- (CP) - Three unmarked graves, their age and inhabitants
unknown. Buried carefully nearby under precisely stacked rocks, a weathered
old wooden chest sealed with a rusty padlock, its contents just as mysterious.
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- A seafaring yarn of Caribbean pirates? No. An Arctic
mystery near Baker Lake, Nunavut - one that a team of archeologists hope
to solve this summer.
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- "We really don't know what's in this box,"
says Doug Stenton, Nunavut's head archeologist who will lead the expedition.
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- "People love a mystery. It should be fun and exciting
to go see what's in there."
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- The site was discovered last summer by a group of Inuit
hunters who were out on the land by the north channel of Baker Lake, fishing
and hunting caribou on the lakes and rolling tundra hills.
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- Nasty weather forced the group to hunker down for a few
days and while they holed up in the area, one of the men found the graves
and the buried chest amidst evidence of an old campsite.
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- "We were joking that there's a million dollars in
there," says John Avaala, one of the hunters.
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- Despite their curiosity, the men didn't remove the rocks
and lift out the chest, which is less than one metre square.
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- "I touched it but never opened it," Avaala
says. "I think (the chest) is a grave.
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- "It's very old."
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- When the men returned to Baker Lake, they reported their
find to the mayor. Word got around the small town and eventually the area's
MLA took the news back to the territorial capital of Iqaluit, where Stenton's
office was informed.
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- Only a pile of rocks and gravel marks the site. Around
it lie shards of broken glass and pieces of metal.
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- Stenton said that probably puts the site sometime during
the last few hundred years since European contact and exploration. The
graves aren't built in the typical Inuit style, either.
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- Avaala has his own theory.
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- "I think they're white men - kabloonaks.
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- "I think that was shipwreck from the north channel
of Baker Lake. There are some big chains near it about half a mile (away)."
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- Baker Lake is linked to the west coast of Hudson Bay
by Chesterfield Inlet.
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- In the 1700s, the inlet was explored as a possible route
to China. During the next century, it was sailed by whalers looking for
prey.
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- There are no records of expeditions being lost in the
area, says Stenton, but that doesn't mean the site isn't the remains of
one.
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- "There has been quite a bit of travel through that
general area over the years," he says. "The community sent us
over some paperwork on some of the expeditions that have passed through
the area so we'll be doing more research on that before we go."
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- The contents of the box may hold the key.
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- "People have been speculating there could be some
notes in that box or something to do with people who got lost and perished
there," Stenton says. "Burying someone in a locked box isn't
something that I'm familiar with, but I suppose that's a possibility as
well."
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- The archeologists won't excavate the graves but the box
will be removed and opened by trained conservation staff.
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- Stenton plans to be on the site sometime around mid-August,
depending on weather and the progress of other excavations during the summer
field season.
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- "We don't have plans other than to document the
graves that are there," he said. "The box is a bit of an enigma,
though. It's a bit of a mystery, so it's certainly worth investigating."
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- Copyright © 2004, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe
Inc. All rights reserved. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/07/11/536156-cp.html
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- Comment
- From Sandra Belanger
7-13-4
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- When I read the article about the mysterious locked box
the first thing I thought of was this old song.
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- LORD FRANKLIN
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- It was homeward bound one night on the deep
- Swinging in my hammock I fell asleep
- I dreamed a dream and I thought it true
- Concerning Franklin and his gallant crew
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- With one hundred seamen he sailed away
- To the frozen ocean in the month of May
- To seek that passage aroung the pole
- When we poor seaman do soetimes go
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- Through cruel hardships they mainly strove
- Their ship on mountains os ice was drove
- Only the Eskimo in his skin canoe
- Was the only one who ever came through
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- In Baffin's Bay where the whale fish blow
- The fate of Franklin no man may know
- The fate of Franklin no tongue can tell
- Lord Franklin along with his sailors do dwell
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- And now my burden it gives me pain
- For my long lost Franklin I'd cross the main
- Ten thousand pounds would I freely give
- To say on earth that my Franklin do live
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- I don't know who wrote this. I do know that they found
and exumed other members of this misbegotten expedition. They were completely
perserved and looked exactly as they had the day they died due to the fact
that they had been completely frozen since then. The clothing, everything
was completely intact. I wonder if the ship's logs from Franklin's expedition
are locked in that box. It would be positively amazing to find out what
happened to them after all of these years. This story is a rather romantic
and amazing one. Franklin's wife sent several rescue crews to go and find
her husband but they never did. She never gave up hoping that he would
return.
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