Unravelling the Franklin Mystery 5

First published in 1991, this book draws on Inuit oral history to challenge the “standard reconstruction” of how the Franklin expedition played out, presenting a more complex narrative. A master mariner, Woodman not only repeatedly searched King William Island for relics and bones but was the first to do an in-depth analysis of the unpublished Inuit testimony gathered by Charles Francis Hall with the help of Tookoolito. 

Woodman deduced that after the abandonment, some of Franklin’s men returned to the ice-locked vessels. Intensely focused and detailed, this book speaks to aspiring experts–and, for me, drew attention to the need for… show more.

Few of the early searchers for Franklin appreciated the value of the stories the local Inuit told about these strangers who had come to their land and died. Fortunately, some stories were written down and preserved and these, along with still circulating tales, proved crucial in the recent discoveries of the remarkably preserved wrecks of Erebus and Terror. Woodman painstakingly scoured archives collecting stories and fragments and painting a picture of the disaster much richer than the accepted theory. Unravelling the Franklin Mystery was also a major source of information for North with Franklin as well as being a… show more.