Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition Review

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(More customer reviews)While not perhaps a "must-have" for aficionados of the field of polar literature, this is nevertheless a very good book and is well suited as a sort of primer to those who have only a casual interest in the subject.
The book provides a brief outline of disappearance the Franklin Expedition on its quest for the Northwest Passage in the early 1800s and the aftermath of the search conducted by various international parties, government and otherwise. It then relates the events of three research expeditions undertaken by the author, a forensic anthropologist who was interested in finding and reviewing various skeletal remains originally discovered decades after the loss of the Franklin party.
Eventually, he concentrates his efforts on exhuming the frozen bodies of three crewmen who had died in the Franklin Expedition's first icebound season, before they had well and truly plunged irrevocably into tragedy. These men had been buried in well-prepared graves on a small island north of Canada's Hudson Bay. Even to this day, the bodies remain fantastically preserved, and the author was able to uncover intriguing evidence that suggests that the expedition did not succumb in a heroic struggle against the large and grand forces of nature, but rather fell to altogether more pedestrian and minute agents.
The exhumation and autopsy processes are well described, and the theory that later develops is explained simply enough for the layman to follow.
Perhaps the biggest strength of this book is the beautifully composed color photos that show the gravesites and the actual bodies. These pictures are truly stirring and invocative.
The maps are also nicely done. However, the book would have benefited from a timeline and from an additional map showing the location of various Franklin party remains and artifacts. It sometimes becomes difficult to recall who was found where and when, since as it turns out, the expedition members covered a lot of ground and some of them split up. With that exception, though, this is an interesting book and a quick but thought-provoking read.

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This new edition of Frozen in Time expands on the history of early British Arctic exploration and places the tragically fated Franklin expedition in the context of other expeditions of the era, including those commanded by George Back and James Clark Ross, which also suffered unaccountable and devastating losses. The authors' research reveals an unexpected — and ironic — cause for the mystery illness that befell the explorers. Never-before-seen photographs from the exhumations, updated research results, additional forensic corroboration, and a new introduction by Margaret Atwood complete this fascinating account.

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