Canadian officials have identified the name of a ship from a failed Arctic expedition that was missing for over 160 years and found last month.
"I am delighted to confirm that we have identified which ship from the Franklin expedition has been found. It is in fact that H.M.S. Erebus," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Parks Canada, which led a series of expeditions that found the storied ship, came to the conclusion by using sonar images, measurements from divers and underwater pictures from where it was found in the Victoria Strait, The New York Times reported.
The H.M.S. Erebus is one of two ships that explorer Sir John Franklin and nearly 130 crewmen set out with from Britain in 1845 to find a passage to Asia through the Arctic, also known as the Northwest Passage.
A year later, the ships became trapped in ice. At least 32 rescue missions were conducted in the Arctic to find the ships, according to the NY Times. But the search was abandoned, the crew perished and the ships remained lost until Parks Canada found one off King William Island in September.
Officials did not know which of the two ships they found until now. But there are still tons of mysteries surrounding exactly what happened to Franklin and his men when they abandoned the ships. The other ship, the H.M.S. Terror, is still missing, and officials do not know where Franklin's body is.
Franklin is believed to have been on the H.M.S. Erebus when he died. But archaeologists don't know if the crew left his body onboard or buried him at sea, CBC News reported.
"We do know that he passed away in June of 1847, but the terse note left by the crew after they deserted the ships in Victoria Strait didn't say what happened and why he died, but I supposed anything is possible," said Parks Canada underwater archaeologist Ryan Harris.
