July 29, 2010 Robert Catto

<p>Parks Canada archeologists who found HMS Investigator, a British naval ship that was stranded in the Northwest Passage 155 years ago, are equally pleased to have discovered the graves of three of the ship’s crew.</p> <p>The wreck of Investigator was discovered this week at the bottom of Mercy Bay, just off Banks Island in the Northwest Territories. The site of the wreck is in Aulavik National Park.</p>

I also just finished reading Pierre Berton’s book The Arctic Grail, about the search for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole (or Big Nail, as it was known to the Inuit who helped the British). In fact, though, my great-great-grandfather was a crew member on three of the search expeditions looking for Franklin in the high Arctic - and a photographer too, I think! (This story comes from the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/29/f-arctic-hms-investigator-graves.html" target="_blank">CBC</a>, though…)