Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A second member of a doomed 1845 expedition through the Canadian Arctic has been identified by researchers using a DNA sample from a living descendant. The bones recovered from a remote Arctic cairn are believed to be those of James Fitzjames, a19th-century explorer. Fitzjames was one of the captains of British explorer Sir John Franklin’s two ships that went missing in the summer of 1845. The expedition was meant to find a Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic but ended up becoming a story of starvation and death. The commander and his 128 men never returned. The ill-fated expedition has inspired art, books and TV series with fictionalised depictions of their struggle for survival. In 1845, Sir John Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage.” (09/24/24)