Full Interview with Tom Zagon


                Tom Zagon

Tom Zagon is an Environment Canada scientist who prepared a detailed study on the ice and climatological factors bearing upon the search for Franklin.

Lyle Dick – Interview Tom Zagon, ice and climatology with Environment Canada, related to his observations concerning the missing last expedition of Sir John Franklin.

1) When and how did you first hear of the missing last expedition of Sir John Franklin?

TZ: I’m not sure when exactly, but I remember in 1993 during my first trip to the Arctic, I was reading Pierre Berton’s well-known book The Arctic Grail with details of the Arctic expeditions, and that really brought out the details of the different expeditions for me. I remember standing on the ice in Barrow Strait in May of 1993 and looking south and thinking to myself: “They went that way; I wonder what happened to them?” And that was twenty years ago and it’s very interesting to be involved in the work from the ice and climatology side.

LD: You became bitten with the Franklin bug at that point.

TZ: Absolutely, it’s an interest that turns into passion and becomes an obsession in the end.

LD: That seems to be a common affliction among Franklin people, that’s very interesting to know.

2) What happened to Franklin's party?

TZ: I’m going to talk about the ships because really the work that I did with- by analyzing satellite imagery refers to the ships. What we know now is that- well, in the last fifteen years, since basically 1996, we have very detailed records of ice conditions every year for the whole year from satellite images, from RADARSAT-1, Canada’s first remote-sensing satellite and these images they were acquired during the winter during cloudy conditions, they’re very good images because they can be acquired at any time of year. And they give us a detailed understanding of what happens to the ice in this area. By looking through these images, there’s something very interesting that was observed. For example, in terms looking at the conditions where we know the ships were beset and abandoned. I’ve seen on the images in September of some years that you have a transition from conditions that show low ice concentrations to conditions of high ice concentrations. Because in mid-September, the weather turns bad: storms come through the region. And what we see is that a condition that would be easily navigable for sailing vessels turns very quickly into one of the besetment, especially just north of King William Island. So I think what happened in September 1846 is that they were making progress, but they were basically hit by a storm that caused both vessels to be beset on September 12.

LD: Were they driven into the ice, do you think? Or what is just a case where the ice became jammed as a result of the storm?

TZ: I think it’s just been jammed as a result of the storm. We know a lot more about how ships now basically in the last hundred years, how ships operate in ice and how ships get into trouble and how accidents occur. And it takes very little pressure for a ship to become beset. But it takes a lot of pressure for a ship to actually sink. Obviously modern ice breakers have been around since the beginning of the twentieth century, but they rely on power and they rely on the shape of the hull. These were very strong ships but they didn’t have a lot of power and obviously their hulls were not made to go through the ice to break the ice. So once you have a storm passing through and an onset of pressure, they basically become beset, and could not extract themselves, they just don’t have the capability to do so.

3) Why did they fail?

When I look at the ice conditions over the entire year, I think they failed because of very bad luck. From what I’ve seen is that there are three things that occur that caused the expedition to- the ships to be abandoned. The first I’ve already mentioned, that it looks like there was a storm that occurred in September, that caused the vessels to become beset. But when you look at where they became beset, you can hardly think of a worst place. That’s because the current takes the ice to the south, and it takes the ice into constrained channels like Victoria Strait and Alexandra Strait. And that ice moves very very slowly. We know that between 1846 and 1848 they drifted some twenty- twenty-eight nautical miles. So it does drift, it does break up in the summer, but the drift is very slow. If they had been further west, or further north, or further south when that storm hit, I think their chances of coming through would have been much higher. So, first thing the storm; secondly where the storm hit, where they became beset north of Cape Felix; and the third thing is that we know that these ships are not icebreakers. So the ice conditions that allowed them to enter that area must have been very light. However, those ice conditions are the exception rather than the rule. So what possibly occurred is that they had light conditions in 1845-1846 that allowed these vessels to enter this area, but conditions returned to normal or went below normal, that basically things didn’t break up to the same extent in 1847-1848. Therefore the ships didn’t make any progress and were eventually abandoned.

LD: So bad luck on top of everything else. Now these ships were sailing ships but they were equipped with auxiliary steam power. Do you have any thoughts on that?

TZ: Well I think from what I’ve read it’s only about twenty-five horsepower. If you look at modern ice breakers they have 14,000 horse power, 40,000 horse power, so that’s a tremendous amount of power to actually get through the ice. And they’re obviously built, their bow shape and the hull shape, is built to break the ice. This area of Victoria Strait, there’s a lot of old multiyear ice, which is very thick, heavy ice that comes from the Arctic Ocean and it reaches- the current actually takes it as far as the Victoria Strait. Modern icebreaking vessels would have a tough time transiting through this area. No ship actually transits through this area today in the winter: it’s only in the summer and in the shoulder seasons. So really, that was not enough power to make any progress on those expeditions.

4) Where are the ships?

