Archaeologists recover ship lost for more than 150 years

Toronto: Canadian archeologists have found a ship abandoned more than 150 years ago in the quest for the fabled Northwest Passage and which was lost in the search for the doomed expedition of Sir John Franklin, the head of the team said on Wednesday.

Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada's head of underwater archaeology, said the HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, was found in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's western Arctic.

Captained by Robert McClure, the Investigator sailed in 1850. That year, McClure sailed the Investigator into the strait that now bears his name and realised that he was in the final leg of the Northwest Passage, the sea route across North America.

But before he could sail into the Beaufort Sea, the ship was blocked by pack ice and forced to winter along the east coast of Banks Island.

The following summer, McClure tried again to sail to the end of the Passage, but was again blocked by ice. He steered the ship and crew into a large bay on the island's north coast he called the Bay of Mercy.

There they were to remain until 1853, when they were rescued by the crew of the HMS Resolute. The Investigator was abandoned.