About the channel
The Last Logbook is a documentary channel about people who disappeared and disasters that were survived by the record rather than by the people in them. Every episode is one story, reconstructed from what those involved left behind: logbooks, letters, inquiry transcripts, grave markers, ships on the seabed.
There is no host on screen and no reenactment presented as footage. What you see are archival materials where they exist, and clearly labelled illustrations where they do not. What you hear is the record.
Each episode has a page on this site carrying its full source list, a dated timeline and a free companion guide. That is deliberate: a claim you cannot check is a claim you should not have to take on trust.
Why these stories
Because the honest version is more interesting than the tidy one. The Franklin expedition is not a mystery about a curse or a monster; it is a chain of ordinary decisions, a technology that was newer than anyone admitted, and a body of Inuit testimony that was accurate and was dismissed for a century and a half. That is the story worth telling, and it only works if it is told accurately.
How it is paid for
By the companion books, at $6.99 each, and by occasional affiliate links to books that were genuinely used in the research. There is no sponsorship read into an episode and no advertising on this site. If a link earns a commission it says so, immediately above the link, every time.
On AI
AI tools assist with research and drafting, and the illustrations are AI-generated reconstructions rather than photographs. Both facts are stated on every page that applies, and every date, number, name and quotation is checked against the sources listed. Saying so costs nothing, and an audience that cares about historical accuracy is exactly the audience that would find out anyway.