Again, it's Saturday 27th July 2024 and this is another follow up post. I was so excited with the photos I posted of the female polar bear and her cub that I didn't make any reference to Lady Franklin Island that has some significance for the other mission of my adventure, to search for the resting place of HMS Erebus. I will finish that element of my quest in another post.
Lady Franklin Island was named in honour of Sir John Franklin's (The Arctic explorer who died trying to discover the Northwest Passage) widow, who raised thousands of pounds to fund multiple rescue attempts to find the Erebus and her crew, all of which sadly failed.
The lonely and uninhabited Lady Franklin Island lies off Baffin Island's Hall Peninsula at the entrance to Cumberland Sound. The geology of the island is striking with vertical cliffs of Archean rocks, likely to be some of the oldest stone in Canada. The waters around Lady Franklin Island offer an abundance of seabirds, ducks, seals, and walrus. (Extract for the Silver Endeavour Chronicle for the 13th July 2024)
You can see from the photos how much sea ice there was around the Island and as we made our way back to the ship 3 Zodiacs became trapped in the ice. My Zodiac along with others were dispatched to find a way through the ice and release the stranded Zodiacs one of which had suffered an engine failure. After 15 minutes or so of nudging lumps of sea ice out of the way the Zodiacs were freed!
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