Sir John Franklin Monument at Westminster Abbey

The monument to Sir John Franklin in Westminster Abbey evokes memories of Stan Rogers for this Canadian.

The first time I visited Westminster Abbey, I was overwhelmed by the sense of history and the spirituality of the place, not to mention the beauty of the architecture.

One of the details which remained with me was my memory of the monument to Sir John Franklin, who died at the age of 61 while trying to find the Northwest Passage. His ships, HM Erebus and Terror became stuck in the Arctic ice in the winter of 1846-47. Franklin died in 1847, but that fact was not known to his widow, who sent expeditions to find him, and waited 14 years before learning for certain of her husband's death.

The monument is a bust of Franklin in an alcove, below which is carved a scene of a sailing ship being crushed in the unforgiving sea ice. A poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson below reads:

"Not here! the white North has thy bones, and thou
Heroic sailor-soul
Art passing on thine happier voyage now
Toward no earthly pole."

The stirring words and the lonely, valiant ships bring to mind Stan Rogers' song, Northwest Passage. Its chorus goes,

"Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea."

As I flew home to Canada over the vast icefields of the North, that monument and the song reminded me that my country was built by people who weren't afraid to step away from the familiar and comfortable, to find their own Northwest Passage.