Dan Simmons · 2007 · sea
Dan Simmons's 2007 novel binds the true story of the Franklin Expedition's disappearance to supernatural horror. Icebound in the high Arctic aboard HMS Erebus and Terror, Franklin's 129 men face cold, scurvy, starvation and mutiny, and a monstrous thing out on the floes that is hunting them one by one.
- 1Greenhithe, England
In May 1845 the bomb ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror sail from Greenhithe under Sir John Franklin, 129 men provisioned for years and certain of forcing the last unknown stretch of the Northwest Passage.
- 2Disko Bay, Greenland
Off west Greenland, at the Whalefish Islands in Disko Bay, the ships take on final stores and send home their last letters. Whalers in Baffin Bay are the last outsiders to see them; then they sail into the ice.
- 3Lancaster Sound
Into Lancaster Sound, the gateway to the Passage. That first season they push north up Wellington Channel to 77 degrees and round Cornwallis Island before falling back for winter quarters.
- 4Beechey Island
The first winter, frozen in at Beechey Island. Three crewmen die and are buried in the gravel here, their headboards the only marked graves the expedition would ever leave.
- 5Peel Sound
In the summer of 1846 the ice slackens and the ships drive south down Peel Sound and Franklin Strait toward the low grey coast of King William Island.
- 6Victoria Strait
In September 1846 the pack closes around them off King William Island and never lets go. Franklin dies the following June, and through two black winters the men weaken while something vast and white stalks them across the ice.
- 7Victory Point
In April 1848 the 105 survivors abandon the ships under Captain Crozier and come ashore here, leaving a note in a cairn, the only record of the expedition's fate, before starting to walk south.
- 8Starvation Cove
Dragging boats down the coast and over the frozen strait toward the Back River, the men die one by one; none come through. The wrecks of Terror and Erebus were found near here in 2016 and 2014.