''Breadalbane'' was an 1843 British three-masted merchant

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...

that was crushed by ice and sank in the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

in 1853. Notable as one of the northernmost shipwrecks known, she is also considered one of the best-preserved wooden ships ever found in the sea due to slow deterioration in the cold Arctic water. Historically, ''Breadalbane'' is considered to be a time capsule. On 21 August 1853, she became trapped by an

ice floe An ice floe () is a large pack of floating ice often defined as a flat piece at least 20 m across at its widest point, and up to more than 10 km across. Drift ice is a floating field of sea ice composed of several ice floes. They may cau ...

and was crushed. She sank to the bottom of the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arc ...

near

Beechey Island Beechey Island ( iu, Iluvialuit, script=Latn) is an island located in the Arctic Archipelago of Nunavut, Canada, in Wellington Channel. It is separated from the southwest corner of Devon Island by Barrow Strait. Other features include Wellington C ...

Lancaster Sound Lancaster Sound () is a body of water in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located between Devon Island and Baffin Island, forming the eastern entrance to the Parry Channel and the Northwest Passage. East of the sound lies Baffin Bay ...

, approximately north of the Arctic Circle. Her entire crew of 21 abandoned ship in time and were rescued by her companion, . In August 1980, the wreck was discovered by a five-man team led by Joe MacInnis working from the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker ''Sir John A. McDonald''. Three years later it was designated a

national historic site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC), as being ...

because the ship was used in the search for

John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...

's lost expedition.

Characteristics

''Breadalbane'' was built by Hedderwich & Rowan for a Scottish merchant consortium in a shipyard on the Clyde River, in Scotland in 1843. She was named after Breadalbane, a region of the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...

. The ship was originally used to transport wine, wool and grain to Europe, and spent her first ten years sailing between England and

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

carrying various goods. ''Breadalbane'' was a 428-ton, wooden square-rigged sailing ship. The design was similar to hundreds of other trans-oceanic ships used in early Victorian times. She was long, with a beam of and a hold depth of .

Arctic service

In the spring of 1853, the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

called the ship into service to transport coal and other supplies to the ''North Star'', a depot ship. She left the Thames River in 1853, accompanied by HMS ''Phoenix'' (the first propeller ship in the Arctic), and arrived at a rallying point at Beechey Island later that year. Her new mission would be to carry supplies to Sir

Edward Belcher Admiral Sir Edward Belcher (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877) was a British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer. Born in Nova Scotia, he was the great-grandson of Jonathan Belcher, who served as a colonial governor of Massachusett ...

's high Arctic search expedition in the Resolute Bay area (now part of Nunavut). Since 1852, Belcher's expedition had been searching for the

Franklin Expedition Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, and , and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwes ...

. The ship and crew had gone missing while searching for a passage through the Arctic seas. Belcher's expedition was both the largest, and the last sent by the Royal Navy.

Trapped in ice

On 21 August 1853, ''Breadalbane'' was anchored to an ice floe half a mile south of

, approximately 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It had become surrounded by slow-moving ice. Shortly after midnight, a slab of ice penetrated the starboard bow. The crew quickly salvaged as many supplies and personal items as possible. The 21-man crew then abandoned the ship. Within fifteen minutes, the vessel sank to the floor of the

Barrow Strait Barrow Strait is a shipping waterway in Northern Canada's territory of Nunavut. Forming part of the Parry Channel, the strait separates several large islands including Cornwallis Island and Devon Island to the north, from Prince of Wales Isla ...

in an approximate position of . The crew was rescued by HMS ''Phoenix''.

Shipwreck

The wreck of ''Breadalbane'' was first discovered in August 1980, by a team led by

Joseph B. MacInnis Joseph Beverly MacInnis D.Sc. (born 2 March 1937) is a Canadian physician, author, and diver. In 1974, MacInnis was the first scientist to dive in the near-freezing waters beneath the North Pole. In 1976 he became a member of the Order of Cana ...

. Two previous attempts in 1978 and 1979 failed to find any trace of the ship. Using side-scan sonar towed by , the ship was found in of water south of

. She was lying intact on the seafloor with two of her three masts still standing and her bow pointing east. In September 1981, MacInnis, working on , led a team that used a remotely operated vehicle to collect more than 1,000 images. It was revealed a debris field with the fallen mast, the ship's copper-sheathed lower hull, and a flat-roofed deckhouse. A small cabinet on the aft end of the deckhouse held a compass and signal light. Below the cabinet was the wooden steering wheel. The ship was wrapped in soft, pink coral. In 1983, another four manned- and six remotely operated vehicle dives were made, during which the ship's wheel was recovered and turned over to Parks Canada for preservation and display.

Footnotes

External links