Franklin expedition find is all relative for Brian Spenceley
Retired Lakehead University professor had two great-great uncles serving in Franklin's crew
For Brian Spenceley of Thunder Bay, it's all relative, when it comes to the recent discovery of one of the missing ships from the Franklin expedition.
The 82-year old retired Lakehead University physics professor is the great-great nephew of the Hartnell brothers, who were crew members on the ill-fated voyage to find the Northwest Passage.
Spenceley said he was delighted to hear the ship had been located.
"Tickled to death, of course. I hadn't really thought they would. But I've always thought of it as being a separate problem from the problem of what happened to the crew," he said.
"The ships went one way. The crew went another, and we have bone and artifact evidence of how far the crew got, but nothing about the ships," said Spenceley.
Looking into the eyes of a long-dead relative
Spenceley has been involved in researching the doomed group himself.
Hartnell had been buried on the island along with fellow sailors John Torrington and William Braine.
Spenceley said over the years, the coffin had filled with water, which had refrozen around his great-great uncle's body. He said the team spent hours gently pouring warm water into the casket.
"Bit by bit, we thawed the ice, and revealed his face, first of course, and there he was. And he had a strong resemblance to my grandmother, oddly enough. The Hartnells all seem to have long noses. John Hartnell did too," said Spenceley.
Spenceley says it was a unique moment in his life to look into the face of his long-dead uncle.
"Nobody had ever done, had been presented with this, literally looking into the eyes of a relative who had been dead for 140 years. It was just rather overwhelming. There wasn't sadness then. It was a sense of wonder," said Spenceley.
'...amazed that it all happened to me'
He said the sadness came later, as they prepared to re-bury Hartnell.
"It was really a normal family burial, so far as I was concerned... he had been part of [the] family, and he had died tragically, very young, and there we were, putting him back under the permafrost again," said Spenceley.
"There are times when I forgot that I was there," he added. "And when these events come up, I look through my old photographs, and all the old documentation and am mildly puzzled and amazed that it all happened to me."
Spenceley says he`s hoping dive missions to the shipwreck will uncover more items that will help tell the story of the doomed voyage to chart the Northwest Passage.