Lost in the Arctic (2023) Movie Script
MARK: To me, the definition
of adventure is to be
facing an uncertain future,
where you have a strong hand
in guiding your own fate.
And I just love that idea.
That's why I love adventure
and that's why I love stories
like the Franklin mystery.
Arctic explorer John Franklin
set off from England in 1845
with two ships and 128 men.
Trying to be the first
to make it through
the Northwest Passage.
A new trade route up over
the top of the world and
they disappeared,
without a trace.
129 guys,
vanished into the ether.
And in the years since,
more than 100 expeditions
have gone to the Arctic to try
to figure out what happened.
And nobody has been
able to figure it out.
There are clues
about what happened,
and I think I have
figured out a way
to solve this mystery
once and for all.
(theme music plays)
The Franklin expedition
spent their first winter
at a place called
Beechey Island,
which is sort of the entrance
to the Northwest Passage.
In 1984, a team went up there
to investigate three graves,
for three of Franklin's men.
MAN (over film): Oh, look at
the discoloration in there.
Careful.
There is something else,
look at that.
MARK: And they
exhumed the three bodies.
MAN (over film): Meltwater next.
Lot of ice in there.
MARK: They were
frozen solid into ice.
MAN (over film): You could see
how his face was desiccated,
and the mummified,
the soft tissues have
diminished in volume.
MARK: For me, the most
compelling thing about
that story is the images
of Franklin's men,
and they're haunting.
MAN (over film): Oh,
look at that hand.
That is really well preserved.
Now this sort of thing
has never been seen before.
This is absolutely unique.
MARK: I don't think there's
anybody who could see those
pictures and not be moved by it,
and to be thinking about
what that must have been
like to die that first winter
up in the Arctic.
Sub-zero, there's polar bears.
The level of suffering and
like how grim and scary
it must have gotten.
129 guys.
So not a single one of them
made it out to tell the tale
of what happened.
Imagine if someone that you
cared about deeply disappeared.
You know, imagine like, if
your son or your daughter or
your brother or your
sister disappeared.
Would you be okay with that?
Or would you become
consumed with wanting
to know what happened?
And there's people out
there who are still trying to
figure it out and
trying to solve it.
TOM: The Franklin
mystery is a puzzle.
You know, it it's a puzzle
with the pieces missing.
So we've got to try and not only
put together what we've got,
but we've got to try and
recreate some of those pieces
and fit them together.
MARK: Tom has dedicated the
better part of his adult life
to trying to solve
the Franklin mystery.
In particular, he has
focused on trying to find
the tomb of John Franklin.
He considers that to be the holy
grail of the Franklin mystery,
because Franklin would have
been buried with his papers,
the ship's papers,
the ship's log.
You know, a commander
in the British Royal Navy,
every day he's going
to be keeping a diary.
And those papers could
potentially solve the mystery
as to what happened to
Franklin and his men.
TOM: In 2014, I thought,
well there's still
one more chance of
maybe finding it.
And that is doing an aerial
survey with the airplane.
I was looking down
at the ground,
I saw what looked like
large rocks, very large rocks.
And it was a perfect engineered,
rectangle shaped structure.
So I circled around to try
and get a better look at it.
And we never found it again.
It just sort of vanished.
And we've been
looking for it ever since.
MARK: Tom has seen
the tomb from the air.
And he's been closing
in on it ever since.
He didn't get GPS
coordinates at the time.
And he's been
eliminating territory.
And now we're down to
less than 30 square miles.
So all that's left now, is to
go to King William Island,
to meet up with Tom and see
if we can find the tomb.
RENAN: Feels surprisingly chill
today for like, pre-launch.
MARK: The reason why it feels
surprisingly chill is because
I put a year of my life into
making sure that today
felt surprisingly chill.
(laughs).
My investigative process is to
immerse myself in the story
as much as I possibly can.
And, in this case, to do that,
I want to follow in the wake
of Franklin's two ships,
the Erebus and the Terror.
And so I want to sail
there in my own boat.
I want to intersect
with Franklin's route.
I want to go to the same
places that they went.
And I want to see it with my own
eyes and I want to feel it.
BEN: He called me
and he's like,
"Hey, man, what do
you think about?",
you know, he talks so slow.
"What would you think
about going up to the
Northwest Passage on a boat?"
(laughs).
I was like, "Yeah man, if
you're on the trip I'll go"
because if anyone can
get it done, it's Mark.
RENAN: First sail,
getting her up!
BEN: One for Renan here.
RENAN: Thank you, sir.
BEN: Sorry about the tin plate
but we're on an expedition.
RENAN: I've been doing
adventures with Mark for
over 15 years now, and,
I grew up sailing but
if I'm too seasick,
I'm probably just going to be
curled up in fetal position
and be relying on, on
Rudy to get everything.
MARK: There's no one out here,
no other ships.
It's all about this ship, it's
all about the Polar Sun
taking care of us.
She's a good vessel.
I care deeply about adventure
and exploration and history.
That's been kind of the
compass bearing leading me
through life since
I was a little kid.
And I've turned that
into my livelihood.
I led an expedition on
Mount Everest to search
for the body of lost
explorer, Sandy Irvine.
I climbed these crazy cliffs
in the Amazon to search for
new species of animals.
One, two, three!
And if you're
part of this world,
you eventually have friends
that go out on expeditions
and they never come home.
And when that happens,
when people disappear,
it's just our human nature to
want to know what happened.
And that's kind of what this
project is all about for me,
to potentially add like a
final chapter to the story.
Sir John Franklin was a
seasoned Arctic explorer.
At age 59, he bid farewell
to his wife and daughter and
set sail for the Arctic.
In the Spring of 1845,
Franklin's ships were last seen
off the coast of Greenland.
When the ships disappeared, a
trail of clues was discovered
on the remote
King William Island,
including a written
record found in 1859.
The Victory Point document
states that Franklin's ships
had become
completely trapped in ice.
The men has abandoned
ship and set out on
King William Island.
A second entry made
almost a year later,
tells us that 24 crew had died,
including Captain Franklin.
Franklin's two ships were
finally discovered off the
coast of King William Island
in 2014 and 2016.
But the lost tomb of Franklin
himself is still out there,
waiting to be found.
Our first task is crossing the
Labrador sea to link up with
Franklin's route at a place
called the Whale Fish Islands.
BEN: Woo hoo!
MARK: So grim!
Oh wow this is not...
this is not inviting,
this is not exactly paradise.
(ship creaking)
RENAN: What is up
with that house?
BEN: Oh, that's cool!
Someone's hunting,
hunting lodge.
Oh there's several, you see?
MARK: So cool, so cool.
The Whale Fish Islands.
It's taken us 2,200 miles of
sailing from Maine just to get
to the beginning
of this journey.
