HUNT FOR ANSWERS TO FRANKLIN EXPEDITION IS NEWEST “OLD COLD CASE” FOR AWARD-WINNING PROJECT

How could one of the most advanced scientific missions of the 19th century fail so badly? The doomed 1845 Franklin expedition was the equivalent in its time of sending humans to the moon. What happened to the expedition has puzzled historians and the public ever since and last September’s discovery of the nearly intact hull of one of Franklin’s two ships adds new questions to the mystery. Now schoolchildren and sleuths of every age are invited to help crack this case—one of the coldest cases of all. On June 4 in Ottawa, on the 170th anniversary of the first full day at sea of the British mission to find the Northwest Passage, the University of Victoria will officially launch “The Franklin Mystery: Life and Death in the Arctic,” the 13th website in the award-winning Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, a national teaching project used in over 50 countries and by nearly 2,500 students every day.