Arctic Forensics II: Franklin

In his anthemic "Northwest Passage," the late Canadian folksinger Stan Rogers evokes the sad yet compelling aura of the Franklin expedition perfectly: 

Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie

The sea route to the Orient for which so many died

Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones

And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones ...

Cairns are another matter, but of weathered, broken bones there is no shortage on King William Island. And, over the past two decades, they -- along with their better-preserved comrades in their graves on Beechey Island -- have received increasingly careful and detailed study. What can this work tell us? What enigmas remain. Here, as Sherlock Holmes might have said, is a brief statement of the facts so far known in the case.

The Beechey Island bodies were the first to receive detailed study -- when they were exhumed in 1984 and 1985 by forensic anthropologist Owen Beattie, each received a detailed autopsy, complete with x-rays, pathological exams, and bone and tissue samples. The best introduction to their story is the old NOVA episode "Buried in Ice" -- you can watch it in its entirely here. You can also see the detailed autopsy of John Torrington, or read the article in People Magazine naming him "One of the Most Intriguing People of 1984." 

The big takeaway from these bodies turned out to be their elevated levels of lead, which led Beattie to the hypothesis that lead poisoning -- likely from the lead solder in the tinned food provided to the expedition -- was the main cause of the expedition's failure. This "big" hypothesis, though, has been complicated by later studies that took up its challenge; the first, in 2014, showed that the impact of the lead levels observed was likely less dramatic than earlier assumed. Then, in 2015, a study of English sailors interred at English Harbor in Antigua at nearly the same time as Franklin's men also had elevated lead levels that were quite similar, despite their not having had tinned food or served in the Arctic. Finally, in 2016, a study using an advanced form of x-ray analysis demonstrated the more recent bone growth in Franklin's men -- men who died some years after those at Beechey -- showed no increase in lead intake. Taken together, these studies show that exposure to lead, while possibly severe in some individuals, wasn't too much worse than that of the average bloke in the mid-19th century Royal Navy.

The most recent breakthroughs have come from new work by land archaeologists, prominent among them Dr. Douglas Stenton. Stenton and his associates have revisited a great many known or alleged Franklin sites and re-studied the remains, using DNA analysis in addition to other archaeological tools. Finally, just this year, Stenton's team -- which has been actively soliciting DNA samples from living descendants of Franklin's men -- made a positive match. That same skull you see at the top of this post -- previously thought via facial reconstruction to be that of James Reid -- turns out to belong to John Gregory, the engineer employed to operate the steam engine aboard HMS Erebus!

With any luck, this will just be the first of many such identifications.