The discovery of HMS Erebus in September 2014 and HMS Terror in September 2016 added a new dimension to the physical evidence about the expedition’s end, though not in the way that some had hoped.
The Erebus discovery was announced on September 9, 2014, by the government of Canada. The wreck was located by a Parks Canada underwater archaeology team working in partnership with the Government of Nunavut and various partner organizations. It lay in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, southeast of King William Island, in relatively shallow water. The discovery had been preceded by years of search effort using underwater survey equipment and by a systematic narrowing of the search area based on Inuit accounts, historical evidence, and the accumulated knowledge of the ice conditions and currents in the area.
The Terror was found two years later, in September 2016, in Terror Bay on the southwestern coast of King William Island. The Terror wreck was in unusually good condition — more intact, in a more protected location, and apparently better preserved than the Erebus. Underwater survey work inside the Terror found conditions that struck the researchers as inconsistent with the narrative of a sudden abandonment: drawers appeared to be closed, hatches seemed to be secured, and the general state of the interior suggested that someone had, at some point after the official abandonment on April 22, 1848, returned to the ship and secured it systematically.
The implication of this observation — which has not been fully analyzed or explained in the available research — is that at least some survivors may have returned to one or both ships after the initial abandonment, possibly spending a final winter on board rather than on the march. The alternative interpretation is that the ship’s condition reflects the way it was left at the time of abandonment and that the apparent orderliness is an artifact of preservation conditions rather than evidence of a later return. Neither interpretation has been definitively established.