This is where Franklin set off
for the Northwest Passage
in 1845.
This was a town.
Some kind of a
whaling station.
Totally abandoned now.
Look at this.
This is what I've been
looking for right here.
An iron bollard in the shore,
where Franklin tied
up their ships.
And this was the last anchorage
for the Franklin expedition
before they set off into
the Northwest Passage.
At that time, sailing over the
top of the world wouldn't have
been too different from the
idea of going to the moon.
You know, in terms of the
history of exploration,
there's nothing more epic.
You know, almost like a
Knights of the Round table
kind of thing to try to
make it through there.
It's wild to realize that
Franklin and his men were
walking all around here and
preparing for their voyage
into the Northwest Passage.
From here, the
ice gauntlet begins.
We just sailed
into a fog bank.
This is really really thick.
So I can see about a boat
length and the water is
filled with chunks of ice.
The radar shows the big stuff,
it shows the bergs,
but it doesn't show
the small stuff.
It doesn't show the growlers,
and the growlers could
tear the boat in half.
Crossing the maze of ice bergs
in Baffin Bay was the first
real test Franklin and his
men faced on their voyage
into the unknown.
This is part of the reason
why I wanted to sail to
King William Island, to be
faced with some of the same
decision points that
Franklin was 175 years ago.
It was the most modern, the
most well-equipped expedition
in the history of the
world at that point.
And they
disappeared without a trace.
The best way to describe kind
of what it's like out there is
I would call it a
savage wilderness.
Oh!
BEN: There it goes!
Oh man, look at it bouncing!
MARK: We can see land!
Woo hoo!
I have to say, I really
like the place where
the land and sea meet.
Especially when there's
mountains involved.
After crossing Baffin Bay
in the fall of 1845,
Franklin's ships anchored for
the winter at a tiny island
in the middle of nowhere
called Beechey Island.
When the expedition
went missing,
some of the first clues
were discovered
on Beechey Island
as well as the bodies of
three of Franklin's crew.
The autopsy showed I think,
that all three of them
died from tuberculosis,
maybe a combination
of that and pneumonia.
But no new answers
were discovered about
what happened to the
rest of Franklin's men.
If we find Franklin's tomb,
not only do we find the remains
of a legendary lost explorer
but we probably also
find his papers.
TOM: There's going to be all
sorts of information in there.
There'll be photographs.
We're going to maybe have
letters that are written from
the crew members to
be sent back home.
It provides their
story to the world.
MARK: Polar Sun is really
in her element right now,
moving fast, just absolutely
perfect conditions.
We were sailing full speed
toward King William Island
and then we got news
about a brewing storm.
(thunder)
A southeast gale
that was building and
we're heading southeast.
BEN: Well, what we're faced
with is we can either go into
a really good bailout option
where we can hole up for a
couple days while all the
weather blows overhead,
or we can carry on into some
dicey ice, and then hope that
we make it somewhere safe
before the weather descends.
The thing is, we have to make
our decision within the next
two or three hours
whether we turn into
Pasley Bay or carry on,
because we're getting to we're
getting to decision point.
MARK: The ice is down here.
People speculate that's
what happened to Franklin.
Franklin came right down to
here, got to the decision point.
Didn't think he could go
this way, so we went here
into Victoria Strait which,
it doomed them.
They got caught in the
ice and they never got out.
BEN: Do we go left?
We go right?
Do we wait?
It's the tension of
Arctic navigation that
we have to deal with.
20 feet ahead, so
we should get ready.
MARK: What do
you got for depth?
BEN: 25 feet.
MARK: It made sense,
to go into Pasley and to
ride out the storm.
We've done well, now it's
just a waiting game to
sit and wait and
see what happens.
The storm came in overnight.
Ice had come in
and had encircled the
entrance to the bay.
A giant crescent of ice,
capping the whole thing off.
We are officially trapped within
an impenetrable wall of ice.
BEN: We've found a little
spot where there might be some
shelter but we can't get much
closer to shore because
we only have 19 feet of
water at this point.
MARK: Watch out!
Don't go into
that little nook.
RUDY: Alright Ben,
we're good to go back.
You got a piece drifting.
RENAN: We just barely escaped
that little narrow gap that
was closing in on us.
Really close call.
MARK: Getting trapped in
the ice was the thing that
I had always been
the most afraid of.
I mean I've read all these
stories about this happening
to explorers and having their
boats being crushed in the ice.
It's really a bad
situation to be in.
I'm gonna rely on my gut
a little bit more
than I have been,
and my gut is telling me
that we need to conserve
every type of fuel that we have.
BEN: Even if we're in
this bay for two weeks,
we're getting to Gjoa.
There's no way we're not.
MARK: I mean, well, there
is a way that we're not
which is that that plug of ice
there never leaves the bay.
It could happen, and it's 35
degrees out there right now.
Strangely enough we have now
gotten ourselves stranded
not far from where Franklin
did and 175 years later
and it's like still a
pretty serious situation.
We know from the Victory Point
record that Franklin's ships,
the Erebus and the Terror,
became completely
frozen into the ice.
The note gave exact coordinates
for where they were abandoned,
but the ships continued drifting
and then disappeared.
In the years that followed,
eyewitness testimony was
gathered from local Inuit
hunters about sightings
of the abandoned ships
and Franklin's men.
I think the most interesting
part of the story is that
the Inuit knew all along
where the ships were,
and it wasn't until they
finally listened to the Inuit
that they found the ships,
175 years later.
MAN (over film): Here we are,
at the stern of the ship.
MARK: Researchers
discovered a trove of
perfectly preserved artifacts
but no human remains
have been found.
The Inuit sightings also
match up perfectly with where
Tom Gross believes he saw
Franklin's tomb in 2015.
TOM: I'm pretty positive that
that's what we saw that day.
And if it is what I saw,
we are going to have records
that are in pristine condition
because they're going to be
frozen along with a
frozen-in-time John Franklin.
MARK: We've been in
Pasley Bay for eight days,
it would be kind of enjoyable
if it wasn't just high stress
all day every day.
Okay starboard!
You're going over a big chunk!
Okay get me an ice screw.
Ooh boy, they're not
gonna go in that well.
We started anchoring to the
floating chunks of ice
to try to avoid getting the
anchor trapped under the ice.
RENAN: I don't know why it
feels like the end of the
expedition, but
it's only the middle.
It's because we were
supposed to be 1,000 miles
from here right now.
Let's keep
fighting the good fight.
BEN: Back up, right into it.
MARK: Okay take
this back real quick.
Go back.
Just go, yep, go hard back.
Get a line ready, toss me a
line and get me an ice screw!
