The Phaeton Ice Corps salutes the graves of men lost on the Franklin Expedition, at Terror Bay. Icebreaker Chief Engineer Mark Cusack stands armed watch in the background, keeping a lookout for polar bears.

Sir John Franklin's expedition was a superbly well-equipped mission dispatched by the British Admiralty in 1845 to explore the Northwest Passage. The expedition became trapped in the ice, and after two years the brutal conditions had taken the staggering toll of one hundred and twenty-nine dead men.

Here on Beechey Island lay the ruins of shelters built by Franklin's men, and the graves of some of the first men to die. Their bodies remain frozen here as they have been for over a century now. As we surveyed this scene, we looked out at the blue water in Terror Bay, where our icebreaker lay a short distance offshore. If any of these men had ever seen blue water during the years that the Franklin expedition held out to the bitter end, they would have been able to return home to their families.

The counterpoint between the graves of these brave young men and the sunlit waters glittering a few hundred feet away was deeply sobering to us, a vivid image of the truth that the world is changing. We considered our predecessors to this lonely, distant place, and before departing the island the Phaeton Ice Corps offered a formal salute at the graves to all who were lost.