Researchers recently identified James Fitzjames, a captain on the ill-fated HMS Erebus that went looking for the Northwest Passage in 1845

Franklin’s expedition left Kent, England, on May 19, 1845, in the hopes of finally mapping a Northwestern route around the world to Asia. By the time the crew left their ships in 1848, Franklin had been dead for almost a year, so the 105 survivors turned to a senior officer, Commander James Fitzjames, to lead their deadly, futile march.

Captain James Fitzjames served as captain of the HMS Erebus, but his rank didn't prevent his men from eating his remains in a desperate bid to survive.

Fitzjames was the captain of HMS Erebus, one of two ships led by Franklin that disappeared in the Arctic nearly 180 years ago. That vessel and its sister ship HMS Terror left England in 1845 with 129 men and high hopes aboard.

Scientists have discovered the identity of a cannibalized victim who sailed on the doomed Northwest Passage expedition of 1845 to 1848.

"Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June 1847 and the total loss by deaths in the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men." Those 105 survivors never made it home, and probably never off the island.

In 1845, Sir John Franklin set out from England with 128 men aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, on a mission to discover the Northwest Passage — a famed sea route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through a group of sparsely populated Canadian islands.