The ship Fitzjames captained, HMS Erebus, was found on the floor of Wilmot and Crampton Bay, southeast of King William Island, in September 2014. The discovery was announced by the Canadian government as a major archaeological achievement. HMS Terror was found two years later, in September 2016, in Terror Bay on the southwestern coast of King William Island.
Both ships had been abandoned on April 22, 1848, in a position described in the Victory Point note as approximately five leagues north-northwest of Victory Point. The fact that both wrecks were found far south of the ships’ last recorded position — and in different locations from one another — indicates that the vessels drifted or were navigated after the main party abandoned them, possibly by men who had turned back from the march or who had stayed with the ships.
The Terror wreck was found in remarkably good condition, with its hull largely intact and its interior spaces accessible. Archaeologists conducting remote survey work inside the wreck reported that it appeared to have been carefully secured before it sank — hatches closed, drawers organized, provisions still in their lockers — in ways that did not match the chaotic abandonment described by the note but suggested instead that someone had returned to the ship and prepared it, or maintained it, for some period after the official abandonment date.
The Erebus wreck was found in shallower water and in somewhat less preserved condition, partly because it rests on a shoal where ice and wave action have done more damage over the 170 years since it sank. Underwater archaeological surveys of Erebus have nonetheless documented significant portions of the ship, including artifacts still in place within the hull.