Mystery, tragedy collide in scale replica of HMS Erebus at Manitoba Museum

It was a moment of pure elation. After six summers of searching the muddy Arctic sea floor for a century-old shipwreck, archeologist Ryan Harris and his team spotted it on their sonar in 2014.

"It was unmistakable. After years of seeing really a monotonous sea floor scrolling down the screen, never anything in the way of a timber or anything human-made, just gravel and the occasional rock and mud … when you finally see a man-made structure on the sea floor, there was just no mistaking what it was," Harris said.

It was the HMS Erebus, one of two thoroughly equipped British naval ships sent with Sir John Franklin to find the coveted but elusive Northwest Passage in 1845. That ship and its partner, the HMS Terror — found in 2016 — hadn't been seen for more than a century, since Franklin and his men disappeared from British eyes, although Inuit communities in the area passed knowledge of the ships' location through generations.

"It's been an enduring mystery," Harris said of Franklin's story. "And when you add to that the sort of sordid circumstances of their demise and reports of cannibalism — it's a harrowing story of privation and endurance and ultimately sacrifice. It's a story that still resonates today."

Harris and his colleagues soon became the first people to dive down to explore the Erebus. On Friday, a tiny version of its wreck will open to the public at the Manitoba Museum.

"It's actually really, really cool, because most of us aren't divers — like, I'm scared of diving — and it gives visitors a perspective of what it looked like for those first divers who went down and explored the wreckage," said Amelia Fay, curator of Hudson's Bay Company Museum Collection.

The 1:40 scale model of the wreck and its surrounding debris field will be in the museum from Jan. 26 to March 21. Despite some deterioration, Fay said visitors will still be able to recognize some familiar features, like cannons and the bell.

Fay said she thinks crowds are still drawn to the story of the Franklin Expedition because of the combination of mystery surrounding the last days of its crew and the tragedy that befell them.

"I hope [visitors] just get a sense of awe, a little bit about the research. I mean, I'm always in awe of my underwater archeology colleagues because I think what they do is pretty incredible," she said.

"But also just a sense of the current research but also history, and putting that moment in time. Thinking about the ship as it was and looking at images of the ship when it was a complete, beautiful vessel, versus what it looks like now and what that means."

Flying over the wreck of HMS Erebus

7 years ago

Duration 0:56

CBC's Kate Kyle takes a flight over the wreck of HMS Erebus near Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, with the Inuit guardians program. The unique arrangement has 17 local Inuit working with Parks Canada to watch over the wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.