The Reindeer Botanist: Alf Erling Porsild, 1901–1977
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository University of Calgary Press University of Calgary Press Open Access Books 2012 The Reindeer Botanist: Alf Erling Porsild, 1901–1977 Dathan, Wendy University of Calgary Press Dathan, Patricia Wendy. "The reindeer botanist: Alf Erling Porsild, 1901-1977". Series: Northern Lights Series; 14, University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/49303 book http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca Part Three THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM IN PEACE AND WAR, 1936–1977 /////////////////////////// CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM In 1936, the National Herbarium of Canada was seriously in need of a botan- ically trained curator. That treasure-trove of dried plants, dating back to the Geological Survey days when an enthusiastic young Irishman named John Macoun had leapt from a prairie wagon-train to stuff his collecting vasculum with flowers, mosses, and grasses, had been housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum in Ottawa since January 1911. Due to lack of space, however, the entire Division of Biology, including the Herbarium, was moved to the Motor Build- ing in 1935, and when Erling Porsild started his temporary appointment in 1936, he was faced with the daunting task of sorting out the mess that had been left after years of neglect. There were bundles of newspapers with loose dried plants, or cabinets filled with large sheets of heavy paper to which were glued flattened specimens and faded labels that gave the date and place of collection but with names that no longer applied. No one had touched the collections since Oscar Malte had died in 1933, and before that the Chief Botanist had been a sick man and unable to keep up with the work piling up in front of him. Malte had divided the collections into four separate divisions – Canada, United States, Europe, and Ottawa District – and, as Erling described them, they were “sorely in need of revision.” In order to do any serious work on them, he needed reference books and indices close at hand, but the prob- lem was that the library had remained behind in the Museum. Erling’s request to the Director for essential reading matter to be re-located to his office was turned down on the grounds that housing the necessary books and material where they could be used by other scientists instead of just one man had been a satisfactory arrangement with his predecessor and, in any case, it was expected that the Herbarium would be moved back to the Museum “within a few years.” 309 National Herbarium, Ottawa, ca. 1935 (CNMA) Obtaining furniture like a proper working desk and needed storage cabinets in these tough depression times was out of the question. In other words, he was expected to put up with the way things were and not complain about it.1 Erling was not alone in needing the reference material to be located in the Herbarium when he started work. On April 14, Anderson wrote to Professor Fernald at the Gray Herbarium: Nicholas Polunin has been here for some time and has been delving deeply into our arctic plants. He is a prodigious worker and apparently tireless in energy, and says that he is finding many interesting things. He has met most of our officials who are interested in his work, and I think he has made a very good impression on everyone. As you sug- gest, he would be an admirable man to get into the Herbarium here, but from what he has told me, he feels at the present time that Uni- versity work is more attractive. He can go back to Oxford and teach 310 THE REINDEER BOTANIST – Wendy Dathan at intervals, alternating the teaching work with botanical expeditions to different places where there are botanical problems to be solved. I do not think he is the ‘adventurer explorer’ type, but he is young yet and wants to do something in the difficult field work while he is still able to make the trips. The lack of adequate assistance here and the difficulty of contact with other capable botanists are other drawbacks here. However, I am doing all that I can to forward his arctic botanical work.2 Nicholas Polunin had originally approached Oscar Malte for his chances of going on the Eastern Arctic Patrol in 1933. Malte wrote to John Ramsbottom, Keeper of Botany at the British Museum, to ask about the young man’s qualifi- cations and was told that he was a young Oxford student of Russian descent. “I believe his father had something to do with the Russian ballet,” Ramsbottom wrote on March 7. He is keen on exploring and has been on several of the Oxford Uni- versity expeditions. His main interest so far has been in ecology on a somewhat broad basis and he has paid little attention to pure taxon- omy; his collections have been very scrappy as he has been more con- cerned in getting names for his lists than good herbarium specimens. He is very interested in arctic vegetation and I think will take pains now to make a good collection of plants. If he is given permission to go by the Government steamer to the Eastern Canadian Arctic it is his intention to present a set of plants to your Department, and a second set to us. He has recently been awarded a Henry Fellowship at Yale where he is to study ecology under Professor Nicholls. In the vacation he plans to study taxonomy under Professor Fernald at the Gray Herb- arium making his collections the basis of his study.3 Malte, who was still hoping that his own trip would not be cancelled because of stringent cuts in expenditures, wrote back to Ramsbottom on March 28 to state firmly that the patrol ship only stopped for forty-eight hours at each place touched, which was long enough for a man devoting all his time to collecting if he knew all the arctic plants by sight and knew beforehand exactly what should be collected but was much too short a time to make an ecological survey 26: The National Herbarium 311 worthwhile. He thought that Mr. Polunin had very little chance of being taken on by the Canadian Government as a scientist on the Eastern Arctic Patrol that year.4 In the end, Polunin had headed for Spitsbergen that summer while Malte was finally given approval to go on the patrol himself in 1933. This was the trip that would cost Malte his life, perhaps due to all his hard work collecting at the short stops en route, for when writing to Eric Hultén at the University of Lund in August 1933, Anderson had said: While Dr. Malte had been in rather poor health for about three years, he had been feeling much better during the past winter and spring. He wished to make another visit to certain points in the North, and also collect specimens at other critical points which he had not visited, and the 1933 voyage of the S.S. Nascopie seemed to offer that opportunity. It was also thought that the sea voyage would improve his health. In fact, the last letter which he wrote me … on east side of Hudson Bay … stated that everything was all right and that the botanical results had been beyond his expectations. He had collected about 1,500 liberal herbarium sheets up to that time. In my opinion, the probability is that on account of the ship being in the different posts not more than two or three days, that Dr. Malte was unable to resist the temptation to overwork during the long days, and the strain brought on his collapse.5 Polunin got his wish to go to the Canadian north on the Hudson Bay Com- pany’s supply ship the following year. By 1936, he had put in his year of looking at the arctic material in the Gray Herbarium under Fernald and was now in the National Herbarium in Ottawa looking at Malte’s 10,000 or more sheets of Arctic plants. Since it was felt in official circles that there was no one who was in a better position to pick up the work on the Flora of the Eastern Arctic at that time, the Museum offered to publish his findings when he had completed his work. Polunin’s arrival in the field of Eastern Arctic Botany left open by Malte’s untimely demise was opportune for him but most unfortunate for Erling Por- sild. With Erling’s so-newly-appointed tenuous position, it must have been hard enough for him to look at this supremely confident young man as a po- tential rival in the Herbarium, but to avoid being accused of professional jeal- ousy he would never be able to state how much he resented Polunin’s territorial 312 THE REINDEER BOTANIST – Wendy Dathan takeover just as he himself was at last in a position not only to work up his col- lections from the western Arctic but to pick up the work in the Eastern Arctic done by himself and his father in Greenland and his old friends and advisors in the field, Oscar Malte in Ottawa and Professor Ostenfeld in Copenhagen. Years later, when Wynne-Edwards asked Erling for his frank opinion of “Nic Polunin” as a candidate for the Chair of Botany at McGill University in 1945, he wrote: Personally I do not think there is any doubt that Polunin is a good taxonomist; in fact, Fernald, ten years ago expected him to do great things.