Not here! The white north hath thy bones and thou
Heroic sailor soul
Art passing on thine happier voyage now
Toward no earthly pole
Now this has long been an interest of mine. The Franklin Expedition, that doomed attempt to discover the North West Passage.
40 years later, the internet, a lot of exploration and we have some pretty good answers and surmises about what became of it.
The first resource, of course, the Wikipedia Page on the Expedition.
Next: A 1927 Map that draws upon various sources and maps the locations where remains and relics of the expedition were found by various search parties, as well as Inuit (Eskimo) testimony (which it disregards or warns as 'unreliable').
Note how featureless the land is; maps are to the purpose and this is/was primarily of the route through; note as well how accurate the Inuit Testimony proved; the Terror was found sunk in Terror Bay and the Erebus in Wilmut/Crampton Bay.
Link: John Rae's initially discredited account of the expedition.
Link: James Fitzjames final letter to Elizabeth Coningham
Excerpt:
The most original character of all—rough, intelligent, unpolished, with a broad north-country accent, but not vulgar, good humoured, and honest hearted—is Reid, a Greenland whaler, native of Aberdeen, who has commanded whaling vessels, and amuses us with his quaint remarks and descriptions of the ice, catching whales, &c. For instance, he just said to me, on my saying we should soon be off Cape Farewell, at this rate, and asking if one might not generally expect a gale off it (Cape Farewell being the south point of Greenland), “Ah! now, Mister Jems, we’ll be having the weather fine, Sir! fine! No ice at arl about it, Sir, unless it be the bergs—arl the ice’ll be gone, Sir, only the bergs, which I like to see. Let it come on to blow, look out for a big ‘un. Get under his lee, and hold on to him fast, Sir, fast. If he drifts near the land, why, he grounds afore you do.” The idea of all the ice being gone, except the icebergs, is racy beyond description. I have just had a game of chess with the purser Osmar, who is delightful. He was with Beechey in the Blossom, when they went to Behring Straits to look out for Franklin, at the time he surveyed the north coast of America, and got within 150 miles of him; he was Petro Paulowski, in Kamschatka, where I hope to go, and served since on the lakes of Canada. I was at first inclined to think he was a stupid old man, because he had a chin and took snuff; but he is as merry hearted as any young man, full of quaint dry sayings, always good humoured, always laughing, never a bore, takes his “pinch after dinner,” plays a “rubber,” and beats me at chess—and, he is a gentleman.
And:
I like a man who is in earnest. Sir John Franklin read the church service to-day and a sermon so very beautifully, that I defy any man not to feel the force of what he would convey. The first Sunday he read was a day or two before we sailed, when Lady Franklin, his daughter, and niece attended. Every one was struck with his extreme earnestness of manner, evidently proceeding from real conviction.
But, just read the letter. Over-long but it hearken's back to the days of attention spans and education. A fanciful thing not spun of AI; literally a reminder of how far we've fallen.
Imagine, too, the first three years of the expedition - from the Victory Point Note we know they hung out on the North End of King William Island for 3 years, and in that time only lost about 24 men, leaving 105 left ... Inuit accounts have them hanging on another 2 years until 1850.
Another couple of maps - more contemporary, satellite views of King William Island and Beechey Island, where they lost Franklin and 3 other sailors. You can get quite close zooming on on King William Island, Beechey Island tends to be a bit low-res.
It's worth it to click on the uploaded photos of the place - note just how desolate and barren the land is; and most of the photos were taken in the fall.
Finally, an informed Reddit thread that refers one to abundant further reading on the topic. Note that some of this material looks fascinating, and as I doubt I'll find it in the bookstore I might have to check the library. And, fun fact, Michael Palin of Monty Python fame wrote a book on the expedition as well, which was made into a horror series.
Anyways, a fascinating bit of Canadiana; and the thought that somewhere in that featureless hell of a landscape might lie buried logbooks or notes from the expedition is rather inspiring...