NWP voyagers visit John Rae Plaque

Earlier this week, about 50 Northwest Passage voyagers landed on Boothia Peninsula to pay homage to explorer John Rae by visiting the John Rae Plaque and Cairn. Marine biologist Pierre Richard, pictured above taking a selfie at the site,  was the one who let me know. Over the years, while sailing with Adventure Canada, I…

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Toronto Star searching for Franklin

Images: Edwin  Landseer & Sheena Fraser McGoogan From the Toronto Star, August 19, 2023 By Ken McGoogan The Franklin search season is almost upon us. Last year, during eleven days in early September, Parks Canada underwater archaeologists retrieved 275 artifacts from HMS Erebus. That ship was one of the two recently located wrecks from the…

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Was I wrong to cite the Quartet?

Searching for Franklin

Was I wrong? That is the question. Whenever I publish a book, I revise my business card, putting the new opus on the front. Over the course of a year, I must hand out, what? ten or twelve of these cards? That’s my idea of effective advertising. Highlight the new book in all things. But…

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Shackleton? Endurance? Why so excited?

So what is it about Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance? Why so much excitement about the recent discovery of an old wooden ship at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean? In my book Celtic Lightning, I devote a chapter to Irish-born Shackleton, noting that once upon a time, he came that close to becoming an…

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‘Franklinistas’ are surfing an Arctic tsunami

KEN MCGOOGAN Special to The Globe and Mail Published Saturday, Mar. 18, 2017 Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition, by Paul Watson. M&S, Penguin Random House, 384 pages, $34.95. Minds of Winter, by Ed O’Loughlin. House of Anansi, 481 pages, $22.95. The headline is telegraphic: “How quest for Northwest Passage turned into…

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