Captain's Remains Unearthed: New Clues to Cannibalism in 179-Year-Old Franklin Expedition Mystery

James Fitzjames, 1845.Photo byFabTet – CC BY-SA 4.0

In 1845, the explorer Sir John Franklin and his crew of 128 men set out from England in search of the Northwest Passage. Still, in the harsh expanse of the Canadian Arctic, they all perished, a story shrouded in mystery all of these years. But now, in a new twist to the 179-year-old mystery of the ill-fated expedition, researchers have used advanced DNA techniques to identify Captain James Fitzjames's remains and, disturbingly, reveal evidence of cannibalism. 

Recent findings by Dr. Douglas Stenton and his team from the University of Waterloo identified Fitzjames's remains through DNA matching with a descendant, marking him as the first confirmed victim of cannibalism among the crew. However, Fitzjames is only the second person to be identified from the expedition, following the successful identification of a similar method used in 2021 for Warrant Officer John Gregory.

Cut marks on what we now know to be the mandible of Captain James Fitzjames.Photo byStenton et al., J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep., 2024

The researchers utilized a preserved jaw found on King William Island, where Fitzjames and others sought refuge after abandoning their ice-trapped ships. The analysis of Fitzjames's jawbone showed cut marks indicative of post-mortem dismemberment, suggesting desperate measures by the crew amidst harsh conditions. Despite extensive preparation and experience, the exact cause of the crew's demise remains debated, with theories ranging from trichinosis from undercooked polar bear meat to lead poisoning. However, the consumption of human flesh appears to be a possibly grim reality. Cut marks found in the jaw bone of Fitzjames indicate a posthumous dismemberment. Of the thirteen distinct remains found at the site, four so far have shown signs of cannibalism.

An 1846 oil painting of HMS Erebus in the Arctic ice by French painter Francois Etienne Musin.Photo byFrançois Musin/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons

Remains and artifacts have been discovered scattered around King Williams Island and Adelaide Peninsula, each offering small clues and deepening the interest in the mysterious expedition's events. Fitzjames left the last known written message from the Franklin expedition, the Victory Point Note, which announced that 24 people had died and the surviving crew were abandoning the ships after spending 19 months stuck in ice. 

The expedition's story continues to capture the public imagination, further ignited by cultural depictions like Dan Simmons’s novel The Terror and its subsequent AMC mini-series adaptation. Interest in Fitzjames has also been revived by individuals like Dutch naval history student Fabienne Tetteroo, who is working on a biography to restore Fitzjames’s reputation, which was notoriously tarnished by no other than novelist Charles Dickens himself when news arrived of Inuit people reporting scenes of desecration as reported by explorer John Rae. The ongoing research provides some closure to descendants but leaves many questions about the expedition unanswered.