It's extremely demoralizing
when I see that this is the
only place in this entire area,
in this whole Gulf of Boothia
where there's ice right now,
and so I'm feeling like
we made some bad decisions.
RENAN: After being stuck
here for eight days,
the ice is slowly starting
to break apart.
The pieces are crumbling,
and there's a chance
we might break free.
MARK: It was like,
"Start the engine.
We're going to do this.
Let's see what happens."
RUDY: Go 20-30 feet and then
you're gonna turn to starboard.
BEN: Got it!
RUDY: Good on that course,
keep that heading.
BEN: We have 16 feet
under the keel right now!
(scraping)
MARK: Ooh, that was
a (bleep) hard one.
RUDY: More!
More to port, more!
MARK: Yep, slower Ben.
BEN: I see clear water man!
It's like no ice in the water
just a quarter mile ahead.
We just have to get
through this last little crux.
RENAN: Just go straight.
There's this concentrated
chunk around the point,
and then, seems like
we might be home free.
BEN: Renan's at the masthead
parting the ice like Moses
so we can get through!
RENAN: Nice.
MARK: Holy (bleep).
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I cannot (bleep) believe it.
We're in open water, boys.
Full sail, sun,
Gjoa Haven here we come!
Polar Sun is pulling in.
This is incredible.
I can't believe
we're finally here.
Today is day 87, we've
sailed 3600 nautical miles.
We've seen ice, we've seen fog,
we've seen graves of people who
didn't make it out of here.
We've been through a lot.
Woo!
Holy (bleep).
This is a very
strange feeling.
Civilization.
Wow, we've got the
Northwest Passage right there
and then a cell
tower right there.
(laughs).
When we finally arrived,
Tom Gross was right there
waiting for us, ready to go.
(laughs).
RENAN: It's been a
long, long journey.
TOM: I thought we were gonna
have to leave without ya!
(laughs).
MARK: Wow, can't
believe I'm finally here.
TOM: Yeah, this bedroom here,
it kind of converted into
my Franklin research room.
MARK: This is the
command center.
TOM: There's something with
this mystery I mean,
every time I am ready to give
up on it, which has been a
few times in 28 years,
something happens.
Something happens that
sucks me right back in where
I've got to go back
out and look for it.
This picture is 1994, March.
This is a friend of mine who
passed away Louie Kamookak,
and when I first was
introduced to him, they said,
"This is Louie Kamookak and uh,
Louie's got the same interests
that you have, Tom,"
and so we hit it off right away.
We started talking about
different theories,
different ideas.
He told me about things that
were found around the island.
Louie's dream was always
to find that place,
the Franklin site.
And it looks a lot like
what I've drawn here for you.
MARK: You saw
this from the air?
TOM: And then we saw it.
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
MARK: But you didn't
get the GPS coordinates?
TOM: No, we
didn't get the GPS.
MARK: That's why we're
down to 30 square miles.
TOM: That's right.
MARK: That we're
going to cover?
TOM: Yeah.
If we can find the stone
structure that we saw
from the air, I'm sure we're
going to have the burial tomb
of Sir John Franklin.
MARK: I'm honored that I have
the opportunity to go there
and do this with you.
I can't even believe
this is happening.
Like, just the chance to
possibly find something that
could solve this mystery is,
that's a once in a
lifetime opportunity.
We're going to pack up and
we're going to head out in the
morning first thing on the
four-wheelers to try to
find Franklin's tomb.
TOM: You know, I've been doing
this for such a long time.
I have a really good feeling
we're going to find it.
And I've never had
this feeling the way
I've got it on this trip.
There's only one hill where
it can be, and I am almost
positive that it's there.
You know, it's always
the last minute stuff.
You don't want to be
forgetting anything now.
Because once we're out there,
if we don't have it,
we don't have it.
MARK: It's a rugged, 80 mile
journey from the port in
Gjoa Haven to our search zone.
Tom had all the bikes lined
up outside the house where
we were staying, and I realized,
"Wow, you know what?
I don't think I've
actually ridden
one of these things before".
TOM: Just follow
where we're going.
Cause we're going to be going
through and finding a good path,
and then where we
go through, you follow us.
MARK: Okay.
TOM: And you're gonna want
to be cautious all the time.
MARK: Jacob, stay
close to me please.
JACOB: Yes.
(laughs).
MARK: The overland expedition
is going to be our chance to
solve this mystery
once and for all.
TOM: Traveling up to
the search area is
really incredibly difficult.
It's long, it's rough.
There's a lot of bog
you have to cross.
RENAN: This is normal?
TOM: Yeah.
(laughs).
It's fairly risky
going out there.
There's probably nobody
better than Jacob
that knows this island.
JACOB: My role on the
expedition is to make sure
that we all come back home
safely at the end of the trip.
MARK: I think I
should go back.
Not Jacob's first rodeo.
What in the (bleep)?
You've gotta be...
come on!
Not off the most
auspicious start here.
TOM: The tundra has something
that nowhere else
in the world has.
It's hard to really describe.
You can see for miles
and miles all around you.
MARK: There's no one out
here taking care of you
other than yourself.
It hits home in a sort of a
sobering way, what it must
have been like for Franklin
and his men to be out here,
because you're in
the middle of nowhere.
Over the years, human remains
from the Franklin expedition
have been discovered
across King William Island.
In 1854, an Inuit hunter
reported finding the bones of
30 men piled together, some
with signs of cannibalism.
JIMMY: I really believe that,
you know, if Franklin and
his men had help from the Inuit
people around this area,
with their traditional clothing,
and with the hunting,
and the skills that they had,
I think they would've made it
through the Northwest Passage.
I always thought that Franklin
himself didn't want any
assistance, cause I really
believe that he wanted to do it
on his own without the
help of the Inuit people.
Their nomadic life would
have shown them that yes,
these areas are
safe to travel by.
TOM: This is it.
MARK: Wow.
TOM: Boot camp.
This is Collinson River,
and Collinson Inlet.
MARK: Wow.
TOM: We made it.
MARK: Really cool.
Tom targeted Collinson Inlet
based on Inuit testimony
about a Franklin
campsite in this area.
TOM: The first winter
when they arrived,
I think that they ended
up down in here.
So hopefully, what we can do
is prove that they did and
that we'll find a camp
out here somewhere,
and if that's correct, we should
be able to find the tomb of
Sir John Franklin in
this area as well.
MARK: Wow.
(speaking native language)
JACOB: Let the day
have good weather.
RENAN: We're about to
launch the fixed wing drone.
This has been a long term dream
to get this thing in the air.
They use these drones to,
to map the tundra,
to look at changes in the
climate, but we're using it
to map a high resolution area
to try to find the tomb.
RUDY: Look at that, shows
the airplane on the map.
We've got greens.
