In 1845 Sir John Franklin and his crew, in the stout ships Erebus and Terror, fortified against ice and provisioned for a three years' journey, set off into the Arctic in an attempt to be the first to sail the North West Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. They were never seen again. Twelve years later 14-year-old Peter Griffin joins the crew of the tiny steam yacht Fox on an expedition to discover their fate. Peter resolutely endures the close quarters on board ship, the cold and the dark, and the dangers of the forbidding Arctic landscape. As they travel further and further from home they find strange fragments, traces of men who have travelled before them. Soon they make discoveries that suggest the terrible fate suffered by Franklin and his men. Based on historical accounts, Mystery in the Frozen Lands offers one boy's perspective of one the greatest of all Canadian disasters.
Author
Martyn N. Godfrey (April 17, 1949—2000) was an English-Canadian author of children's fantasy books. Born in Birmingham, England, he moved to Toronto, Ontario when he was eight. Godfrey graduated from university in 1974 with a teaching degree. Godfrey was the Edmonton Public Library’s writer-in-residence in 1989. He died in 2000. The Young Alberta Book Association presents an annual Martyn Godfrey Young Writers Award in his name.
