Book Review

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. Vancouver: Greystone Books, 1998. 179 pages. ISBN: 1-55154-616-3.

The wretched face of a long-frozen John Torrington, on the cover of Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, somehow leaves the viewer with a deep understanding of the horror of his death in the dark and frozen ice fields. The picture forces one to jump ahead to the series of colour photographs that highlight the truly astonishing state of Torrington's body, and that of crew mates John Hartnell and William Braine, the only members of Franklin's crew to receive proper burials deep in the permafrost. These bodies lay frozen for more than 150 years, waiting to tell their stories.

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition tells the story of Owen Beattie'’s quest to solve one of the major mysteries of 19th century maritime exploration, the loss the Erebus and the Terror in the Canadian Arctic more than 150 years ago while on a mission to seek the elusive north west passage. Although twenty-five previous expeditions to the north yielded some important answers, the cause of the mission'’s failure had never been fully explained, until now. A complete bibliography of books and articles about the expedition, subsequent explorations, and investigations about the loss of the Franklin Expedition would fill many pages. Frozen in Time offers a conclusive and convincing explanation of what happened and, as such, may well come to be regarded as the definitive work on the topic.

Frozen in time, which reads like a sparkling work of detective fiction-and with the detail of a modern crime scene investigation-—chronicles The Franklin Forensic Project, a fascinating attempt to bring 20th century technology to bear on an old mystery. The authors provide a vivid and compelling account of the meticulously-executed forensic examination of the remnants of the expedition, including autopsies of three remarkably well-preserved crewmen, in the Canadian Arctic.

The frozen faces of these men stand in stark contrast to the jubilation that coincided with the beginning of the mission. On the morning of May 19, 1845, the Erebus and the Terror, under the command of Sir John Franklin, sailed from the Thames with 134 officers and men and a supply chest that included, among other items, 16749 litres of alcohol, 909 litres of wine, nearly 62000 kilograms of flour, 4287 kilograms of chocolate, 1069 kilograms of tea, 3215 kilograms of tobacco, and 8000 large tins (in 1, 2 , 4, 6 and 8 pound capacity) of preserved meat, soups, and vegetables. It is this last item of the manifest that becomes the focus of the forensic detective work.

This is a book of popular science, despite the fact that it is co-authored by Owen Beattie, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta. Beattie saved the more academic elements of the expedition for publication in scholarly journals. But, while the book is well-written and a real page-turner, the prose conveys little emotional depth, as there is a certain level of detachment from the subject matter, almost as if the voice we hear is that of an impartial observer. It quickly becomes obvious that the voice of Beattie is not fully heard. Instead, and for all the book's compelling detail and crystal-clear descriptions, it reads a bit too much like a lengthy piece of journalism written by Geiger. One wishes that Beattie would have written a few sentences about how he really felt when the coffin lids were pried off. Instead, it seems like we are hearing it from a man who wasn'’t there.

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