RENAN: Yeah!
(laughs).
TOM: This area right here.
This is what I want to see.
MARK: Right
around there, right?
TOM: Yeah.
MARK: So let's get the drone
up in the air and let's get
you pretending that the
drone is in you in the plane,
seven years ago.
We could recreate like how
it was for you that day,
back in 2015.
TOM: Perfect.
Let's try it.
MARK: We're going to very
carefully document this ridge,
because this really is
like trying to find a
needle in a haystack.
If Rudy wasn't here,
do you think you could
get this all set up?
TOM: No.
(laughs).
I couldn't even
open up the computer.
MARK: You basically just
create sort of a grid over
what you want to search, and
then the plane just shoots
sequential photographs
that are designed so that
they all interlink.
RENAN: So we're
at 600 feet now.
You just direct
me where to go.
TOM: This hill.
Can you go right to there?
RENAN: Yeah.
Want me to go down into it?
TOM: Yep.
Go right down into.
RENAN: I'm going down in.
TOM: You see that
island right there?
There's an island.
RENAN: Way out there?
TOM: Way out there.
So I saw that, I was
looking right at that.
MARK: You bring the plane back,
you download the imagery,
and then the software
stitches them all together
in one of these
gigapan giant photos.
RUDY: Ooh.
File is done.
Look, the quality of
the stitch is incredible.
I mean, you can zoom in.
RENAN: This is the zone.
RUDY: Each white block
represents a separate photo
of what we covered.
MARK: That's amazing.
RUDY: About 1300
photos went into that.
TOM: You see that?
This is the area.
There's no
question in my mind.
This is the area.
MARK: Tom's adamant
about what he saw in 2015.
He has seen the
tomb from the air.
Finding it again is all about,
"Where did Franklin land
when they left the ships?
Where was that camp?"
You find that camp,
you find Franklin's tomb.
We just hauled
across that flood plain.
Heading to the area
that Tom identified.
I parked the bike.
I got off.
There were these
interesting looking rocks
arranged in an unnatural way.
Look at the size
of these rocks.
What the hell.
Come on.
Holy (bleep).
What the hell is that?
Hey Tom!
This is a camp.
That's incredible.
TOM: That's a tent peg.
MARK: Come on.
You've got to be kidding me.
TOM: Tent peg.
MARK: Is that something they
would have had on the ships...
TOM: Yeah.
MARK: Or something
they would have made?
TOM: Well they would
have made them probably.
It was really, really exciting
in a sense that I was looking
for a camp and what did
we find, but a tent peg.
You know, I think we found it
within the first 40 minutes of,
of going out,
which was incredible.
You know, like that
just doesn't happen.
MARK: I think we should look
around here a little bit more.
And this? Come on!
TOM: Oh wow, eh?
Look at that.
Look at this.
RENAN: That's not
Inuit is it, Jacob?
JACOB: This one?
Not it's not.
There were some items there that
our ancestors cannot make,
such as the brass
rod and the tent peg.
It could have been a camp at
one time from the expedition.
MARK: We have Inuit testimony
saying that there's a
stone house and a
camp in this area.
Now, we have found artifacts
that support the idea that
these stories are true.
And we have Tom seeing a stone
house that perfectly fits the
description in 2015.
So we felt like we were close.
I mean, it was just like right
there, we're going to find it.
Okay, so, the weather's perfect.
We're getting close.
Let's keep going.
TOM: Let's keep going.
That's a nice hill.
Yeah, straight there.
I don't know how far away
it is but that looks
really, really good.
MARK: This is our window
to find the tomb,
before the weather turns.
The idea is to search ridge
lines that match the one
Tom saw from the
plane back in 2015.
I mean imagine
finding Franklin's diary.
We might be able
to change history.
TOM: Oh I think we're close,
this is the area.
I think that hill over there,
you know, it's just,
it's just the lighting,
throws things off.
There's one more hill up
here that I've marked,
and we should go to that one.
For me, like until I find
that stone thing that I saw,
I'm not going to
be able to rest.
You know I need to see that,
I need to see what it was and
put that to rest.
MARK: Keep going down.
TOM: Yeah, I know, yeah.
MARK: There's all these big,
black, pointy rocks on that one.
I guess today is
day five or six.
We've covered I think
about 400 miles so far.
But we haven't found any
new signs of Franklin's men.
Did it not have little
lakes on the side Tom?
TOM: No, there's
no lakes on it.
MARK: It would be on
this side, right Tom?
TOM: Yeah.
RENAN: Yeah, cut out.
It's like transmission lost.
It cut out again!
TOM: How are you
feeling Jacob?
Are you feeling good
about finding it still?
JACOB: I never lose hope
until we start heading home.
MARK: What the heck?
The drain plug on the oil
pan had just fallen off.
RENAN: Do you want me to
take this bag off too?
Jacob to the rescue.
Took Jacob 20 minutes to
find a piece of driftwood.
And it's, it's holding all the
oil on the bike right now,
but I don't know how
many miles we have.
(engine rumbling).
MARK: We spent eight days
driving up and down
these gravel eskers.
I mean, just going around
in circles and up and down.
And we went from this really
high running optimism,
like we are close, like,
we are right on the trail.
And then it was just...
Day after day of frustration,
of driving through this
incredibly rugged terrain
that was destroying the bikes.
And we were spending half of
every day fixing the bikes.
We got to a certain point where,
you know, a week into searching,
there was
nowhere else to look.
We were in Erebus Bay
which is the spot where
23 of Franklin crew died.
There were signs of
cannibalism and bones
that had these cut marks.
And that's the spot where
we know things got
really desperate.
There may be some Inuit who
know where Franklin is buried,
but they don't want to mess
with it because there's a
very strong taboo in
their culture against
messing around with the dead.
JIMMY: We, as Inuit people,
still believe that
there are spirits
that are out there.
They're lost, and still
trying to find their way home.
But for me, we should
study these things
to understand what happened.
And we can pass this story
on to our next generation.
MARK: We did the best
that we could to document
some of the main search areas.
I mean, we have that data now.
We've been looking at it.
We can continue to look at it.
I could see that
being the future of
finding Franklin's tomb.
TOM: I know what
I saw in 2015.
I think that we're very,
very close to finding it.
I think that it's going to be
found probably within the
next year or two.
And not just not just Franklin,
who will basically
be frozen in time,
but maybe a couple other
officers with him.
And also it's going to
be where the records
are buried as well.
So I think it's all together,
it's once we find one thing,
we're going to have
it all and it's just,
just a matter of time
and it'll be there.
MARK: I know that the mystery
of the Franklin expedition is
gonna continue to suck
people into it's vortex.
His grave is somewhere
out there right now.
Somebody's gonna
find it someday.
