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Cover preview: The inside story of the search for the Franklin expedition

This week’s issue of Maclean’s — complete with the story of the hunt that almost wasn’t — is available free on iPhone and iPad.

It was the hunt that almost wasn’t.

Over the past couple of weeks, the ice—dense and relentless—had irresistibly pushed the team waging an all-out search for Franklin’s two vessels, the Erebus and Terror, into an area near previous searches.

It’s a fickle force, the Arctic ice. In the summer of 1848, it refused to release the Franklin ships and forced desperate men on their doomed march across the tundra­­­—a march that defines them in the public mind, grisly reports of cannibalism notwithstanding.

This week, Charlie Gillis and Chris Sorensen explain that despite years of intensive, methodical search, success came almost by accident.

You can read their remarkable story now in our digital edition. We’ve made it FREE for your iPad this week. For subscribers, check the newsstand in your Maclean’s app. For new readers, follow this link to download the Maclean’s iPad app in the iTunes Store. You can also find it at Next Issue Canada.

Related: Face to face with a Franklin crew member, 140 years later

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