Finding Franklin
The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search
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Narrated by:
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Gary L. Willprecht
About this listen
In 2014, media around the world buzzed with news that an archaeological team from Parks Canada had located and identified the wreck of HMS Erebus, the flagship of Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
Finding Franklin outlines the larger story and the cast of detectives from every walk of life that led to the discovery, solving one of the Arctic’s greatest mysteries. In compelling and accessible prose, Russell Potter details his decades of work alongside key figures in the era of modern searches for the expedition and elucidates how shared research and ideas have led to a fuller understanding of the Franklin crew’s final months. Finding Franklin recounts the more than 50 searches for traces of his ships and crew and the dedicated, often obsessive, men and women who embarked on them. Potter discusses the crucial role that Inuit oral accounts, often cited but rarely understood, played in all of these searches, and continue to play to this day, and offers historical and cultural context to the contemporary debates over the significance of Franklin’s achievement. While examination of HMS Erebus will undoubtedly reveal further details of this mystery, Finding Franklin assembles the stories behind the myth and illuminates what is ultimately a remarkable decades-long discovery.
"With ambitious scope and profound depth...this seamless blend of research and captivating storytelling showcases the curiosity, frailty, and endurance of the human spirit." (Publisher’s Weekly)
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By: Stephen R. Bown
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In the Kingdom of Ice
- The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: The North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever." The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship.
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Superb tale that unravels at an iceburg's pace
- By Mel on 03-19-15
By: Hampton Sides
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A Wretched and Precarious Situation
- In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier
- By: David Welky
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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A remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal, and survival set in one of the world's most inhospitable places. In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, hundreds of miles from another human being, Commander Robert E. Peary spotted a line of mysterious peaks looming in the distance. He called this unexplored realm "Crocker Land". Scientists and explorers agreed that the world-famous explorer had discovered a new continent rising from the frozen Arctic Ocean.
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it all comes together at the end
- By Kat on 01-30-18
By: David Welky
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The Suppressed History of America
- The Murder of Meriwether Lewis and the Mysterious Discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
- By: Paul Schrag, Xaviant Haze
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Meriwether Lewis discovered far more than the history books tell - ancient civilizations, strange monuments, "nearly white, blue-eyed" Indians, and evidence that the American continent was visited long before the first European settlers arrived. And he was murdered to keep it all secret. Examining the shadows and cracks between America's official version of history, Xaviant Haze and Paul Schrag propose that the America of old taught in schools is not the America that was discovered by Lewis and Clark and other early explorers.
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Don't Bother
- By Georgia Deardoff on 03-31-17
By: Paul Schrag, and others
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The Curse of Oak Island
- The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt
- By: Randall Sullivan
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The Curse of Oak Island is a fascinating account of the strange, rich history of the island and the intrepid treasure hunters who have driven themselves to financial ruin, psychotic breakdowns, and even death in pursuit of answers. And as Michigan brothers Marty and Rick Lagina become the latest to attempt to solve the mystery, as documented on the History Channel’s television show The Curse of Oak Island, Sullivan takes listeners along to follow their quest firsthand.
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The ultimate Osk Island show add on
- By Amazon Customer on 03-27-19
By: Randall Sullivan
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Sea of Glory
- America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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America's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his best-selling In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambitious voyages of discovery the Western world has ever seen - the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.
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A good solid voyage of discovery
- By Ken Sundermeyer on 06-18-05
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Island of the Blue Foxes
- Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the world's largest, longest, and best-financed scientific expedition of all time, triumphantly successful, gruesomely tragic, and never before fully told. The immense 18th-century scientific journey, variously known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition or the Great Northern Expedition, from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the coast of North America, involved over 3,000 people and cost Peter the Great over one-sixth of his empire's annual revenue.
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Vivid History of Russia's First Contact In Alaska
- By Neil Ring on 09-01-18
By: Stephen R. Bown
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To the Edges of the Earth
- 1909, the Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age of Exploration
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: Paul Michael Garcia
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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As 1909 dawned, the greatest jewels of exploration - set at the world's frozen extremes - lay unclaimed: the North and South Poles and the so-called "Third Pole", the pole of altitude, located in unexplored heights of the Himalaya. Before the calendar turned, three expeditions had faced death, mutiny, and the harshest conditions on the planet to plant flags at the furthest edges of the Earth.
