Catching up with things, I came across a story about the Canadian Government sponsoring yet another search for Sir John Franklin's ships in the Arctic. Franklin perished aboard ship off King William Island in 1848. By then, his two ships, the Erebus and Terror, had been trapped in pack ice for two years. The survivors abandoned them, attempted to drag a ship's boat overland, and perished. In all, 129 men lost their lives in the tragedy. Numerous attempts have been made to locate the ships, so far without success. The Canadian forensic anthropologist Owen Beattie investigated some graves on King William Island in the 1980s and exhumed three burials, among them the well preserved body of Petty Officer John Torrington. Beattie believes that lead poisoning from canned foods may have been an important factor in many deaths.

Now the search for the ships is to resume, this time with the help not only of Inuit oral traditions that were recorded in 1923, to the effect that a deserted ship with numerous dead men aboard lay off the coast of King William Island, but with the very latest search technology. The expedition involves a Canadian icebreaker, sonar equipment, and several years of thorough search under official government sponsorship.

Why is Ottawa suddenly interested in a virtually forgotten tragedy? Because global warming has made much of the Northwest Passage more accessible in summer, there are good reasons for Canada to protect her sovereignty claims in the High Arctic. Oil, minerals, and natural gas are, as usual, the drivers in an area where Canada claims sovereignty and others, including the United States and Britain, dispute it. Until now, the Canadians have done little to maintain a strong presence in the north. Thanks to what is turning out to have been a convenient, but obviously regrettable, tragedy a century and a half ago, that's about to change.