Canadian government scientists hoping for a second major Arctic shipwreck discovery this summer came up empty after a six-day search for the Terror and Erebus, the lost vessels of the 19th-century Franklin Expedition, reports Postmedia.
Parks Canada archeologist Ryan Harris, who led July's successful search for the wreck of HMS Investigator -- one of many British ships sent to look for the Terror and Erebus in the 1850s -- said Monday a 150-square-kilometre sweep of the Queen Maud Gulf seabed near Nunavut's O'Reilly Island yielded no sign of the ill-fated vessels.
Last month's discovery of the Investigator, found at the bottom of Mercy Bay off Northwest Territories' Banks Island, had fuelled hoped that the Terror or Erebus might finally be found as well.
But Harris and Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada's director of underwater archeology, said this summer's search -- along with a previous probe in 2008 -- has narrowed the hunt for the ships to a 150-square-kilometre area on the northeast side of O'Reilly Island, located between mainland Nunavut and King William Island.
