The British had been searching for a route over North America since the 16th century. They hoped to find a quicker route to Asia for trade, and one that did not have to pass via the Spanish or Dutch colonies in the south. Expeditions had been fairly sporadic but by the 19th century, at the height of Britain’s colonial ambitions, the hunt for the Northwest Passage had reached fever pitch.

A cold that scares you and terrifying tension in rowing the Arctic

Franklin’s first expedition was not by boat but by foot. His overland party, from 1819 to 1822, ran out of food, and the men were forced to eat their shoes.

Victorian Britain loved a story of stoicism in the face of overwhelming odds. On his return, Franklin was hailed as a hero and made famous as “the man who ate his boots”. In reality, they were forced to such drastic measures because of Franklin’s incompetent leadership and poor preparation.

In The Terror it is referenced when Franklin is told off by John Ross for, once again, his lack of preparation: “You’ll eat your shoes again”, Ross warns him.

Of the 20 men who set out in 1819, only 11 returned – the others died, some in mysterious circumstances, including accusations of cannibalism, a prophetic end for Franklin.

But Franklin’s heroic myth took hold and the laid the foundations for a career in the Arctic.

Franklin’s second expedition was a success – he and a secondary party split and mapped almost 2,000km of North America’s coastline between 1825 and 1827. The expedition earned him his knighthood and governorship of Tasmania between 1836 and 1843.

‘What have I done?’ – rower emerges after 14-day lockdown challenge

Stuck in ice – True

The British sent ship after ship to locate Franklin, even long after it became clear that he was dead. One explorer sent to discover Franklin’s fate was a Scotsman called John Rae.

On Rae’s third expedition in 1854, he obtained information from the local Inuit communities. They reported that both Terror and Erebus became icebound off King William Land (now known to be an Island). The boats were eventually crushed and sunk. The crew went south by foot and died on the way.

Rae also finally found the Northwest Passage on his third expedition, but the news of Franklin’s fate eclipsed the discovery.

Franklin is said to have died on board Erebus, in 1847, before they ventured south, according to a note later found. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown.

A mystic polar bear – False (with aspects of truth)

Documenting melting ice in the Northwest Passage

The arch villain in The Terror is Tunnbaq, a mystic polar bear-type creature intent on killing the crew. It is fair to say that Franklin’s crew were not stalked by a spirit animal.

However, other expeditions show that it is possible they were hounded by actual polar bears.

Dutch polar explorer William Barents tried to find the Northeast Passage, a route to Asia over Europe and Russia, several centuries earlier. On his third and final expedition in 1596, he became locked in the ice. Their ships were crushed and they were forced to build a makeshift cabin.

They found themselves in a perpetual war against the polar bears, according to the book Icebound. The bears would not cease trying to break into the boat, their camp or their cabin. Barents died in 1587, possibly at sea as the crew went out by rowing boat to find help. The rest of the crew was eventually rescued by a Dutch merchant ship.

Sailors were very superstitious. After so many attacks, it would be easy to imagine the polar bears are acting on more than basic instinct and are intent on vindictively killing the crew. Add in hallucinations from lead poisoning (see below), and the story of Tunnbaq does not seem so far fetched from the crew’s perspective.

There is no way to know if any of Franklin’s crew encountered a polar bear. But they do roam the Northwest Passage and the scavenger-like apex-predators would have no qualms approaching Terror, Erebus or the party walking south. One or two 19th century rifle shots would do little to stop a charging bear.

Wreck from Franklin Northwest Passage expedition is HMS Erebus

The Inuit people – True

Inuit communities have lived long in the Northwest Passage, centuries before Europe contemplated its existence. In The Terror, an Inuit woman is brought aboard and questioned about Tunnbaq, and other Inuit people later share their food.

We do not know if this happened with Franklin’s expedition, but it was not uncommon in other Northwest Passage expeditions. Inuit people were often invited aboard and traded with. Tensions sometimes flared, but generally both sides were a curiosity and distraction during the lonely months up north.

Though the Arctic was spared the colonial rush in the likes of Africa, whalers and other Europeans brought with them flu and other diseases that the local population had no immunity against. There were high mortality rates, and their way of life suffered too from the encroaching settlements.

The Hudson Bay Company and North West Company’s whole business model was based of trading furs with local communities, which slowly led to the settling of Northern Canada.

Lead poisoning and cannibalism – True

The series focuses a great deal on the tinned food. The new way of sealing food was supposed to save the expedition from scurvy, a disease brought on by a lack of fresh nutrients. Instead, it sealed their fate.

As in the BBC series, the tinned food was lined with lead. The tins were not properly soldered, so the lead leached into the food. The water pipe system was also made of lead, poisoning the drinking water. Archaeological remains confirm the crew suffered from lead poisoning.

