A
AALARD
Guest
Abandoned British ship found in arctic
BANKS ISLAND, Northwest Territories, Canadian archaeologists have found the HMS Investigator, a British ship abandoned in the arctic ice 155 years ago.
Parks Canada archaeologists needed just 15 minutes to find the Investigator, located under 36 feet of water in the Northwest Territories' Mercy Bay, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday.
The Investigator and its captain, Robert McClure, set sail in 1850 in search of the Erebus and the Terror, the two ships in Sir John Franklin's failed 1848 expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
The Investigator and its crew spent two years trapped in the ice before they were rescued by a Royal Navy sledge team.
The team of archaeologists arrived in the ice-choked Mercy Bay July 22 to begin their search. On July 25 the ice opened enough for the team to begin a sonar scan of the bay, and 15 minutes later they hit pay dirt.
"It's in good condition. Very good condition, actually -- surprising condition," said Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of Parks Canada's
underwater archeology service.
The service does not plan to raise the ship but will use remote-controlled vehicles to take pictures and assess the possibility of recovering artifacts from the site.
BANKS ISLAND, Northwest Territories, Canadian archaeologists have found the HMS Investigator, a British ship abandoned in the arctic ice 155 years ago.
Parks Canada archaeologists needed just 15 minutes to find the Investigator, located under 36 feet of water in the Northwest Territories' Mercy Bay, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday.
The Investigator and its captain, Robert McClure, set sail in 1850 in search of the Erebus and the Terror, the two ships in Sir John Franklin's failed 1848 expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
The Investigator and its crew spent two years trapped in the ice before they were rescued by a Royal Navy sledge team.
The team of archaeologists arrived in the ice-choked Mercy Bay July 22 to begin their search. On July 25 the ice opened enough for the team to begin a sonar scan of the bay, and 15 minutes later they hit pay dirt.
"It's in good condition. Very good condition, actually -- surprising condition," said Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of Parks Canada's
underwater archeology service.
The service does not plan to raise the ship but will use remote-controlled vehicles to take pictures and assess the possibility of recovering artifacts from the site.