Trent DNA work helps ID Arctic explorer

After almost 30 years of researching the famed Franklin Expedition through the Canadian Arctic, a Trent University professor has helped to positively identify, for the first time, the remains of a crew member.

Anne Keenleyside, an associate professor in Trent’s University’s anthropology department, has been researching the expedition since 1993, analyzing skeletal remains of more than a dozen crew members recovered from King William Island.

Her research, together with teams from the University of Waterloo and Lakehead University, has led to the identification of the first member of the 1845 Franklin expedition through DNA and genealogical analyses.

Led by captain Sir John Franklin, a British exploration team departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, seeking to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic.

The expedi- tion met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island, in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year, Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died.

Keenleyside’s research helped identify the remains of warrant officer John Gregory, an engineer aboard HMS Erebus.

“With DNA extracted from tooth and bone samples taken here at Trent and analyzed by my colleague, Dr. Stephen Fratpietro, in the Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University, we were able to identify the remains of warrant officer John Gregory, engineer aboard HMS Erebus,” said Keenleyside.

“Our results matched a DNA sample obtained from one of his direct descendants and we now know that Gregory was one of three crew members who died at this particular site on King William Island.”

The group’s findings provide a new chapter to the story of the ill-fated Franklin expedition and provide descendants with some closure on the fate of their ancestor.

The discovery was supported through a grant from the Symons Trust Fund for Canadian Studies, as well as the Government of Nunavut and the University of Waterloo.

Keenleyside was involved in the facial reconstruction of two of the crania found at the King William Island site, and DNA samples were taken for analysis.

“Once we had this database, our next step was to seek out living descendants of the crew and ask them if they would be willing to submit buccal samples for DNA analysis to try and identify the remains found on King William Island,” Keenleyside said.

“We are truly grateful to the Gregory family for providing DNA samples in support of our research, and we encourage other descendants of the Franklin expedition crew to reach out to our team.”

The journey to identify the remainder of the Franklin expedition crew and to learn more about their experiences continues.

In collaboration with scientists in Trent’s Water Quality Centre, Keenleyside and the team recently conducted isotopic analyses of some of the remains to examine the geographic place of origin of each of the individuals.

Doug Stenton, a University of Waterloo archeologist who coled the research, is a graduate of Trent University.