The interesting thing about taking ice climatology and ice studies is that its real value is when you bring it together with historical evidence. Because historical evidence, archaeological or Inuit oral history, is very valuable, but obviously not enough to find the ships on its own and ice information is not going to do that either. But what the ice information allows you to do is help interpret some of that historical evidence. We’ve seen that the current basically takes the ice from the point of abandonment to Alexandra Strait, there’s a very strong current that runs through there, to the south. So the ice eventually does make its way into Queen Maud. What happens along the way is that, because it’s a confined channel and the ice is constricted, there’s a lot of pressure, and you can see that pressure on satellite imagery. And it’s the type of pressure that sinks vessels. So it is possible that one of the vessels sank in the Strait, just north of the Strait where you see pressure. Because the current takes the ice to the south, this is consistent with historical evidence collected about a vessel being seen in eastern Queen Maud. And we see on imagery that the ice that makes it through the Strait, through Alexandra Strait, ends up being- the current and the wind takes it to the Adelaide peninsula where all the observations by Charles Francis Hall or Schwatka were collected. So one of those vessels is most likely along the Adelaide Peninsula. In my opinion it’s just at the northern tip of the Klutschak Peninsula, which is directly east of the northern tip of O’Reilly. Why do I say that? That’s because, once again, imagery has shown that there’s pressure along the coast of the peninsula and the type of pressure that would push a ship toward the shore line, or ashore, or for it to be grounded in one of the features just off the coast. So I suspect that one of the vessels could be just north of Alexandra Strait and the other vessel is directly eastward of the north end of O’Reilly, at the tip of the Klutschak.

LD: And has that area has been completely surveyed by the search parties or the other underwater archaeology search?

TZ: It has not. This area is very shallow. There are parts in there that are three- four- five meters. [We] must remember that one hundred and fifty years ago if a ship was pushed into these shallow waters, over one hundred and fifty years, the ice would have removed anything within two meters of the surface just because ice grows in there and basically it would have eroded over that time. So I know it’s a difficult area to get into, it’s very difficult to search in waters that are maybe four or five meters in depth just because you can’t- you have to survey an access route and you can’t lay survey lines- they have to be closely spaced together to cover that area so I know that’s something that Parks are looking at in the near future.

LD: But if there were a ship there it wouldn’t be a relatively intact vessel?

TZ: I don’t think so. There would definitely be remains but it takes pressure to sink a ship or ships are pushed aground. And if a ship was pushed into this area, I don’t think it would be in great shape. I mean there would be stuff remaining below two meters but it would be more of a pancake.

LD: Just for purpose of clarification, when you’re talking about pressure ice and its effect, you’re talking about the buildup of multiyear sea ice which, when driven together, can potentially crush a vessel. Is that correct?

TZ: It’s not only multiyear ice, because it’s the Queen Maud Gulf doesn’t have a lot of multiyear ice, but you still see pressure, when you have a storm passing through, that storm moves the ice cover and it pushes against the shore line. And it’s that ridging, that rubble that we see on satellite imagery, that’s a manifestation of ice pressure. And, exactly as you say, that’s the type of pressure that can sink vessels.

5) How do you know?

Well, there are three pieces of evidence that I think are really, really important. One is Hall’s statement about the ship being east of O’Reilly, between its north end and Wilmot and Crampton Bay. The common interpretation of that point put them on the northeast of the north end of the O’Reilly. However, when you look at satellite imagery and pressure, there’s really no reason for a ship to sink there because the waters are deep, and you don’t see pressure in that area. You do see pressure directly eastward of the north end, at the tip of the Klutschak Peninsula, and the waters are much shallower there which would mean of course grounding is much more, well, basically, likely. I was thinking that maybe Charles Francis Hall didn’t have a great notion of the extent of Wilmot and Crampton Bay and I know if you look at the nautical chart of I think 1850 or around that era, one of the British nautical chart, and in fact that is the case. Wilmot and Crampton Bay extend much further south and east than they do in reality, than they do on modern charts. So if he was looking at that chart, it would have been easy for him to say, you know, it’s directly eastward between the north end of O’Reilly and Wilmot and Crampton Bay, knowing today that the extent of Wilmot and Crampton Bay was not well known back in the mid-nineteenth century.

LD: And we know that Hall was working with British Admiralty charts because he mentions that in his diaries.

