Story Behind the Song
In 1982, Dr. Owen Beattie and his research team from the University of Alberta exhumed the frozen, well-preserved graves of sailors from the John Franklin expedition of 1845 to 1848. This doomed expedition to find the Northwest Passage remains shrouded in mystery. Dr. Beattie and his team discovered that the canned goods used for the voyage (canning food was a very new process at that time), contained toxic levels of lead, which slowly poisoned and seriously affected the nervous systems of all of the men. Only scattered remnants of the two ships and the 124 ill-fated crewmen have ever been found, despite the fact that the expedition was one of the most heralded and best equipped of its time. Sir John Franklin, the leader of the expedition, was born in 1786. He had been knighted by King George the IV in 1829. According to sketchy records, found in a stone cairn, he died on June 11, 1847.
Lyrics
Franklin set sail, they say for the north arctic way,
with the ring of the king on his hand.
He had two fine ships, and ten dozen men,
As a key to the cruel arctic land.
In an age when fear of failure . . . would frighten many a sailor.
But to perish from the bitter chill, in a land with its own free will?
Aboard (H.M.S.) Erebus, and (H.M.S.) Terror, they'd face the cold reality
. . . face the cold reality.
The ships on their way traveled through Baffin Bay,
For the Northwest Passage they did sail.
The glory of the quest, would keep the crew at rest,
But the north wind whistled the tale.
And the endless stories were told . . . of the orient, spices, and gold.
Thirty below on deck, fifty below below . . . This land demanded its price.
Soon those ships would be meals for the ice!
Both ships were locked into the ice.
Outward they marched, marking stones on their quest,
And the dead to their graves they did send.
Main 'nest became a coffin, even for the best,
On the deck was the devil's good friend.
And the long, cold arctic nights . . . dwindling coal was the poor stoker's plight,
When a murderous gale suddenly prevailed! Transforming the main sail,
Into a dangling guillotine of ice . . . a dangling guillotine of ice!
Eighteen months frozen in, now they'd pay for their sins!
Amidst wreckage where they prayed for hell
Overland they did go, it was sixty below. Where they ended up, no man dare tell.
And the puzzle still remains, for what the final message contains.
How the last log reads? We may never see!
A doomed man's will to perceive . . . John Franklin.
© 1982 John Spearn
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