Shipwreck in Canada makes top 10 list of finds

The Gazette (Montreal): Shipwreck in Canada makes top 10 list of finds
(This article is from Dec 22, 2010)
HMS Investigator one of most important 2010 discoveries, Archeology declares

By RANDY BOSWELL, Postmedia News December 22, 2010

This summer's discovery of the 19th-century wreck of the HMS Investigator, announced in July by a team of Parks Canada researchers scanning Arctic waters off Banks Island, has been named one of the 10 most important archeological finds of 2010 by the world's leading publication in the field.

Archaeology magazine unveiled a top 10 list this week that includes the discoveries of ancient tombs in Asia and Central America, the decoding of the Neanderthal genome by European scientists and the unearthing of the bones of a 3.6-million-year-old human ancestor in Ethiopia.

The discovery of the Investigator, a key vessel in the history of the Northwest Passage and the establishment of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, marks the first time a Canada-based archeological find has been recognized by the prestigious U.S.-based magazine since it began publishing its annual list of the world's best new historical treasures in 2006.

"Decades from now people may remember 2010 for the BP oil spill, the Tea Party, and the iPad. But for our money, it's a lock people will still be excited about the year's most remarkable archaeological discoveries," the magazine stated in unveiling its list. "This was the year we learned that looters led archaeologists to spectacular and unparalleled royal tombs in both Turkey and Guatemala. An unexpected find brought us closer to Pocahontas, and an underwater archaeological survey in the high Canadian Arctic located the ill-fated HMS Investigator, abandoned in 1853."

The listing by the magazine, which is published by the Boston-based Archaeological Institute of America, has capped a banner year for Parks Canada's underwater archeology division. The unit is planning a followup study of the newly found wreck site next year, along with a third season of searching for the Sir John Franklin-commanded ships -Terror and Erebus -that the crew of the Investigator never found.

"We're very pleased with that nomination and recognition," Parks Canada archeologist Ryan Harris, who led the successful search for the ship, told Postmedia News yesterday. "Certainly, it's a timely honour in that it coincides with the 100th anniversary of Parks Canada."

Other discoveries honoured by Archaeology include the 400-year-old foundations of a church at Jamestown, Va. -the first English settlement in the New World. It's the place where the famous native woman Pocahontas was married to tobacco farmer John Rolfe in 1614.

A 2,500-year-old children's burial ground in Tunisia, early Peruvian pyramids, a cache of ancient tools on the Mediterranean island of Crete and the development of a new method for radiocarbon dating of artifacts round out the magazine's top 10 list of discoveries for 2010.

The Investigator, which had been dispatched from Britain to help search for the lost vessels of the Franklin Expedition, became inextricably lodged in Arctic pack ice at Mercy Bay, just off the coast of Banks Island in to-day's Northwest Territories.

The Investigator's commander, Capt. Robert Mc-Clure, led his crew off the ice-locked ship onto the island, where they also deposited a cache of supplies.

Both the shoreline area and the bay where the Investigator went down are today part of Aulavik National Park.

McClure and his increasingly desperate men, facing sickness and starvation, eventually trekked across the sea ice to Melville Island and were finally rescued by another British ship.

Their combined travels by ship and foot marked a banner achievement in global exploration -the traversing of the final link in the Northwest Passage, the polar route sought for centuries by European adventurers.

British exploration of the Arctic archipelago -particularly by the Investigator and other ships involved in the Franklin search -became the foundation of Canada's claims to sovereignty over the region in the 1880s, after Britain's transfer of responsibility to its former colony.

"With the arguable exception of the vessels from the Franklin expedition, the Investigator is the most significant shipwreck in the Canadian Arctic," former environment minister Jim Prentice, who was at the July 25 discovery, said afterward