Arctic Explorations: In Search of John Franklin is the first-hand account of the search for British naval officer Sir John Franklin, whose sailing expedition to find the Northwest Passage has gone missing. Volume I begins in 1853 when Dr. Elisha Kent Kane and his crew of eighteen men leave New York aboard the Advance. They hope to rescue Franklin's expedition. By August of the first year the Advance is hopelessly trapped by ice, and the mission becomes a struggle for the rescuers own survival. Kane and his men face starvation, disease, hostile wildlife, and temperatures reaching fifty degrees below zero. Their chances look bleak. Kane and the crew barely survive to the end of 1854.