Well, let's face it... The crew didn't re-man the ship and the only other humans in existence were the local indigenous Inuit (probably recognized in your country as Eskimos). BTW - We have an NFL team called the Eskimos, so the Red Skins aren't the only football team with a politically incorrect name problem.
Anyway, they found this lost ship in a bay named ‘Terror’ well over 100 kilometers south of where it was originally abandoned. Oddly enough the ship is named ‘Terror’ too… Hmmm!
The mast of the ship was sticking up out of the water and was as obvious as the nose on your face, yet it was only recently found buy a local Inuit scout who maintained its secrecy for several years because he thought nobody would believe him… Hmmm! So when he found employment with an expedition to locate the Franklin he remembered the location and led them where he had earlier found a ship mast sticking out of the water.... Hmmm!
My thinking is that when more and more Europeans arrived looking to cash in on a reward for locating the lost Franklin expedition, there was a narrative developed amongst the local Inuit to cover up the true facts. The Franklin expedition didn't die through a lack of food and starvation, supposedly eating each other in the end to satisfy their hunger... They were in fact killed off by the one or several hunting parties of the local Inuit populations (not that there's anything wrong with that) because let's face it, not many Inuit if any had ever seen a white face in their lives. They were understandably threatened when they witnessed two very large ships full of strangers stranded in the ice and likely waited for the ships crews to become desperate and their numbers to deplete (mostly from disease because their canned rations were contaminated with led) before slowly attacking them until they were all were dead, thereby eliminating an obvious threat to their existence.
They then somehow managed to navigate the ships with whatever remaining ‘foodstuffs’ were left on board to a more southern point on King William Island, abandoning the ships on the western side of the Island and then traversed to their more permanent settlements on the eastern side. The Franklin sunk where they abandoned it, while the Erebus managed to somehow stay afloat and drifted farther south.
Now of course this is just a theory, but when it comes to piecing together the unknown fate of an expedition abandoned 168 years ago in search of a shipping route that still doesn’t actually exit 168 years later, my guess is as good as yours.
Hmm, I am told that all indigenous people did was be peaceful, sit around smoking a peace pipe and being one with nature before evil europeans showed up.
Fascinating. Saw a show on this not too long ago. Thanks.
They probably had ancestral memories of VIKINGS, and most likely thought these were Vikings coming back to stay..............
"Erebus" and "Terror" in New Zealand, August 1841, by John Wilson Carmichael
HMS Terror was found off the south coast of King William Island, highlighted.
That's quite a 'somehow' for a culture which didn't even have the sail.