Lost painting of HMS Terror discovered, As featured in Arctic Drift

[Antipodean Andy]

Good to see the Canadians are sticking with the hunt for the Erebus and Terror.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada...2498/story.html

A dramatic and previously unknown watercolour scene of Canada — painted during the golden age of Arctic exploration by that era's most legendary artist — has come to light in Britain after 175 years.

The image of an enormous iceberg towering above the famous Arctic expedition ship HMS Terror and one of its rowboats was painted by Royal Navy artist-turned-admiral George Back, who captained the vessel during a trouble-plagued voyage to Hudson Bay in 1836.

The painting, which has emerged from the obscurity of a Back family collection to be auctioned in London by Bonhams, is expected to fetch up to $25,000 at a maritime art sale in September.

By then, the very ship depicted in Back's long-lost painting may have been located lying on the Arctic seabed in western Nunavut.

Parks Canada announced earlier this month that it will undertake a new search in August to locate the lost ships of the Franklin Expedition — the Terror and its sister vessel HMS Erebus, which were sunk by pack ice during a disastrous voyage led in the 1840s by Back's friend and mentor, Sir John Franklin.

[tonym5]

This would be a great story to be covered in one of Dr. C's book series.

[Antipodean Andy]

I think you're on to something there, Tony.

[Pineygrrl]

I loved Arctic Drift. The doomed Franklin Expedition has fascinated me since I bought a photogbook, "Buried in Ice" from one of my kids' classroom book orders. Check it out! The graves of 2 crew members are unearthed by scientists and autopsied in situ, then reinterred. Detailed pictures document the findings and even show the well-preserved crew members. Not macabre, but poignant and respectful. I'll be following this topic in the news. Thanks for the info!