Murder in the frozen north

A fatal quest to reach the North Pole

Map of the North Pole, Gerardus Mercator, 1595.

When I was lecturing on Seabourn Sojourn, we briefly sailed inside the Arctic circle. As we’re now in the depths of winter, I’ve been thinking about the fascination of the northernmost seemingly inaccessible landscape and I’m reminded of the shocking case of a polar expedition, which ended in hardship, danger and murder, which I shared with cruise passengers as we ventured into the frozen north.

The first English expedition in a quest to find the Northeast Passage was in 1553, and many other nations set out to explore the Arctic region from then on. Between 1496 and 1857, there were 134 voyages to explore the Arctic. The most famous attempts were in the nineteenth century, notably the failed mission of Sir John Franklin, who left English shores on 1845 in two vessels, HMS Terror and Erebus, never to be seen again. Following this tragedy, several explorers set out to locate the remains of Franklin’s ill-fated crew, which inspired American explorer Charles Francis Hall to see if he could find any evidence from the historical voyage, as well as attempting to be the first man to reach the North Pole. The journey would not turn out how he had hoped…