Torrington's Body Survived Expedition Ice

During British naval officer Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage, a Royal Navy stoker named John Torrington died on Beechey Island on January 1, 1846. In 1984, Canadian forensic anthropologist Owen Beattie and his team exhumed him 138 years after his death while investigating the expedition's disappearance. Ice and permafrost had preserved Torrington almost perfectly, leaving his eyes wide open, his clothing intact, and his limbs flexible. Researchers said moving him felt more like handling an unconscious person than a corpse.

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