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I was daydreaming in vivid colour, inspired by the excitement of the moment. The documents were signed and detailed ship specifications established so that the first class of ships to be delivered under the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy can commence construction at Irving Shipbuilding in the summer of 2015. As the government and industry speakers took the stage in the shipbuilder's yard, my mind was replaying scenes from the far north. The high walls of the machine shed were the inhospitable cliffs of Baffin Island plunging vertically into the sea. The massive steel fabricating machines that will soon be shaping...

Historically valuable items are continually being lost or destroyed or being found. For example, most R&L readers likely missed a two-paragraph item in the middle of page 10A of last Wednesday's edition. The title of the article was "Canada Finds One of Two Explorers Ships Lost in Arctic." I feel this discovery warrants more coverage. The two vessels were the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, both lost during an expedition to determine the feasibility of traversing the "Northwest Passage," a route over the top of North America to link the Atlantic Ocean and Europe to the Pacific Ocean and...

One of two British explorer ships that vanished in the Arctic nearly 170 years ago during a search for the fabled Northwest Passage has been found, Canada's prime minister announced Tuesday in a discovery that could unlock one of history's biggest mysteries and swell Canadian pride. Last seen in the 1840s while under the command Sir John Franklin, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror have long been among the most sought-after prizes in marine archaeology and the subject of songs, poems and novels. Harper said the discovery would shed light on what happened to Franklin's crew. Franklin and 128 hand-picked officers...

'One of two British explorer ships that vanished in the Arctic more than 160 years ago has been found, Canada's prime minister says. Stephen Harper said it was unclear which ship had been found, but photo evidence confirmed it was one of them. Sir John Franklin led the two ships and 129 men in 1845 to chart the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The expedition's disappearance shortly after became one of the great mysteries of the age of Victorian exploration. The Canadian government began searching for Franklin's ships in 2008 as part of a strategy to assert Canada's sovereignty...

- Breadalbane sank in 1853 on search for Franklin expedition - - Wooden three-master is well preserved in icy waters - Canada has released underwater images of the world's most northernly shipwreck – a three-masted merchant ship that went down 161 years ago after becoming trapped in Arctic ice. The Canadian Armed Forces and Parks Canada produced the footage over six days, lowering a remotely operated HD camera through a hole in the sea ice, to capture images of a barnacle-encrusted hull and anchor from the ocean floor. “It's rare to have such a detailed view of a shipwreck from...

TORONTO – Canadian archeologists have found a ship abandoned more than 150 years ago in the quest for the fabled Northwest Passage and which was lost in the search for the doomed expedition of Sir John Franklin, the head of the team said Wednesday.

CAMBRIDGE BAY, Nunavut — The search for the remnants of an ill-fated British expedition that failed to cross the Northwest Passage — and a seminal moment in Canada’s history on Arctic sovereignty — will start anew. In the coming weeks, a group of researchers will scour Canada’s Arctic waters to find Sir John Franklin’s two ships, Erebus and the Terror, led by a ship named for an Arctic researcher who perished in a plane crash last year. The renewal of Parks Canada’s search for the lost Franklin vessels, anticipated last week by Postmedia News, follows three recent federal expeditions that...

Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took his crew of 129 men deep into the Arctic.In 1845, Capt 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, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle. Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the...

OTTAWA - The Canadian government confirmed Friday it will embark on the most extensive search ever for the fabled British shipwrecks Erebus and Terror, with Environment Minister John Baird saying the hunt led by Parks Canada scientists will boost "our case for sovereignty" in Arctic waters. .... The six-week search - the first season in what could be a three-year project headed by Parks Canada’s senior underwater archeologist Robert Grenier and Inuit historian Louie Kamoukak - is set to get under way within days aboard a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker. Both of the expedition leaders attended a news conference Friday...

Two vessels named “H. M.S. Terror” and “Erebus” were left in the Northwest Passage in 1845 but not before the crews suffered lead poison and botulism — and they cannibalized each other before the freezing to death. Now, a closer look is on one of those vessels. Parks Canada archaeologists recently used underwater drones to explore the wreck of the aptly named H.M.S. Terror. according to National Geographic. Discovered in 2016 off King William Island in the Canadian north, the ship and its contents have not yet been properly studied until now, 174 years after it sank.

A lost Viking settlement known as "Hóp," which has been mentioned in sagas passed down over hundreds of years, is said to have supported wild grapes, abundant salmon and inhabitants who made canoes out of animal hides. Now, a prominent archaeologist says the settlement likely resides in northeastern New Brunswick. If Hóp is found it would be the second Viking settlement to be discovered in North America. The other is at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland. ...using the description of the settlement from sagas of Viking voyages, along with archaeological work carried out at L'Anse aux...