Saturday, August 16, 2008

Canada Seeks Historic Shipwrecks

From BBC One-Minute-World-News

A Canadian team is to search for two ships lost in an 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The fate of the 1845 expedition has become a legend.
The British ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were trapped in the Arctic ice as Sir John Franklin sought a northern route from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
He and his 128 crew died - although their exact fate remains a mystery - and the ships were never found.
Retreating Arctic ice has made the Northwest Passage much more accessible and Canada is also using the search as a way of asserting its sovereignty over the region.
The exploration team is due to fly out on Saturday to join a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker that will use sonar equipment to search an area south of King William Island.

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