And solve the Franklin
mystery once and for all.
of adventure is to be
facing an uncertain future,
where you have a strong hand
in guiding your own fate.
And I just love that idea.
That's why I love adventure
and that's why I love stories
like the Franklin mystery.
Arctic explorer John Franklin
set off from England in 1845
with two ships and 128 men.
Trying to be the first
to make it through
the Northwest Passage.
A new trade route up over
the top of the world and
they disappeared,
without a trace.
129 guys,
vanished into the ether.
And in the years since,
more than 100 expeditions
have gone to the Arctic to try
to figure out what happened.
And nobody has been
able to figure it out.
There are clues
about what happened,
and I think I have
figured out a way
to solve this mystery
once and for all.
(theme music plays)
The Franklin expedition
spent their first winter
at a place called
Beechey Island,
which is sort of the entrance
to the Northwest Passage.
In 1984, a team went up there
to investigate three graves,
for three of Franklin's men.
MAN (over film): Oh, look at
the discoloration in there.
Careful.
There is something else,
look at that.
MARK: And they
exhumed the three bodies.
MAN (over film): Meltwater next.
Lot of ice in there.
MARK: They were
frozen solid into ice.
MAN (over film): You could see
how his face was desiccated,
and the mummified,
the soft tissues have
diminished in volume.
MARK: For me, the most
compelling thing about
that story is the images
of Franklin's men,
and they're haunting.
MAN (over film): Oh,
look at that hand.
That is really well preserved.
Now this sort of thing
has never been seen before.
This is absolutely unique.
MARK: I don't think there's
anybody who could see those
pictures and not be moved by it,
and to be thinking about
what that must have been
like to die that first winter
up in the Arctic.
Sub-zero, there's polar bears.
The level of suffering and
like how grim and scary
it must have gotten.
129 guys.
So not a single one of them
made it out to tell the tale
of what happened.
Imagine if someone that you
cared about deeply disappeared.
You know, imagine like, if
your son or your daughter or
your brother or your
sister disappeared.
Would you be okay with that?
Or would you become
consumed with wanting
to know what happened?
And there's people out
there who are still trying to
figure it out and
trying to solve it.
TOM: The Franklin
mystery is a puzzle.
You know, it it's a puzzle
with the pieces missing.
So we've got to try and not only
put together what we've got,
but we've got to try and
recreate some of those pieces
and fit them together.
MARK: Tom has dedicated the
better part of his adult life
to trying to solve
the Franklin mystery.
In particular, he has
focused on trying to find
the tomb of John Franklin.
He considers that to be the holy
grail of the Franklin mystery,
because Franklin would have
been buried with his papers,
the ship's papers,
the ship's log.
You know, a commander
in the British Royal Navy,
every day he's going
to be keeping a diary.
And those papers could
potentially solve the mystery
as to what happened to
Franklin and his men.
TOM: In 2014, I thought,
well there's still
one more chance of
maybe finding it.
And that is doing an aerial
survey with the airplane.
I was looking down
at the ground,
I saw what looked like
large rocks, very large rocks.
And it was a perfect engineered,
rectangle shaped structure.
So I circled around to try
and get a better look at it.
And we never found it again.
It just sort of vanished.
And we've been
looking for it ever since.
MARK: Tom has seen
the tomb from the air.
And he's been closing
in on it ever since.
He didn't get GPS
coordinates at the time.
And he's been
eliminating territory.
And now we're down to
less than 30 square miles.
So all that's left now, is to
go to King William Island,
to meet up with Tom and see
if we can find the tomb.
RENAN: Feels surprisingly chill
today for like, pre-launch.
MARK: The reason why it feels
surprisingly chill is because
I put a year of my life into
making sure that today
felt surprisingly chill.
(laughs).
My investigative process is to
immerse myself in the story
as much as I possibly can.
And, in this case, to do that,
I want to follow in the wake
of Franklin's two ships,
the Erebus and the Terror.
And so I want to sail
there in my own boat.
I want to intersect
with Franklin's route.
I want to go to the same
places that they went.
And I want to see it with my own
eyes and I want to feel it.
BEN: He called me
and he's like,
"Hey, man, what do
you think about?",
you know, he talks so slow.
"What would you think
about going up to the
Northwest Passage on a boat?"
(laughs).
I was like, "Yeah man, if
you're on the trip I'll go"
because if anyone can
get it done, it's Mark.
RENAN: First sail,
getting her up!
BEN: One for Renan here.
RENAN: Thank you, sir.
BEN: Sorry about the tin plate
but we're on an expedition.
RENAN: I've been doing
adventures with Mark for
over 15 years now, and,
I grew up sailing but
if I'm too seasick,
I'm probably just going to be
curled up in fetal position
and be relying on, on
Rudy to get everything.
MARK: There's no one out here,
no other ships.
It's all about this ship, it's
all about the Polar Sun
taking care of us.
She's a good vessel.
I care deeply about adventure
and exploration and history.
That's been kind of the
compass bearing leading me
through life since
I was a little kid.
And I've turned that
into my livelihood.
I led an expedition on
Mount Everest to search
for the body of lost
explorer, Sandy Irvine.
I climbed these crazy cliffs
in the Amazon to search for
new species of animals.
One, two, three!
And if you're
part of this world,
you eventually have friends
that go out on expeditions
and they never come home.
And when that happens,
when people disappear,
it's just our human nature to
want to know what happened.
And that's kind of what this
project is all about for me,
to potentially add like a
final chapter to the story.
Sir John Franklin was a
seasoned Arctic explorer.
At age 59, he bid farewell
to his wife and daughter and
set sail for the Arctic.
In the Spring of 1845,
Franklin's ships were last seen
off the coast of Greenland.
When the ships disappeared, a
trail of clues was discovered
on the remote
King William Island,
including a written
record found in 1859.
The Victory Point document
states that Franklin's ships
had become
completely trapped in ice.
The men has abandoned
ship and set out on
King William Island.
A second entry made
almost a year later,
tells us that 24 crew had died,
including Captain Franklin.
Franklin's two ships were
finally discovered off the
coast of King William Island
in 2014 and 2016.
But the lost tomb of Franklin
himself is still out there,
waiting to be found.
Our first task is crossing the
Labrador sea to link up with
Franklin's route at a place
called the Whale Fish Islands.
BEN: Woo hoo!
MARK: So grim!
Oh wow this is not...
this is not inviting,
this is not exactly paradise.
(ship creaking)
RENAN: What is up
with that house?
BEN: Oh, that's cool!
Someone's hunting,
hunting lodge.
Oh there's several, you see?
MARK: So cool, so cool.
The Whale Fish Islands.
It's taken us 2,200 miles of
sailing from Maine just to get
to the beginning
of this journey.