The crew in The Terror are dismissed by the doctor for strange complaints including hearing voices. Lead can lead to hallucinations, as depicted in the show. It also leads to headaches, mental dullness and attention difficulty, memory loss, tremors, abdominal pains, sluggishness, constipation and death. The symptoms of lead poisoning do not usually appear until it’s too late.

In The Terror, the crew walking south resorted to cannibalism. This is also true.

Rae learned from the Inuit people that the crew did indeed eat each other. Kettles were later found, with human bones sawn by man-made tools inside, is proof that the crew dismembered and cooked their peers.

Charles Dickens – True

The author Dickens appears in The Terror very briefly, introducing Jane Franklin as she appeals to a crowd to fund a rescue mission for her husband.

When Rae’s news of Franklin’s fate reached Britain, the public was not willing to hear it. The British Empire was at its height, and the Victorians were busy “civilising” the world with their Christian views.

Britain’s racism was laid bare. The famous author Dickens lead the charge asking: how can Britain trust the word of savages like the Inuit? Clearly, a civilised race like the British would never sink to cannibalism. He said that if anything, the Inuit people were more likely to have killed the crew than the crew are to have eaten each other.

Sometimes, the truth hurts.

Lady Jane – True

Franklin’s (second) wife is portrayed as a headstrong woman defying the traditional gender role of her time. If anything, the series does not go far enough to illustrate the force of nature that she was.

In the series, she is seen telling off the heads of the British Navy for not acting sooner. And she is seen fundraising for an independent expedition. In reality, she used all of her charisma to whip up a public frenzy that pressured the Navy into sending ships, and sent several of her own expeditions too by means of self-funding, rewards and sponsorship. She fitted out five ships between 1850 and 1857, still in denial of Rae’s news.

Her PR campaign is largely responsible John’s enduring legend. The fact he has a statue in London, erected in 1866, is due to her relentless lobbying. By the time she was done, no one could remember that Franklin was an incompetent leader or that he had not discovered the Northwest Passage, let alone that the crew had eaten each other.

“To the great arctic navigator and his brave companions who sacrificed their lives in completing the discovery of the North West Passage. A.D. 1847 – 8,” reads the statue plaque. “Erected by the unanimous vote of parliament.”

Though she is best remembered in reference to her husband, Jane was an explorer herself, and warrants her own 10-part series. In a time when women were confined to homely chores, she travelled through Egypt for archaeological expeditions and explored Tasmania when her husband was the governor.

Legacy

Jane’s successful PR campaign meant that the stories of the Northwest Passage were implanted deep in the British psyche. Look no further for evidence than the fact that the BBC aired a 10-part series about the expedition 176 years after it set sail.

The search and rescue missions in the years after the disappearance inadvertently mapped the Northwest Passage, which is part of Northern Canada. The region holds a place in Canada’s national identity too.

The Resolute Desk, which sits in the oval office in the White House, is made from an old ship that was trapped in the Northwest Passage in 1854 while searching for Franklin. The desk was gifted to the US by Queen Victoria for its role in rescuing the vessel after it was abandoned.

For adventurers, the Northwest Passage maintains its mystique. Once it was found by Rae, there was a race to get through. The race was won by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He made it through the Northwest Passage in three years, being frozen in for the winters, from 1903 to 1906.

Franklin was front page news again in 2014. After over a century and a half of searching, Erebus was finally found, then Terror was found in 2016. The latter was still in pristine condition. The state of Terror suggests it was sailed right to the end. In the BBC series, a group are left aboard while the others headed south by foot. Perhaps they were the final sailors of the doomed craft.

Adventurers are still drawn to the Northwest Passage – in 2009, two British marines tried to make it through in an open boat, with the use of a sail and oars. They almost made it before the sea froze.

In 2013, as ice continued to retreat due to climate change, a team tried to be the first to make it all the way through under human power. They rowed but faced fierce head winds and ultimately did not make it through when the ice returned.

French adventurer Charles Hedrich took three summers between 2013 and 2015 to make it through by row boat, leaving his vessel in the Arctic during the winters while he returned home to await the thaw.

I first heard of the Northwest Passage via the stories of Franklin. I was gripped by the heroic stories of eating his boots in the remote regions of the Arctic. By the time I’d read more about his shortcomings, it was too late – I was desperate to emulate the explorers. I came to respect the likes of Amundsen for his preparation, and the Inuit communities who have made the Northwest Passage their home for thousands of years, not Franklin, but the lure of the Arctic was all the same.

In summer of 2022, a team and I will attempt to be the first people to navigate the Northwest Passage by human power in a single summer. The team of ocean rowers will live off modern freeze-dried food and high-calorie sports bars.

After weeks of rowing and no showers, I couldn’t imagine a meal less appetising than my teammates’ boots, let alone my teammates themselves.