British explorer Sir John Franklin and 128 sailors aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, vanished in 1846 during their quest to find the long-sought passage along the northern coast of North America and through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Harper said it wasn’t yet known which of the ships — ”perfectly preserved” but with ”a little bit of damage” — had been found.
Canada committed in 2008 to finding British explorer Sir John Franklin’s ships as part of its bid to claim sovereignty over the commercially valuable Northwest Passage, which stretches 500 miles above the Arctic Circle and about 1,200 miles from the North Pole. Climate change has melted the Arctic ice, opening up the coveted shipping lane. In late 2009, the country’s parliament renamed it the “Canadian Northwest Passage.”
Not so fast, the United States and several European maritime nations say. They argue that the passage is international water, not just Canada’s.