The wreck of a long-lost ship from the Franklin Expedition has been found in the Canadian Arctic

British explorer Sir John Franklin took two ships and 129 men to chart the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic in 1845. But he never came back.

What happened to his expedition has been a mystery for more than 170 years. The expedition's disappearance became one of the great mysteries of the age of Victorian exploration.

A team of Canadian divers and archaeologists began searching for Franklin's ships back in 2008. Now they've finally had a breakthrough.

Sonar images from the waters of the Victoria Strait, near Nunavut, reveal the wreckage of a ship resting on the ocean floor. Turns out, it is one of Franklin's missing ships.

"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," said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a statement.

John Geiger, the president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, was a member of the search team that finally found the boat.

“You can actually see things like deck planking, you can see the side of the hull and even debris like signal cannons on the deck," said Geiger.

The loss of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror prompted one of the largest searches in history, running from 1848 to 1859. Experts believe the ships were lost when they became locked in the ice and that the crews abandoned them in an effort to reach safety. 

“It’s a very important wreck. It’s arguably one of the most exciting underwater finds — just because so little was known about what happened to the Franklin Expedition. It’s just one of those great, enduring historical mysteries," Geiger said.