I just finished reading a good book called The Voyage of the Fox.  This was one of the 40 expeditions that went out into the NW passage to rescue or find the remains of the crews in the Franklin Expedition of 1845.  Well written book describing the hardships they faced.

This is probably the fourth book I have read either about the expedition itself or search expeditions.  Many men and ships were lost in the futile search.

By 1855 the government of England stated it was no longer going to finance expeditions to find Franklin as the cost in money, ships and men was too great.  Franklin’s widow sold off most of her property to finance one more expedition including purchasing a private yacht The Fox.  Again to no avail.

After reading it I mentioned to Pat that if ever I was lost in the mountains on one of my hikes and after search and rescue gave up finding me I hope she would not sell up the property to finance private search parties to find my body.  She said of course not.  As I turned away I realized that she answered that rather quickly.

They were a different breed of men in those days that would suffer as they did for exploration.