Description
‘They forged the last link with their lives’
This line is inscribed on the London Franklin memorial beneath the names of the officers and men of the lost expedition. The words are those of Sir John Richardson, who had accompanied Sir John on his 1819-22 and 1825-27 overland Arctic expeditions as doctor and naturalist. From 1848-49 in company with Dr John Rae, he unsuccessfully searched the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers and adjacent coastline for the lost expedition.
The back cover depicts part of a bronze plaque by Matthew Noble showing Sir John Franklin’s Arctic funeral. The plaque is on the Franklin memorial at Waterloo Place in London.
AN EXPEDITION INTO THE FROZEN ARCTIC WILDERNESS IN PURSUIT OF A DREAM
The 1845 North-West Passage expedition of Sir John Franklin in the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, with a full company of 129 officers and men, none of whom ever saw England again, was one of the most heroic and courageous, maritime expeditions in history.
This enthralling book is the result of seven years of arduous research by retired geologist Dr. John Roobol, who weighs evidence gathered over more than 170 years, and offers a highly convincing interpretation of what really happened to the lost, heroic, expedition.
About the Author:
Dr John Roobol is a retired geologist who has worked in many countries around the world. As an undergraduate, he was given a copy of Leopold McClintock’s famous 1859 book Voyage of the Fox, about his search for the lost 1845 expedition of Sir John Franklin. John Roobol found the fragmentary information in Voyage of the Fox both puzzled and fascinating, so his first project on retiring was to get to grips with the vast Franklin literature and to try to understand what most likely really happened. The result is this remarkable book, Franklin’s Fate.
