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Perilous Position of HMS 'Terror', Captain Back, in the Arctic Regions in the Summer of 1837

Image credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

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This shows an episode during Captain George Back's voyage in the 'Terror' in the Arctic regions during 1836–1837. It was his last expedition to find a sea route from Hudson's Bay to the Polar Sea, tracing the coast of the Polar Sea between Repulse Bay and Turnagain Point, the farthest point reached by Franklin on his first overland expedition. 'Terror' was a bomb, a type of ship which was exceptionally strongly built to fire heavy mortars, and therefore used extensively for exploration in the Polar Regions. She was caught in pack ice at the entrance of Fox Channel, west of Baffin Island, and stranded for 118 days on an ice floe, where she drifted 200 miles taking a severe battering. 'Terror' was eventually brought out by passing chain cables under her keel. Beached on the Irish coast on her return voyage, but she was repaired in Ireland and sent out again with the 'Erebus' to the Antarctic under the command of Captain J. C. Ross. As a naval officer Back (1796–1878) helped to trace the Arctic coastline of North America. He wrote a narrative of the expedition in HMS 'Terror' in 1838 and was knighted in 1839.

National Maritime Museum

London

Title

Perilous Position of HMS 'Terror', Captain Back, in the Arctic Regions in the Summer of 1837

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 83.8 x W 121.9 cm

Accession number

BHC3655

Work type

Painting

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National Maritime Museum

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