This is where Franklin set off
for the Northwest Passage
in 1845.
This was a town.
Some kind of a
whaling station.
Totally abandoned now.
Look at this.
This is what I've been
looking for right here.
An iron bollard in the shore,
where Franklin tied
up their ships.
And this was the last anchorage
for the Franklin expedition
before they set off into
the Northwest Passage.
At that time, sailing over the
top of the world wouldn't have
been too different from the
idea of going to the moon.
You know, in terms of the
history of exploration,
there's nothing more epic.
You know, almost like a
Knights of the Round table
kind of thing to try to
make it through there.
It's wild to realize that
Franklin and his men were
walking all around here and
preparing for their voyage
into the Northwest Passage.
From here, the
ice gauntlet begins.
We just sailed
into a fog bank.
This is really really thick.
So I can see about a boat
length and the water is
filled with chunks of ice.
The radar shows the big stuff,
it shows the bergs,
but it doesn't show
the small stuff.
It doesn't show the growlers,
and the growlers could
tear the boat in half.
Crossing the maze of ice bergs
in Baffin Bay was the first
real test Franklin and his
men faced on their voyage
into the unknown.
This is part of the reason
why I wanted to sail to
King William Island, to be
faced with some of the same
decision points that
Franklin was 175 years ago.
It was the most modern, the
most well-equipped expedition
in the history of the
world at that point.
And they
disappeared without a trace.
The best way to describe kind
of what it's like out there is
I would call it a
savage wilderness.
Oh!
BEN: There it goes!
Oh man, look at it bouncing!
MARK: We can see land!
Woo hoo!
I have to say, I really
like the place where
the land and sea meet.
Especially when there's
mountains involved.
After crossing Baffin Bay
in the fall of 1845,
Franklin's ships anchored for
the winter at a tiny island
in the middle of nowhere
called Beechey Island.
When the expedition
went missing,
some of the first clues
were discovered
on Beechey Island
as well as the bodies of
three of Franklin's crew.
The autopsy showed I think,
that all three of them
died from tuberculosis,
maybe a combination
of that and pneumonia.
But no new answers
were discovered about
what happened to the
rest of Franklin's men.
If we find Franklin's tomb,
not only do we find the remains
of a legendary lost explorer
but we probably also
find his papers.
TOM: There's going to be all
sorts of information in there.
There'll be photographs.
We're going to maybe have
letters that are written from
the crew members to
be sent back home.
It provides their
story to the world.
MARK: Polar Sun is really
in her element right now,
moving fast, just absolutely
perfect conditions.
We were sailing full speed
toward King William Island
and then we got news
about a brewing storm.
(thunder)
A southeast gale
that was building and
we're heading southeast.
BEN: Well, what we're faced
with is we can either go into
a really good bailout option
where we can hole up for a
couple days while all the
weather blows overhead,
or we can carry on into some
dicey ice, and then hope that
we make it somewhere safe
before the weather descends.
The thing is, we have to make
our decision within the next
two or three hours
whether we turn into
Pasley Bay or carry on,
because we're getting to we're
getting to decision point.
MARK: The ice is down here.
People speculate that's
what happened to Franklin.
Franklin came right down to
here, got to the decision point.
Didn't think he could go
this way, so we went here
into Victoria Strait which,
it doomed them.
They got caught in the
ice and they never got out.
BEN: Do we go left?
We go right?
Do we wait?
It's the tension of
Arctic navigation that
we have to deal with.
20 feet ahead, so
we should get ready.
MARK: What do
you got for depth?
BEN: 25 feet.
MARK: It made sense,
to go into Pasley and to
ride out the storm.
We've done well, now it's
just a waiting game to
sit and wait and
see what happens.
The storm came in overnight.
Ice had come in
and had encircled the
entrance to the bay.
A giant crescent of ice,
capping the whole thing off.
We are officially trapped within
an impenetrable wall of ice.
BEN: We've found a little
spot where there might be some
shelter but we can't get much
closer to shore because
we only have 19 feet of
water at this point.
MARK: Watch out!
Don't go into
that little nook.
RUDY: Alright Ben,
we're good to go back.
You got a piece drifting.
RENAN: We just barely escaped
that little narrow gap that
was closing in on us.
Really close call.
MARK: Getting trapped in
the ice was the thing that
I had always been
the most afraid of.
I mean I've read all these
stories about this happening
to explorers and having their
boats being crushed in the ice.
It's really a bad
situation to be in.
I'm gonna rely on my gut
a little bit more
than I have been,
and my gut is telling me
that we need to conserve
every type of fuel that we have.
BEN: Even if we're in
this bay for two weeks,
we're getting to Gjoa.
There's no way we're not.
MARK: I mean, well, there
is a way that we're not
which is that that plug of ice
there never leaves the bay.
It could happen, and it's 35
degrees out there right now.
Strangely enough we have now
gotten ourselves stranded
not far from where Franklin
did and 175 years later
and it's like still a
pretty serious situation.
We know from the Victory Point
record that Franklin's ships,
the Erebus and the Terror,
became completely
frozen into the ice.
The note gave exact coordinates
for where they were abandoned,
but the ships continued drifting
and then disappeared.
In the years that followed,
eyewitness testimony was
gathered from local Inuit
hunters about sightings
of the abandoned ships
and Franklin's men.
I think the most interesting
part of the story is that
the Inuit knew all along
where the ships were,
and it wasn't until they
finally listened to the Inuit
that they found the ships,
175 years later.
MAN (over film): Here we are,
at the stern of the ship.
MARK: Researchers
discovered a trove of
perfectly preserved artifacts
but no human remains
have been found.
The Inuit sightings also
match up perfectly with where
Tom Gross believes he saw
Franklin's tomb in 2015.
TOM: I'm pretty positive that
that's what we saw that day.
And if it is what I saw,
we are going to have records
that are in pristine condition
because they're going to be
frozen along with a
frozen-in-time John Franklin.
MARK: We've been in
Pasley Bay for eight days,
it would be kind of enjoyable
if it wasn't just high stress
all day every day.
Okay starboard!
You're going over a big chunk!
Okay get me an ice screw.
Ooh boy, they're not
gonna go in that well.
We started anchoring to the
floating chunks of ice
to try to avoid getting the
anchor trapped under the ice.
RENAN: I don't know why it
feels like the end of the
expedition, but
it's only the middle.
It's because we were
supposed to be 1,000 miles
from here right now.
Let's keep
fighting the good fight.
BEN: Back up, right into it.
MARK: Okay take
this back real quick.
Go back.
Just go, yep, go hard back.
Get a line ready, toss me a
line and get me an ice screw!
