Peterborough Museum Exhibit Highlights Inuit Role in Search for the Franklin Exhibition

A new exhibit, The Ones We Met – Inuit Traditional Knowledge and the Franklin Expedition, will occupy the Peterborough Museum & Archives for three months announced on Monday.

Photo courtesy of the City of Peterborough.

The exhibition features photographs, illustrations and an animated map of routes charted by Europeans looking for a Northwest Passage in the 350 years before Franklin’s expedition.

The Franklin Expedition was a voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed from England in 1845 aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

Visitors can hear stories of Inuit encounters with Franklin and his men and of Martin Frobisher’s voyages to Baffin Island in the 1570s.

The expedition ended in disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 128 officers and men, became icebound in what is now Nunavut.

“This exhibit is a great opportunity for visitors to learn about an important perspective surrounding the account of the Franklin Expedition. From the time HMS Erebus and Terror got trapped in the icy north, Inuit have been a part of the story. When that chapter came to a close, they continued to share their experience to younger generations, of the crewmen they met, and of ships stuck in ice,” said Dustin McIlwain, Peterborough Museum and Archives Community Engagement Coordinator.

Presented in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English and French — the four official languages of Nunavut — the travelling exhibition will be on display at the Peterborough Museum & Archives from Sept. 18 to Dec. 5.

“This tradition of sharing oral histories was a key component to the discovery of these wrecks. To this day, the Inuit continue their key role in sharing this story, as well as the preservation of this historical site. The narrative will continue to evolve with time, as we embrace the concept of storytelling as a way to keep our history alive,” said McIlwain.

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