Erebus Hats
Description: Franklin Expedition - Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic
Description: In 1845 two of the most modern ships in the British Navy, the Terror and the Erebus, sailed north on a journey to seek the Northwest Passage. They carried a crew of 200 men under the command of Captains Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames, under the overall command of Sir John Franklin. They were last seen by whalers crossing Baffin Bay in good weather, all seeming well. They were never seen again. Recent marine archaeology, combined with the collection of indigenous Inuit oral histories, has pieced together the tragedy which befell these men. The two ships apparently became ice-bound off the coast of King William Island, and the entire crew succumbed to hypothermia, scurvy, lead poisoning, madness and cannibalism.