TZ: Exactly. The second piece of evidence I think is that famous map by Innookpoozhejook in 1869 that has been fairly difficult to interpret. And the astounding thing that you see on satellite imagery is that, well maybe the map by Innookpoozhejook doesn’t only include a coastline or land and water, but actually includes ice features. And one of the interesting things about the location of that vessel which isn’t located on that map, is that apparently it contradicts the evidence of it being north east of the O’Reilly. But what you see on the imagery, is that O’Reilly is not drawn as an island, it’s drawn as a peninsula. It’s a peninsula of ice. It’s a peninsula of fast ice. So what I believe, in the Innookpoozhejook drawing, was lines separating two different ice types: ice types of land fast ice, smooth ice banks attached to all these small islands, ice that is stable and ice you can walk on, and he was separating unstable ice, pack ice, from that land fast ice. So when he drew a peninsula he actually drew a peninsula around O’Reilly. So you can’t find the island. You know today we can look at a map, or a satellite image on Google or Bing or on aerial photography and say, oh, we know exactly it’s an island. I don’t think he realized it’s an island. I think- there’s a lot of- if you look at a map there’s a lot of missing islands. And when the ice forms around these islands, it actually forms a peninsula. I think that map needs to be re-examined in that point. At the same time, that map has lines across many different inlets, you’ll notice. And in the Innookpoozhejook map of 1869, once again, those are not random lines, those are actually ice edges separating the fast ice within an inlet from the pack ice outside an inlet. We look at a map or a chart, there is no ice. Why wouldn’t Innookpoozhejook draw ice features on his map?

LD: It could be because he’s drawing it to make it useful from the standpoint of walking or accessing it via surface travel?

TZ: Exactly. We look at this area from space, we look at it from the air, we look at it straight down. I think that map is drawn from the perspective of him standing on top of the wreck and saying, ok, if I look north, I see these two little islands. If I look east, I see a peninsula. If I look west, I’m seeing an inlet. From that perspective, you do see an inlet, even though in reality it’s not an inlet: it’s a passage, it’s a strait. We know that because we have accurate information about this area now. But if he wasn’t familiar with the area, he drew the area from perspective of him, standing on the ground, looking around, and this is what I see.

LD: And if that were the case, if that was in his mind when he drew that map, that makes the other evidence make sense?

TZ: It does because there’s no contradiction between what Francis Hall said, about the ship being eastward- directly eastward of the north point of O’Reilly, and the map, which indicates that the ship is eastward of the north end of O’Reilly. And the third point is Schwatka’s evidence about the ship being seen beset west of Grant Point. Once again, satellite imagery shows that there doesn’t have to be contradiction between Hall and Schwatka. It’s not, who’s right, is it one or the other? In fact, when you look at the drift, the drift of the ice is past a position indicated by Schwatka, towards O’Reilly. It just probably means that the ship, after it cleared Alexandra Strait, spent another winter west of Grant Point but probably didn’t sink there. After [the] breakup, it continued its journey.

LD: And can you just show me and describe verbally where Grant Point is relative to O’Reilly.

TZ: Yep. Grant Point is right there. It’s just directly westward of Grant Point. We notice that the ice coming through Alexandra Strait at the end of a season- the ice gets pushed out by the current and wind and goes about as far as in the area just around Kirkwall Island or Skinny Island, and that area. Which makes it very probable that the evidence collected by Schwatka about the ship being beset in this area is correct.

LD: And Grant Point, just for general terms, is on the northwest tip of the Adelaide peninsula and these islands are just to the west of that.

TZ: Right. And we know from the evidence collected by Schwatka that the Inuit walked out on smooth ice towards the ship and it is, actually, this is an area of first year ice, of smooth ice that forms almost every year, because of all these little islands. So these islands act as anchor points and create this land fast ice, whereas out here, further west, in Queen Maud Gulf, the ice is more mobile, it’s more ridged, it’s more deformed. So what I’m saying is basically, I don’t think there needs to be a contradiction between Charles Francis Hall’s statement, the map by Innookpoozhejook and evidence collected by Schwatka. What the satellite imagery supports is [the] interpretation that makes them all valid.

6) Why do you care?

TZ: Well, I’ve worked in shipping, in Arctic shipping all my life, so I approach it in a bit of the way of an accident investigation, I’ve looked a lot at incidents where ships become beset, where ships come into trouble, and I think you have to approach it a bit from that practical manner. It is something that really becomes an obsession in a way, because it’s one of those- it’s a Canadian mystery, it’s a world mystery, it’s one of those great things that you know is solvable, with effort you can find these ships. And it’s exciting because you’re bringing together information from so many different sources. I mean, you’re looking at Inuit oral history collected in the mid-nineteenth century, you’re putting that together with the satellite imagery from the twenty-first century, and you try to find a common thread between the two and I find that terribly exciting.

7) What is the significance of Franklin's last expedition?

Obviously it was an effort to get through the Northwest Passage and led to a lot of exploration afterwards. Much of the Canadian Arctic was explored after that expedition. It’s interesting that no ships actually went through, went down Peel Sound to search for him because they probably couldn’t, because ice conditions were too difficult. But to me right now it signifies how important luck can be in making or breaking an expedition and I think even the best prepared expeditions and knowledge and planning is always susceptible to a certain amount of luck or bad luck or providence. And I think this is an example of an extreme case of bad luck.

LD: And there’s lessons to be drawn?

TZ: Absolutely, in that- I’m sure when the ships were making their way down Peel Sound, and making such tremendous progress they were probably counting their good luck, not knowing that they were basically lulled into- they’re drawn into a trap, into a condition that is an exception. That usually the area they are entering rarely breaks up and usually is full of ice, which is what the climatology tells us now.

Sunken ship