Here we are at Victory Point - exactly 150 years from the time Franklin's crew abandoned the ships here.

It was named "Victory Point" by James Ross in May of 1830......some 16 years before Franklin and his ships got trapped off shore. Ross was on an expedition with his uncle John Ross in search of the Northwest Passage. Their ship, the "Victory" was trapped in the ice on the east coast of the Boothia Peninsula. During their month long excursion they visited and named many places including Victory Point , Franklin Point and Cape Felix.

Victory Point is famous as the spot where Franklin's men came ashore and left two notes one year apart - both of them on the same piece of paper. The first note was dated "28th of May, 1847. It was left by a mapping party led by Lieut Gore. It gave a brief overview of the trip thus far and conclude with the note "Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition, All well." On April 25, 1848 the same note was retrieved and a post script was added. It said "April 25,1848. - H.M. ships 'Terror' and 'Erebus' were deserted on the 22nd April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls , under the command of Captain F.R.M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69 degrees 37 minutes 42 seconds N., long. 98 degrees 41 minutes west. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June 1847; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men." The note was signed by Crozier and Fitzjames, the two captains. Crozier added a footnote saying "and start to-morrow, 26th for Back's Fish River." The "all well" of the first note had changed dramatically in the year following with the death of Franklin and the abandonment of the ships.

We left Cambridge Bay for King William Island at 10:20 this morning. The weather was about -15 degrees C, with strong winds. On our trip over we saw at least 200 musk ox on Victoria Island. We landed here at 11:55 am. (Ron Rust commented: I've been in lots of plane landings; this was the roughest - but the best one I've ever had!) We're on a small lake near the shore of the ocean, about 3 1/2 to 4 miles north of Victory Point. We'll make the walk down to the point - it's not too far away. Our co-ordinates are North 69 degrees 42 min, West 98 degrees 16.6 minutes. Now, (at 8:15 pm. King William Island time) it's about 15 below, the sun is shining bright and we have our camp set up - we're in great shape!

We've had a great day setting up camp. We have four tents set up. Doug Stern brought a large kitchen tent that would sleep all of us. It's nice and warm in there with the stove going. We've built snow block walls around our tents to keep the wind away, and the guys are just putting the finishing touches on the most amazing outhouse you've ever seen! It's made of snow blocks, it has a snow seat, a snow entrance, a snow roof, and it's the most incredible thing! We have wonderful pictures of it. It even has an ice window facing the ocean so as you're sitting there you can look through it at the view!

The snow is amazing. It's about eighteen inches deep, and has a consistency like hard styrofoam. We cut it right out of the ground, blocks about 6-8" thick, about 12" high, about 18" long and we just build with them like building blocks!

We walked out on the ice hummocks today, and we can begin to appreciate what Franklin's men faced dragging boats through that. It's no wonder it took them three or four days - it's awful stuff. We almost injured ourselves falling through some of the drifts out there - it's really treacherous. Along the shorline there appears to be about a 200' wide smooth level area following the coastline. I imagine this is where they towed their boats. This is one of the reasons why we wanted to come up here now - to see what the conditions were like.

The sunset is showing "sun dogs". I can only describe it as: the sun is facing me right in the eyes, and there's a rainbow arching around it, at the top it looks like another sun, and on either side bright spots like two other suns. It looks like there are four suns out here. I'll try to get a picture - I don't think a sketch can do it justice.

One of our bags has gone missing. It was one that contained three sleeping bags! Fortunately, we have some extra sleeping bags and the animal skins that Doug Stern brought. It's not distressing other than we don't know where it is. We're safe, we're comfortable, we have two guns, two stoves, lots of fuel, lots of food. We had some of Fran's chili for supper, and it was just wonderful.

Well, that's about it for our report. We have to watch the batteries. The cold weather is doing a job on our camera batteries; we have to be careful of the radio batteries in particular. We'll call in at about 10:00 pm tomorrow night as usual.

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