It's extremely demoralizing
when I see that this is the
only place in this entire area,
in this whole Gulf of Boothia
where there's ice right now,
and so I'm feeling like
we made some bad decisions.
RENAN: After being stuck
here for eight days,
the ice is slowly starting
to break apart.
The pieces are crumbling,
and there's a chance
we might break free.
MARK: It was like,
"Start the engine.
We're going to do this.
Let's see what happens."
RUDY: Go 20-30 feet and then
you're gonna turn to starboard.
BEN: Got it!
RUDY: Good on that course,
keep that heading.
BEN: We have 16 feet
under the keel right now!
(scraping)
MARK: Ooh, that was
a (bleep) hard one.
RUDY: More!
More to port, more!
MARK: Yep, slower Ben.
BEN: I see clear water man!
It's like no ice in the water
just a quarter mile ahead.
We just have to get
through this last little crux.
RENAN: Just go straight.
There's this concentrated
chunk around the point,
and then, seems like
we might be home free.
BEN: Renan's at the masthead
parting the ice like Moses
so we can get through!
RENAN: Nice.
MARK: Holy (bleep).
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I cannot (bleep) believe it.
We're in open water, boys.
Full sail, sun,
Gjoa Haven here we come!
Polar Sun is pulling in.
This is incredible.
I can't believe
we're finally here.
Today is day 87, we've
sailed 3600 nautical miles.
We've seen ice, we've seen fog,
we've seen graves of people who
didn't make it out of here.
We've been through a lot.
Woo!
Holy (bleep).
This is a very
strange feeling.
Civilization.
Wow, we've got the
Northwest Passage right there
and then a cell
tower right there.
(laughs).
When we finally arrived,
Tom Gross was right there
waiting for us, ready to go.
(laughs).
RENAN: It's been a
long, long journey.
TOM: I thought we were gonna
have to leave without ya!
(laughs).
MARK: Wow, can't
believe I'm finally here.
TOM: Yeah, this bedroom here,
it kind of converted into
my Franklin research room.
MARK: This is the
command center.
TOM: There's something with
this mystery I mean,
every time I am ready to give
up on it, which has been a
few times in 28 years,
something happens.
Something happens that
sucks me right back in where
I've got to go back
out and look for it.
This picture is 1994, March.
This is a friend of mine who
passed away Louie Kamookak,
and when I first was
introduced to him, they said,
"This is Louie Kamookak and uh,
Louie's got the same interests
that you have, Tom,"
and so we hit it off right away.
We started talking about
different theories,
different ideas.
He told me about things that
were found around the island.
Louie's dream was always
to find that place,
the Franklin site.
And it looks a lot like
what I've drawn here for you.
MARK: You saw
this from the air?
TOM: And then we saw it.
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
MARK: But you didn't
get the GPS coordinates?
TOM: No, we
didn't get the GPS.
MARK: That's why we're
down to 30 square miles.
TOM: That's right.
MARK: That we're
going to cover?
TOM: Yeah.
If we can find the stone
structure that we saw
from the air, I'm sure we're
going to have the burial tomb
of Sir John Franklin.
MARK: I'm honored that I have
the opportunity to go there
and do this with you.
I can't even believe
this is happening.
Like, just the chance to
possibly find something that
could solve this mystery is,
that's a once in a
lifetime opportunity.
We're going to pack up and
we're going to head out in the
morning first thing on the
four-wheelers to try to
find Franklin's tomb.
TOM: You know, I've been doing
this for such a long time.
I have a really good feeling
we're going to find it.
And I've never had
this feeling the way
I've got it on this trip.
There's only one hill where
it can be, and I am almost
positive that it's there.
You know, it's always
the last minute stuff.
You don't want to be
forgetting anything now.
Because once we're out there,
if we don't have it,
we don't have it.
MARK: It's a rugged, 80 mile
journey from the port in
Gjoa Haven to our search zone.
Tom had all the bikes lined
up outside the house where
we were staying, and I realized,
"Wow, you know what?
I don't think I've
actually ridden
one of these things before".
TOM: Just follow
where we're going.
Cause we're going to be going
through and finding a good path,
and then where we
go through, you follow us.
MARK: Okay.
TOM: And you're gonna want
to be cautious all the time.
MARK: Jacob, stay
close to me please.
JACOB: Yes.
(laughs).
MARK: The overland expedition
is going to be our chance to
solve this mystery
once and for all.
TOM: Traveling up to
the search area is
really incredibly difficult.
It's long, it's rough.
There's a lot of bog
you have to cross.
RENAN: This is normal?
TOM: Yeah.
(laughs).
It's fairly risky
going out there.
There's probably nobody
better than Jacob
that knows this island.
JACOB: My role on the
expedition is to make sure
that we all come back home
safely at the end of the trip.
MARK: I think I
should go back.
Not Jacob's first rodeo.
What in the (bleep)?
You've gotta be...
come on!
Not off the most
auspicious start here.
TOM: The tundra has something
that nowhere else
in the world has.
It's hard to really describe.
You can see for miles
and miles all around you.
MARK: There's no one out
here taking care of you
other than yourself.
It hits home in a sort of a
sobering way, what it must
have been like for Franklin
and his men to be out here,
because you're in
the middle of nowhere.
Over the years, human remains
from the Franklin expedition
have been discovered
across King William Island.
In 1854, an Inuit hunter
reported finding the bones of
30 men piled together, some
with signs of cannibalism.
JIMMY: I really believe that,
you know, if Franklin and
his men had help from the Inuit
people around this area,
with their traditional clothing,
and with the hunting,
and the skills that they had,
I think they would've made it
through the Northwest Passage.
I always thought that Franklin
himself didn't want any
assistance, cause I really
believe that he wanted to do it
on his own without the
help of the Inuit people.
Their nomadic life would
have shown them that yes,
these areas are
safe to travel by.
TOM: This is it.
MARK: Wow.
TOM: Boot camp.
This is Collinson River,
and Collinson Inlet.
MARK: Wow.
TOM: We made it.
MARK: Really cool.
Tom targeted Collinson Inlet
based on Inuit testimony
about a Franklin
campsite in this area.
TOM: The first winter
when they arrived,
I think that they ended
up down in here.
So hopefully, what we can do
is prove that they did and
that we'll find a camp
out here somewhere,
and if that's correct, we should
be able to find the tomb of
Sir John Franklin in
this area as well.
MARK: Wow.
(speaking native language)
JACOB: Let the day
have good weather.
RENAN: We're about to
launch the fixed wing drone.
This has been a long term dream
to get this thing in the air.
They use these drones to,
to map the tundra,
to look at changes in the
climate, but we're using it
to map a high resolution area
to try to find the tomb.
RUDY: Look at that, shows
the airplane on the map.
We've got greens.
RENAN: Yeah!
(laughs).
