In the summer of 1853 the 120 foot three masted British barque Breadalbane sailed into the high arctic area of Resolute Bay Canada on a rescue mission for Explorer Sir John Franklin and his crew of 129 who were missing. Franklin disappeared while on the quest for a navigable North West Passage though North America. The Beadalbane was trapped in ice, the ice fractured her hull and she sank in 300 feet of water on August 2, 1853 half a mile south of Beechey Island. This is the highest latitude ship wreck known.

It was later found that Franklin and his crew had suffered from botulism and the numbing effects from lead poisoning. The canned goods that they had carried on board the ship were poorly prepared, highly contaminated with bacteria, and sealed with lead and arsenic.

After 3 years trapped in ice the remaining survivers made a desperate march for land and unreachable safty 850 miles to the south at Great Slave Lake

The sonar image was taken with the Klein System 530 during a National Geographic Expedition lead by Joseph MacInnis in August of 1980. 127 years after the sinking.
The imaging frequency was 100kHz. The dark area above the bottom scale line is the hard contact of the ships hull. The two contacts below the scale line are the masts. The image that you see is the acoustic shadow of the hull, masts, and the furled sails !
The sonar image below is a close up of one of the masts showing a possible crows nest, furled sails and some lines floating.
With the water being so cold in the region, the wreck is in an excellent state of preservation.

Sonar Images courtesy of Garry Kozak