The Remains of Northumberland House Beechey Island Showing the Memorial and Cliff Behind

Beechey Island is amongst the grimmest and bleakest places I have ever visited. The day of our visit was +3C and after a short period of brightness soon settled to a steady cold drizzle. It seemed quite appropriate as the place where Franklin's expedition started to go seriously wrong. There is a light scattering of plants in only the most sheltered hollows of the flat shingle strewn landscape. The land owed more to the patterns caused by frost than to anything living, there weren't even many large stones to assemble any kind of shelter from, it is hard to imagine a less forgiving place to be stranded.

Air temp: +3ºC Latitude: 74º43'N Longitude: 91º48'W