In 1845, Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin and a crew of 124 embarked on a fatal voyage to find the Northwest Passage. On word of their failure and death, England still hailed Franklin as a hero of the Empire.
For fear of succumbing to the ways
of savages, the officers eschewed
blubber for tinned meats that leaked
lead from the seams, refused parkas,
choosing flannel coats that got soaked,
then froze. They turned their backs
on dogsleds and igloos, which also stank
of “going native”—something their store
of Bibles, novels, carpet slippers,
silverware, and button polishers
assuredly did not. Finally, in place
of blubber, protection from the scurvy
that wracked their bones, the still-living—
snow-blind and starving, their ship
bound fast in Arctic ice—gallantly
ate the dead till the last survivor froze.