REGINA COIN SHOW TO FEATURE ARCTIC MEDAL

The Regina Coin Club Show in October 2017 will feature an extremely rare H.M.S. Terror medal, issued in 1836.

The H.M.S. Terror was a bomb vessel built in Britain during the War of 1812 and participated in the war against the Americans. During the war, its claim to fame included bombarding Fort McHenry, an attack that inspired Francis Scott Key to pen a poem that later became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the American national anthem.

In 1836, H.M.S. Terror was refitted for Arctic exploration under the command of Captain George Back. The purpose of the mission was to explore areas of the Canadian Arctic that had not yet been charted by other explorers in their quest to find the North West Passage.

The mission was partly successful as the crew was able to map new areas in the Arctic. Unfortunately, the ship spent much of 1836 and 1837 stuck in ice. The ice did so much damage that the ship was taking on more water than the pumps could pump out. H.M.S. Terror barely was able to limp back from her voyage and was run aground in Ireland because the ship was about to sink.

During the voyage, the H.M.S. Terror met several groups of Eskimos who wanted to trade.

Captain Back's account of the expedition “Narrative of an Expedition in H.M.S. Terror Undertaken with a View to Geographical Discovery on the Arctic Shores, in the Years 1836-7,” includes the following: “Four noisy natives of the Esquimaux race had the hardihood to venture through much difficult drift ice to the ship, from whence, however, they returned amply rewarded, and the richest of their tribe. Some of the presents, supplied for that purpose by government, were given to them, together with a few brass medals, having the ship's name on one side, and a figure of Britannia on the other.”

In the 1840s, H.M.S. Terror and H.M.S. Erebus set off on Sir John Franklin's expedition to finally discover the route of the North West Passage. Both ships became stuck in thick ice, were abandoned by their crews and later sank. Both crews died from starvation, exposure or cannibalism.

The location of the sunken ships remained a mystery until September 2014 when the Erabus was discovered, followed by the discovery of Terror in 2016.

Both ships are now being used to support Canada's claim of sovereignty over much of the Arctic. Both ships were discovered in Terror Bay off King William Island where they remain to this day as a National Historic Site of Canada.

The Regina Coin Club is honoured to display this historically significant medal (the finest known of the three or four medals known to exist). The anonymous collector who lent us the medal calls it “a national treasure.”

The Regina Coin Club Show and Sale takes place at the Turvey Centre from October 21-22, 2017.

For more information about the Regina Coin Club, see:
http://www.reginacoinclub.com/

Wayne Homren, Editor

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web