Searching for Franklin: New Answers to the Great Arctic Mystery

McGoogan (Race to the Polar Sea: The Heroic Adventures of Elisha Kent Kane) frames this narrative around three themes: the historical accuracy of Inuit oral history; the myth of 19th-century British explorer Sir John Franklin as an Arctic hero; and the cause of disaster on Franklin’s last expedition, which left him and more than 100 others dead. With his friend Louie Kamookak, a longtime Franklin searcher and keeper of Inuit oral history, McGoogan traveled throughout the Arctic region, finding traces of various expeditions, talking to Inuit elders, and enjoying each other’s company. As Kamookak and McGoogan tried to understand why the Franklin expedition ended in disaster, their most helpful information came from Inuit testimony, due to the narratives that Franklin’s supporters tried to perpetuate. Franklin’s widow, for example, in an effort to protect her husband’s legacy, refuted any evidence that her husband had been irresponsible and physically and mentally unfit for the expedition. McGoogan argues that Franklin was really a person who followed orders, regardless of field conditions, and imperiled his expedition by discounting the knowledge, skills, and experiences of the local Inuit people. Ultimately, the book asserts that the Franklin expedition deaths were caused by trichinosis from undercooked polar bear meat.