Archaeologists find HMS Investigator

We’re searching for a bay this time, in the legendary Northwest Passage. That’s the sea route across the Arctic Ocean. In the 1800′s a number of expeditions tried to traverse the vast, mostly frozen, sea route across Arctic Canada.

A British ship called the HMS Investigator attempted the Northwest passage from west to east. It sailed the northern Pacific Ocean, through the Bering Strait and then due east until it was trapped in ice.

End of Story – but wait. Not so fast.

“The ship has been largely intact..the masts obviously are gone, the upper deck has been scoured by ice but the bulk of the ship is intact and it would seem in the remarkable condition that the British Navy built it.”

So where was HMS Investigator discovered?

… it was discovered at Mercy Bay off Banks Island in Canada’s Northwest Territories where HMS Investigator was trapped in the ice and abandoned in the 1850′s as it attempted to traverse the Northwest Passage. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Canada’s environment minister, the honorable Jim Prentice about the discovery. (Photo: Ryan Harris / Parks Canada)

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• More on the research team’s discovery of HMS Investigator
• BBC coverage of the HMS Investigator

The wreck of HMS Investigator (Photo: Parks Canada)