What a desolate and moving place!
Beechey Island is best known as the first over-wintering base in 1845/46 of the doomed Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Three crew members died and were buried here. Their tombs are still here with replacement plaques. A fourth tomb is of one of a search expedition member who also died here, and there is a memorial to a French officer who died nearby carrying messages between the various rescue ships. The outlines of the story are explained on the information board on the beach.
Further along the beach are the remains of Northumberland House a building erected in 1853 to provide protection and supplies for any expedition members who returned (none ever did).
In 1903, paying respect to Franklin, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen stopped at the island at the beginning of his successful voyage through the Northwest Passage.
Northumberland House
Memorial to Franklin
Tributes left by visitors
A naturalist on the lookout for polar bears