On Sept. 3, 2016, the R/V Martin Bergmann and its crew followed the success of the Erebus discovery by locating HMS Terror – the second of two ships that went missing during Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated 1845 Northwest Passage expedition. The find immediately reverberated around the world, coming just two years after the discovery of the HMS Erebus.
The nearly 200-year-old wreck of the Terror wasn't found by using state-of-the-art techniques or technologies – it was revealed as a result of deep relationships ARF had been building with local communities.
Sammy Kogvik
Where experts had previously dismissed the stories of local Inuit, ARF CEO and crew leader Adrian Schimnowski acted on a tip from crew member Sammy Kogvik, a local Gjoa Haven resident and Canadian Ranger. Kogvik told Schimnowski about a fishing trip in Terror Bay where he once saw a heavy wooden pole protruding from the ice. Setting course for the southwest corner of King William Island, the crew retraced Kogvik’s steps, ultimately finding the ship some 100 km south of where it was thought to have been abandoned.
Historians are now revisiting the previously held theory that the ship was abandoned once and for all by its crew – its final location suggests that survivors may have tried to sail the ship south to safety before ultimately succumbing to the elements.
