Chris McNeil
Google
After visiting Radstock Bay, on September 9, 2025 Quark's polar explorer, the "Ultramarine" arrived at Beechey Island (74º 42’ N / 91º 12’ W), as part of its “Northwest Passage: The Legendary Arctic Sea Route”. The stop offered a rare shore landing to Beechey Island. It was named for William Beechey (an artist) by his son Frederick William Beechey, who was serving as lieutenant for Captain William Edward Parry –the first European to visit the island.
A place of historical significance, Beechey Island was Franklin’s first winter encampment on his ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage. It is most well-known for containing three graves of Franklin expedition members: John Torrington, William Braine, and John Hartnell. The site was declared a Territorial Historic Site by the government of the Northwest Territories in 1975.
The site is known for the Franklin wintering camp of 1845-46; for the Northumberland House, built as a supply depot in case the Franklin expedition returned to the island; for the Devon Island site at Cape Riley; for the two message cairns; and for the HMS Breadalbane site, where the British three-masted merchant ship in search of Franklin’s expedition was crushed by sea ice and sank. Sir John Franklin’s team left London on 19 May 1845 with 24 officers and 110 men aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror.
The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut.
We saw arctic hare, polar bear, snow bunting, Lapland longspur, raven, black guillemot, Iceland and Glaucous gull, black-legged kittiwake, northern fulmar and common eider.
