The true story is just as interesting, and there is still more to learn.”
Captain Fitzjames’ bones have been returned to a cairn on King William Island, alongside other unidentified sailors. There, a plaque commemorates the men who died seeking the Northwest Passage — men who boldly faced the dangers of exploring uncharted waters and paid the ultimate price of ambition.
The findings appeared in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
