Perhaps the most tragic story from the Franklin expedition of 1819–1822 was the murder of Robert Hood, a talented midshipman who left a number of watercolours of the trip and of the peoples and fauna encountered (Houston Reference Houston1974; Franklin Reference Franklin2000). The story even became the basis for a novel that won the annual Governor General of Canada's prize for fiction in 1994 for the Alberta writer, Rudy Wiebe (Wiebe Reference Wiebe1994). The expedition undertook a desperately difficult trek that saw only nine survivors of the original twenty members, but it resulted in the first map of 800 km (500 miles) of the northern central Arctic coast of Canada.

In 2002, an anonymous donor gave the Vancouver Maritime Museum what appears to be a previously unknown watercolour by Hood depicting a ship on the rocks (Fig. 1). He had acquired it at a Quebec dealer some decades before and its provenance is uncertain although said to be ‘from a cabin in a fishing village on James Bay’. The dealer, Michel Bigué in St. Sauveur, informed the author that his gallery had purchased the work from a long closed gallery in Quebec City. There are a number of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) posts along the shores of the bay and it is possible that the painting originated there, perhaps given by Hood to a Bay man as he passed through York Factory.

Fig. 1.

Watercolour by Robert Hood.

The painting is labeled in pencil ‘Prince of Wales on the Rocks’, which appears to be a reference to the near disaster that the HBC ships carrying the expedition members suffered in fog on 7 August 1819 as they passed through the straits leading into Hudson Bay. It is 5.25″ (13.34 cm) by 3.5″ (8.89 cm) in size and has holes and stains, probably made by carpet tacks, at the edges of three sides. In style it resembles a number of known Hood paintings in details such as the depiction of hills and sky.

The small expedition had set out in May 1819 from Gravesend for the long voyage to York Factory at the mouth of the Nelson River on the western shore of Hudson Bay. The three ships transporting the expedition, Prince of Wales, Eddystone and Wear, were conveying men and stores to the HBC's principal post on the bay as they did each year. Ice was particularly early in 1819 and in August the ships encountered icebergs and pack ice near Resolution Island just off the southern tip of Baffin Island.

The painting depicts a sailing ship that is partially dismasted and apparently up against the shore of a forbidding coastline. A boat rows toward it from the left. The damage appears to be extensive, and this image raises a particular difficulty. Although both Prince of Wales and Wear suffered from the ice, in the accounts by Hood or Franklin neither received such a dramatic battering and both made it safely to York Factory (Houston Reference Houston1974: 10–12; Franklin Reference Franklin2000: 37–39). A watercolour by Hood dated 18 August shows Prince of Wales in excellent condition, for example (Hood 1974: plate 18). In this case the ship lies on one side and seems to have only part of one mast with the lowest yard remaining. It is rather crudely depicted unlike the clear and excellent rendering of the HBC ships on other paintings by Hood. A pencil inscription on the back reads ‘Robert Hood . . . murdered’. There are unclear letters or numbers between ‘Hood’ and ‘murdered’.

Because we know little of the provenance of the painting it is difficult to assess it. Hood's draughtsmanship was generally excellent but perhaps he was having an off day. Or it may be that the work was by another unknown member of the expedition. With such issues for the present and pending further study it must remain something of a mystery. The author would welcome correspondence from any reader of Polar Record who might be able to throw light on this matter.