TOM: This area right here.
This is what I want to see.
MARK: Right
around there, right?
TOM: Yeah.
MARK: So let's get the drone
up in the air and let's get
you pretending that the
drone is in you in the plane,
seven years ago.
We could recreate like how
it was for you that day,
back in 2015.
TOM: Perfect.
Let's try it.
MARK: We're going to very
carefully document this ridge,
because this really is
like trying to find a
needle in a haystack.
If Rudy wasn't here,
do you think you could
get this all set up?
TOM: No.
(laughs).
I couldn't even
open up the computer.
MARK: You basically just
create sort of a grid over
what you want to search, and
then the plane just shoots
sequential photographs
that are designed so that
they all interlink.
RENAN: So we're
at 600 feet now.
You just direct
me where to go.
TOM: This hill.
Can you go right to there?
RENAN: Yeah.
Want me to go down into it?
TOM: Yep.
Go right down into.
RENAN: I'm going down in.
TOM: You see that
island right there?
There's an island.
RENAN: Way out there?
TOM: Way out there.
So I saw that, I was
looking right at that.
MARK: You bring the plane back,
you download the imagery,
and then the software
stitches them all together
in one of these
gigapan giant photos.
RUDY: Ooh.
File is done.
Look, the quality of
the stitch is incredible.
I mean, you can zoom in.
RENAN: This is the zone.
RUDY: Each white block
represents a separate photo
of what we covered.
MARK: That's amazing.
RUDY: About 1300
photos went into that.
TOM: You see that?
This is the area.
There's no
question in my mind.
This is the area.
MARK: Tom's adamant
about what he saw in 2015.
He has seen the
tomb from the air.
Finding it again is all about,
"Where did Franklin land
when they left the ships?
Where was that camp?"
You find that camp,
you find Franklin's tomb.
We just hauled
across that flood plain.
Heading to the area
that Tom identified.
I parked the bike.
I got off.
There were these
interesting looking rocks
arranged in an unnatural way.
Look at the size
of these rocks.
What the hell.
Come on.
Holy (bleep).
What the hell is that?
Hey Tom!
This is a camp.
That's incredible.
TOM: That's a tent peg.
MARK: Come on.
You've got to be kidding me.
TOM: Tent peg.
MARK: Is that something they
would have had on the ships...
TOM: Yeah.
MARK: Or something
they would have made?
TOM: Well they would
have made them probably.
It was really, really exciting
in a sense that I was looking
for a camp and what did
we find, but a tent peg.
You know, I think we found it
within the first 40 minutes of,
of going out,
which was incredible.
You know, like that
just doesn't happen.
MARK: I think we should look
around here a little bit more.
And this? Come on!
TOM: Oh wow, eh?
Look at that.
Look at this.
RENAN: That's not
Inuit is it, Jacob?
JACOB: This one?
Not it's not.
There were some items there that
our ancestors cannot make,
such as the brass
rod and the tent peg.
It could have been a camp at
one time from the expedition.
MARK: We have Inuit testimony
saying that there's a
stone house and a
camp in this area.
Now, we have found artifacts
that support the idea that
these stories are true.
And we have Tom seeing a stone
house that perfectly fits the
description in 2015.
So we felt like we were close.
I mean, it was just like right
there, we're going to find it.
Okay, so, the weather's perfect.
We're getting close.
Let's keep going.
TOM: Let's keep going.
That's a nice hill.
Yeah, straight there.
I don't know how far away
it is but that looks
really, really good.
MARK: This is our window
to find the tomb,
before the weather turns.
The idea is to search ridge
lines that match the one
Tom saw from the
plane back in 2015.
I mean imagine
finding Franklin's diary.
We might be able
to change history.
TOM: Oh I think we're close,
this is the area.
I think that hill over there,
you know, it's just,
it's just the lighting,
throws things off.
There's one more hill up
here that I've marked,
and we should go to that one.
For me, like until I find
that stone thing that I saw,
I'm not going to
be able to rest.
You know I need to see that,
I need to see what it was and
put that to rest.
MARK: Keep going down.
TOM: Yeah, I know, yeah.
MARK: There's all these big,
black, pointy rocks on that one.
I guess today is
day five or six.
We've covered I think
about 400 miles so far.
But we haven't found any
new signs of Franklin's men.
Did it not have little
lakes on the side Tom?
TOM: No, there's
no lakes on it.
MARK: It would be on
this side, right Tom?
TOM: Yeah.
RENAN: Yeah, cut out.
It's like transmission lost.
It cut out again!
TOM: How are you
feeling Jacob?
Are you feeling good
about finding it still?
JACOB: I never lose hope
until we start heading home.
MARK: What the heck?
The drain plug on the oil
pan had just fallen off.
RENAN: Do you want me to
take this bag off too?
Jacob to the rescue.
Took Jacob 20 minutes to
find a piece of driftwood.
And it's, it's holding all the
oil on the bike right now,
but I don't know how
many miles we have.
(engine rumbling).
MARK: We spent eight days
driving up and down
these gravel eskers.
I mean, just going around
in circles and up and down.
And we went from this really
high running optimism,
like we are close, like,
we are right on the trail.
And then it was just...
Day after day of frustration,
of driving through this
incredibly rugged terrain
that was destroying the bikes.
And we were spending half of
every day fixing the bikes.
We got to a certain point where,
you know, a week into searching,
there was
nowhere else to look.
We were in Erebus Bay
which is the spot where
23 of Franklin crew died.
There were signs of
cannibalism and bones
that had these cut marks.
And that's the spot where
we know things got
really desperate.
There may be some Inuit who
know where Franklin is buried,
but they don't want to mess
with it because there's a
very strong taboo in
their culture against
messing around with the dead.
JIMMY: We, as Inuit people,
still believe that
there are spirits
that are out there.
They're lost, and still
trying to find their way home.
But for me, we should
study these things
to understand what happened.
And we can pass this story
on to our next generation.
MARK: We did the best
that we could to document
some of the main search areas.
I mean, we have that data now.
We've been looking at it.
We can continue to look at it.
I could see that
being the future of
finding Franklin's tomb.
TOM: I know what
I saw in 2015.
I think that we're very,
very close to finding it.
I think that it's going to be
found probably within the
next year or two.
And not just not just Franklin,
who will basically
be frozen in time,
but maybe a couple other
officers with him.
And also it's going to
be where the records
are buried as well.
So I think it's all together,
it's once we find one thing,
we're going to have
it all and it's just,
just a matter of time
and it'll be there.
MARK: I know that the mystery
of the Franklin expedition is
gonna continue to suck
people into it's vortex.
His grave is somewhere
out there right now.
Somebody's gonna
find it someday.
And solve the Franklin
mystery once and for all.