One of the greatest Arctic legends: Undersea wreck to unlock secrets of Franklin
GJOA HAVEN , Nunavut — A tiny dot of fuschia bobs livid against the deep blue Arctic sea at a GPS point known only to selected researchers and the few local hunters who guard it.
Anchored somewhere in Wilmot and Crampton Bay off Queen Maud Gulf, the buoy could not be more remote. Even the Inuit seem uncertain about what to call the islands — mere rock-strewn smudges of sand — that dot these waters.
That is about to change.
The buoy marks where, 10 metres down, Sir John Franklin’s flagship the Erebus rests on the bottom, heaving up and down in the undersea swells as if breathing. Its lonely moorage will soon be home to one of the largest and most complex archeological excavations Canada has ever mounted.