David C. Woodman

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David Charles Woodman (born 1956) is a Canadian mariner, author, and arctic researcher. He is known for his research on Franklin's Lost Expedition, having led or participated in nine expeditions to King William Island between 1992 and 2004, searching for relics, records, and the wrecks of the ships HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, and establishing the important role of Inuit oral testimony in the search.

Biography[]

Woodman grew up in Ontario, sailing and wreck-diving on the Great Lakes.[1] He studied as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto. In his first year, he found a reprinted copy of Voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic Seas by Francis Leopold McClintock, which inspired him to search for the two shipwrecks and become the first person to dive at the sites. He studied Franklin Expedition documents at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge and the National Maritime Museum in London, and received documents from the Smithsonian, including unpublished Inuit testimony collected by Charles Francis Hall.[2] He was the first person to publish a report on the testimony of Supunger, an Inuk hunter from the Boothia Peninsula who told Hall he had found an underground burial vault on King William Island while searching for items left by Franklin's men with his uncle in 1863.[3]

King William Island search expeditions[]

Using the Inuit testimony as a guide, Woodman led and participated in search expeditions on King William Island. In Summer 1993 and 1995, he led Project Supunger, searching for vaults and landmarks related to the Franklin Expedition in the northwest of the island. These projects identified many of the key Franklin landmarks along the coast, including the grave of an officer identified as Terror Lieutenant John Irving, originally found in 1879 by Heinrich Klutschak of the Frederick Schwatka arctic expedition, which Woodman laid down in to ascertain its size.[4]

Starting in 2001, Woodman's team employed a search strategy including a magnetometer on a qamutiik, drawn by a ski-doo, with the hope of detecting the metallic former railway boilers used on the two ships, as well as sonar booms and depth soundings, to reduce the search area where the ships could be located. They searched the southwestern corner of Wilmot and Crampton Bay, and found tent sites, relics, and a skull.[5] In 2004, after nine expeditions to the Canadian arctic, Woodman opted not to participate in further expeditions, in part because Parks Canada was mounting their own annual searches with more substantial and predictable funding.[5]

Personal life[]

Woodman is a senior master for BC Ferries and lives in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.[6] He formerly served as assistant harbour master in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.[7] He has a wife and two daughters.[8]

Influence[]

Woodman's collection and support of Inuit testimony in researching the Franklin Expedition has led to multiple discoveries. Douglas Stenton, an archaeologist with Parks Canada, adopted Woodman's belief that "all Inuit stories concerning white men should have a discoverable factual basis" when assessing possible Franklin-related archaeological sites in and around King William Island.[9] While Woodman himself did not find the shipwrecks, his searches and insistence on the veracity of Inuit oral testimony did culminate in Parks Canada's discovery of Erebus in Erebus Bay in 2014.[5]

Woodman has given talks about Inuit oral testimony and the Franklin expedition, and is recognized as an authority on the subject.[10]

Books[]

  • Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991. (ISBN 0773508333)
  • Strangers Among Us, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995. (ISBN 0773513485)

References[]

  1. ^ Dick, Lyle (ed.). "Full Interview with David Woodman". Canadian Mysteries. Retrieved 28 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ Potter, Russell A. (2016). Finding Franklin : the untold story of a 165-year search. Montreal [Quebec]: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-7735-9961-1. OCLC 959865229.
  3. ^ Gross, Tom; Taichman, Russell S. (2017). "A comparative analysis of the Su-pung-er and Bayne testimonies related to the Franklin expedition". Polar Record. 53 (6): 561–579. doi:10.1017/S0032247417000535. ISSN 0032-2474.
  4. ^ Potter (2016), 175.
  5. ^ a b c Potter (2016), 186.
  6. ^ "Author Bio | Unravelling the Franklin Mystery, Second Edition | McGill-Queen's University Press". McGill-Queen's University Press. Retrieved 28 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ "Author Bio | Strangers Among Us | McGill-Queen's University Press". McGill-Queen's University Press. Retrieved 28 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ Woodman, David C. (2015). Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony (2 ed.). Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. xvi. ISBN 978-0-7735-8217-0. OCLC 1079379591.
  9. ^ Stenton, Douglas R.; Park, Robert W. (2017). "History, Oral History and Archaeology: Reinterpreting the "Boat Places" of Erebus Bay". Arctic. 70 (2): 203–218. ISSN 0004-0843.
  10. ^ James, David (18 September 2019). "Leading authorities on ill-fated Franklin Expedition will present at Anchorage Museum this week". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved 28 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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