New video sheds light on sunken HMS Erebus wreck from Franklin expedition

Parks Canada underwater archaeologist Ryan Harris examines debris from the shipwrecked HMS Erebus in the Queen Maud Gulf, Thursday, April 16, 2015.

Parks Canada has released the first footage captured from the watery wreck of  HMS Erebus, one of two ships that went missing 170 years ago as part of the lost Franklin expedition.

Ice divers and archaeologists spent nearly two weeks in the Arctic investigating the underwater wreck, which was discovered last September about 11 metres beneath the frigid waters of the Queen Maud Gulf. The wreck was later identified as HMS Erebus, the flagship of expedition leader Sir John Franklin himself.

Sonar images from HMS Erebus wreck indicate it is well-preserved, with the sheared-off main mast and some of the deck structures still intact.

Divers recovered a large brass bell from the Erebus in November.

The Erebus and its companion ship, HMS Terror, vanished in 1845 on a mission to discover the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic. All 129 members of the expedition were lost, including Franklin.

Archaeologists have recovered several bits of evidence indicating some may have survived the ill-fated expedition, but no one ever returned from the North to tell of what happened.

An early search party found a note at Victory Point on King William Island recounting how both ships became trapped in the Arctic ice in 1846. According to the note, Franklin died the following year, on June 11, 1847.

The fate of HMS Terror remains a mystery.