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 Bones of English sailor from disastrous expedition returned 
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Post Bones of English sailor from disastrous expedition returned
More than 160 years after his death in the Canadian Arctic during the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, the bones of an English sailor — among the only human remains ever repatriated from the disastrous 19th-century search for the Northwest Passage — have been laid to rest once more during a solemn rededication ceremony in London attended by Canada's High Commissioner, James Wright.

The service, also attended by Parks Canada's top marine archeologist, Robert Grenier, followed the refurbishment and relocation of a monument dedicated to the sacrifice of the expedition's 130 members, who perished in the late 1840s after their ships — the Terror and the Erebus — became locked in ice near Nunavut's King William Island.

The 20-year search for the ships commanded by Sir John Franklin yielded various artifacts and the graves of several of the doomed crewmen, including that of Lt. Henry Le Vesconte.

But neither of the ships — and few answers — were ever found to shed light on how the expedition had gone so disastrously wrong.

Yet the search effort helped map much of the Canadian Arctic, laying the foundation of Britain's — and later Canada's — claims to the vast polar archipelago widely seen today as a resource treasure house.

Le Vesconte's remains, and those of one other sailor, were the only ones ever to be returned to Britain.

The lieutenant's bones were buried beneath the ornate monument to the Franklin Expedition at the old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

The memorial and Le Vesconte's remains — meant to represent all of Franklin's crew lost in Canada — were recently transferred to the nearby chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Canadian diplomats have been working with Britain's National Maritime Museum and other institutions "to raise awareness in the U.K. about Canada's Arctic," high commission spokesman Stewart Wheeler told Canwest News Service.

"Influential policy-makers, scientists, government and community leaders want to understand the realities of Canada's North. The Canadian High Commission is actively engaged in telling the Canadian story."

In 2008, Grenier led a high-profile Canadian government search for the Terror and the Erebus in the waters southwest of King William Island.

A planned second season in 2009 was scuttled because no icebreaker was available to assist in the search.

But Grenier was to deliver a lecture at the London maritime museum on Friday, describing Canada's plans to discover the long-lost wrecks, which hold a central place in Britons' collective imagination.

Franklin's quest for a route through Canada's Arctic islands was the tragic culmination of centuries of efforts by British sailors to discover a Northwest Passage trade route to Asia.

The expedition's disappearance caused a sensation in Britain, prompting the parade of rescue missions that ultimately charted Canada's remote northern waters and land masses.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Bones+English+sailor+from+disastrous+expedition+returned/2165353/story.html

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Mon Nov 02, 2009 11:21 am
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