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Toronto • One of two British explorer ships that disappeared in the Arctic nearly 170 years ago has been found, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Tuesday.
The HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were last seen in the 1840s. Canada announced in 2008 that it would search for the ships led by British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin.
Harper, speaking in Ottawa, said it remains unclear which ship has been found, but images show there's enough information to confirm it's one of the pair.
Franklin and 128 hand-picked officers and men vanished on an expedition in 1846 to find the fabled Northwest Passage. Franklin's disappearance prompted one of history's largest and longest rescue searches, from 1848 to 1859, which resulted in the passage's long-sought discovery.
The passage runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic archipelago. European explorers sought the passage as a shorter route to Asia, but found it rendered inhospitable by ice and weather.
"This is truly a historic moment for Canada," said Harper, who was beaming, uncharacteristically. "This has been a great Canadian story and mystery and the subject of scientists, historians, writers and singers so I think we really have an important day in mapping the history of our country."
Harper's government made the search for Franklin's ships a priority as it looked to assert Canada's sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, where melting Arctic ice has unlocked the very shipping route Franklin was after.
Dozens of searches for the ships helped open up parts of the Canadian Arctic for discovery back in the 1800s.
Harper said the ship was found Sunday using a remotely operated underwater vehicle. They found the wreck 11 meters (yards) below the water's surface.
The ship appears to be well-preserved. Ryan Harris, a senior underwater archaeologist and one of the people leading the Parks Canada search, said a sonar image shows some of the deck structures are still intact, including the main mast, which was sheared off by the ice when the ship sank. He said the contents of the ship are most likely in the same good condition.
The discovery comes shortly after a team of archeologists found a tiny fragment from the Franklin expedition. Searchers discovered an iron fitting that once helped support a boat from one of the doomed expedition's ships in the King William Island search area.
Franklin's vessels are among the most sought-after prizes in marine archaeology. Harper said the discovery would shed light on what happened to Franklin's crew.
Tantalizing traces have been found over the years, including the bodies of three crewmen discovered in the 1980s.
The bodies of two English seamen — John Hartnell, 25, and Royal Marine William Braine, 33 — were exhumed in 1986. An expedition uncovered the perfectly preserved remains of a petty officer, John Torrington, 20, in an ice-filled coffin in 1984.
Experts believe the ships were lost in 1848 after they became locked in the ice near King William Island and that the crews abandoned them in a hopeless bid to reach safety.
The search for an Arctic passage to Asia frustrated explorers for centuries, beginning with John Cabot's voyage in 1497. Eventually it became clear that a passage did exist, but was too far north for practical use. Cabot, the Italian-British explorer, died in 1498 while trying to find it and the shortcut eluded other famous explorers including Henry Hudson and Francis Drake.
No sea crossing was successful until Roald Amundsen of Norway completed his trip from 1903-1906.