The HMS Investigator was a merchant ship that was bought by the British Admiralty and put into service in 1848 to search for the Franklin Expedition , which was lost in search of the Northwest Passage .
After two trips to the Arctic , the ship had to be left in the ice in Mercy Bay in the north of Banks Island in the Beaufort Sea in 1853 and finally sank. Robert McClure , the captain of the Investigator , is still considered to be the discoverer of the Northwest Passage. Coming from the Bering Sea , he had sailed almost the entire passage and found an open waterway to Melville Island , 45 miles away , before the pack ice stopped him. The further route into the open Atlantic was known from Melville Island. From here the survivors of the investigator crew were rescued. In July 2010, the wreck was rediscovered by Canadian archaeologists at a depth of eleven meters. In July 2011, Parks Canada archaeologists recovered many personal items from the wreck. The mud inside the ship had preserved the remains.
literature
Brian Payton: The Ice Passage: A True Story of Ambition, Disaster, and Endurance in the Arctic Wilderness . Doubleday Canada, Toronto 2009, ISBN 978-0-385-66532-2
^ David Lyon and Rif Winfield: The Sail and Steam Navy List. All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889. Chatham Publishing, 2003, ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6
^ HMS Investigator Wanted Poster on William Looney's Royal Navy Background
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