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brutally honest accounts unbelievable stories
- By Troy Hamilton on 07-17-18
By: Edward J. Larson
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Farther Than Any Man
- The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook
- By: Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the annals of seafaring and exploration, there is one name that immediately evokes visions of the open ocean, billowing sails, visiting strange, exotic lands previously uncharted, and civilizations never before encountered - Captain James Cook. Full of realistic action, lush descriptions of places and events, and fascinating historical characters such as King George III and the soon-to-be-notorious Master William Bligh, Dugard's gripping account of the life and death of Captain James Cook is a thrilling story of a discoverer hell-bent on going farther than any man.
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Sloppy History
- By Kyle P. Dalton on 04-06-18
By: Martin Dugard
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Secret Treasure of Oak Island
- The Amazing True Story of a Centuries-Old Treasure Hunt
- By: D'Arcy O'Connor
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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It started on a summer afternoon in 1795 when a young man named Daniel McGinnis found what appeared to be an old site on an island off the Acadian coast, a coastline fabled for the skullduggery of pirates. Ever since that summer day, the possibility of what might be hidden in the depths of a small island off the south coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, has made it the site of the world's longest, most expensive, and most perplexing treasure hunt. Author D'Arcy O'Connor recounts the fascinating stories and amazing discoveries of past and current treasure seekers who have sought Oak Island's fabled treasure for over 200 years.
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very informative
- By David on 03-12-19
By: D'Arcy O'Connor
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Raising the Hunley
- The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine
- By: Brian Hicks, Schuyler Kropf
- Narrated by: Harry Chase
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Abridged
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"Forget the Titanic; this sub wreck is hot," says the Wall Street Journal. Award-winning journalists Hicks and Kropf offer new insights into the dramatic history and mysterious disappearance of the Hunley, the first submersible to sink another ship. The Hunley represented one of the major technological breakthroughs of the Civil War, and it has fascinated many to the point of obsession ever since its disappearance.
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Great Civil War history
- By Randall E. on 11-10-03
By: Brian Hicks, and others
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The Great Race
- The Race Between the English and the French to Complete the Map of Australia
- By: David Hill
- Narrated by: Paul English
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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On the afternoon of 8 April 1802, in the remote southern ocean, two explorers had a remarkable chance encounter. Englishman Matthew Flinders and Frenchman Nicolas Baudin had been sent by their governments on the same quest: to explore the uncharted coast of the great south land and find out whether the west and east coasts, four thousand kilometres apart, were part of the same island. And so began the race to compile the definitive map of Australia.
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The Story of Australia that I Never Knew
- By MarkH on 04-05-13
By: David Hill
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The Shipwreck Hunter
- A Lifetime of Extraordinary Discoveries on the Ocean Floor
- By: David L. Mearns
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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David L. Mearns has discovered some of the world's most fascinating and elusive shipwrecks. The Shipwreck Hunter chronicles his most intriguing finds. It describes the extraordinary techniques used, the detailed research, and mid-ocean stamina and courage required to find a wreck thousands of feet beneath the sea, plus the moving human stories that lie behind each of these oceanic tragedies. Combining the adventuring derring-do of Indiana Jones with the precision of a scientist, The Shipwreck Hunter opens an illuminating porthole into the shadowy depths of the ocean.
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Delivered More Than I Expected!
- By Jason V. Kilmer on 08-07-18
By: David L. Mearns
What listeners say about Finding Franklin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael
- 08-25-23
Absolute must-read for Franklin fanatics
Russell Potter is a treasure himself. The meticulous attention to detail paired with his passion for the subject have given those of us bitten by the Franklin bug a compelling and thorough timeline of the search so far (as of time of publication). Even having only discovered this book after the discovery of the HMS Terror, this book and it’s journey to document the search leading up to HMS Erebus is invaluable for armchair enthusiasts and professionals alike. I will be purchasing a hard copy for my own collection to reference in the future.
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- Sib M
- 02-01-22
narrator does not pause between sentences
I was really interested in this story but had to return the audiobook because the intonation of the narrator is so bad. He pauses in the middle of a sentence but not between sentences and it just made listening way too hard. I shall borrow the print book from the library instead.
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- UPnonS
- 10-09-20
fascinating, scholarly, lively
fair & balanced account of complex histories & cultures; listened for a 2nd reading; recommend in print & audio
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