Why is the Harper government so interested in the Franklin Expedition?

You don’t see Stephen Harper get visibly excited too often.

It’s just not in his character.

On Tuesday morning, however, we saw a glimpse of bliss from Canada’s prime minister.

Harper was at Walkley Road Lab in Ottawa to announce that a Canadian search team had found a missing British ship which was lost in the 19th century during a much-heralded Arctic expedition in search of elusive Northwest Passage.

"I am delighted to announce that this year’s Victoria Strait Expedition has solved one of Canada’s greatest mysteries, with the discovery of one of the two ships belonging to the Franklin Expedition lost in 1846," he said in a statement.

"This find was confirmed on Sunday, September 7, 2014, using a remotely operated underwater vehicle recently acquired by Parks Canada.

"This is truly a historic moment for Canada. Franklin’s ships are an important part of Canadian history given that his expeditions, which took place nearly 200 years ago, laid the foundations of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty."

The Harper government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for at least six Parks Canada-led missions to search for these ships.

Moreover, just last month, the prime minister spent two nights on the HMCS Kingston, with the 2014 search team, during his annual visit to the north.

So, why are the Conservatives so interested in finding this wreckage.

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There seems to be multiple layers behind the enthusiasm.

Firstly, Stephen Harper — as his ‘history of hockey’ book might suggest — is a Canadian history buff and especially when it relates to the Franklin Expedition.

According to a recent National Post article, Harper’s office on Parliament Hill includes a large display case with a battered food tin, a “tattered label from a can of ox-cheek soup” and a “fragment of wood planking may have come from one of the expedition’s two lost ships.”

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Another theory that has been bandied about for years is that the Tories are trying re-brand Canadian history for political motivations.

This is the government, after all, who spent millions of dollars on War of 1812 commemorations and celebrating our connection to the Royal family.

"I think the Harper government is trying to re-cast Canadian history and culture after the dominance of the Liberal Party since Lester Pearson," Mark Sholdice, a PHD candidate in history at the University of Guelph, told Yahoo Canada News.

"These governments, along with Brian Mulroney’s, characterized Canada as a liberal and multicultural nation committed to internationalism in foreign affairs. The current government, as in other policy areas, is trying to show its distinctiveness."

Sholdice adds that, in this instance, the government is trying to “emphasize…Canada’s British history.”

He suggests, however, that the Franklin project is a part of a larger government initiative to assert Canada’s sovereignty in North, particularly in regard to the Northwest Passage and for future resource discoveries.

"By demonstrating the government’s ongoing interest in the region — along with that of the British, from whom Canada inherited control — the Harper Tories are trying to affirm our national sovereignty over the North," Sholdice said.

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Another historian, Huron University College’s Tom Peace, notes that the Franklin ship discovery could also have real importance in terms of our knowledge of the Arctic environment and even within the field of archaeology.

Overall, however, he says that the search for the Franklin ships are a “real distraction” from the government’s “abysmal” record in supporting Canadian history.

"This is part of their re-framing of history away from its study and towards selective celebration. Since the first search of six for the Franklin expedition in 2008, the Federal government has gouged Parks Canada, ending nearly 1,700 jobs and rendering key archaeological collections inaccessible — most collections have been mothballed," Peace told Yahoo in an email exchange.

"Similarly, Library and Archives Canada and many Federal Departmental libraries were heavily gutted, if not closed completely.

"The decisions leading to these changes are hardly actions that reflect a government with a keen interest in learning more about our country’s history. In my estimation any interest that this government has in the past is determined through political calculations rather than genuine interest."

(Photo courtesy of CBC)

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