Journal Entry 1 by CrazyDutchwoman from Heemstede, Noord-Holland Netherlands on Sunday, July 03, 2011

This new edition of Frozen in Time expands on the history of early British Arctic exploration and places the tragically fated Franklin expedition in the context of other expeditions of the era, including those commanded by George Back and James Clark Ross, which also suffered unaccountable and devastating losses. The authors' research reveals an unexpected — and ironic — cause for the mystery illness that befell the explorers. Never-before-seen photographs from the exhumations, updated research results, additional forensic corroboration, and a new introduction by Margaret Atwood complete this fascinating account. 

Journal Entry 2 by CrazyDutchwoman at Heemstede, Noord-Holland Netherlands on Sunday, July 03, 2011

Read from June 02 to 04, 2011

Interesting book. Just worth it for the photos of the frozen bodies alone. Wow. Maybe I should have read this book before I read The fictional Terror by Dan Simmons. Now I see how much he has taken from this book.
Anyways thanks to the reburial and examination of the 3 sailors of the lost Franklin expedition we have learned a little bit of what happened to them.

It is clear that the biggest reason is as always money. The Navy decided to go with a new provisioner for the food who it at cut rate prices. Stephen Goldner, who was awarded the contract on 1 April 1845, just seven weeks before Franklin set sail. Goldner worked in haste on the order of 8,000 tins, which were later found to have lead soldering that was "thick and sloppily done, and dripped like melted candle wax down the inside surface".

From the bodies they discovered all 3 had too much lead in them. lead poisoning.They concluded that the crew members whose graves had been found on Beechey Island most likely died of pneumonia and perhaps tuberculosis and that lead poisoning may have worsened their health, owing to badly soldered cans held in the ships' food stores. However, it was later suggested that the source of this lead may not have been tinned food, but the distilled water systems fitted to the expedition’s ships. Do not know about the latter but they also discovered cut marks on some human bones which lead them to believe that some of the men ate each other.

All in all what exactly happened to the Franklin expedition will still be a mystery but at least we did get some answers.