Review:Franklin – Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation

I can imagine two main groups of people buying this book: those with an interest in 19th-century Arctic exploration and magnetic science, and those with a fascination for stories of human survival, where doughty adventurers face that most disturbing of choices, cannibalism or death by starvation.

Lambert, described as “the outstanding naval historian of his generation”, has written an incredibly detailed account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s life, and his fatal Arctic mission in 1845.

In particular he wishes to impress on his readers that it was in the name of furthering magnetic science that the mission was undertaken, rather than the more mercantile and political search for a North West Passage connecting the North Atlantic to the North Pacific.

The book starts in gripping form, with a prologue titled Erebus – the Gates of Hell, stating: “We don’t know when it started, or who took the decision, but some time in May 1948 British sailors from HMS Erebus and HMS Terror began butchering and eating their comrades.”

Dramatic stuff, the horror of which is furthered by forensic descriptions of skeletal remains that prove these men went beyond “usual” survival cannibalism, making use of every source of protein a fellow human can provide.

A personal perspective on the haunting desolation of the place these events took place in is provided by Lambert, who traveled there in 2004. Tired and cold, he is able to see what a frozen hell the men of expedition must have been trapped in.

An emotive and very promising start which had me totally hooked (okay, so I belong to the second group I listed above): but then…

The rest of the book is made up of a detailed, but largely emotionless, account of the state of Arctic exploration and magnetic science at the time, and of Franklin’s life — including a stint as Governor in Tasmania. I am afraid the level of detail left me cold, and I did not feel like I gained any great understanding of what drove men like Franklin to risk the lives of so many others in these pursuits.

When the story gets to the loss of the expedition, and the evidence of cannibalism, it is treated in a far less sensational fashion than the prologue. Indeed, there is such a difference in tone that I suspect the prologue was inserted later to add some “oomph” to what is otherwise a pretty dry account.

I am not faulting Lambert’s research here in any way. This is a scholarly and worthy account. I also realize that the problem is that not enough is known about what really happened to the expedition to do more than conjecture, and Lambert is not interested in writing historical fiction.

But either more needs to be done to make this accessible to a wider audience – such as incorporating more of Lambert’s own experiences traveling in the frozen North – or else it ought not to put on a show of being a more “popular” piece in the first place.

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