The Arctic: a History. Richard Vaughan. 1994. Stroud, Gloucestershire
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226 REVIEWS the interactions of other seabird predators, such as large With this work, Holland, who was the principal architect gulls. Young's book raises as many questions as it an- of the masterful chronology The exploration of northern swers, and it will be of interest to seabird biologists from Canada (Cooke and Holland 1978), has made another all climatic zones as well as to biologists specialising in the major scholarly contribution to northern history. Like its Antarctic. (R.W. Furness, Applied Ornithology Unit, predecessor, this book is a comprehensive chronological Zoology Department, University of Glasgow, Glasgow record of northern expeditions, voyages, and historical G12 8QQ.) events; however, the current work covers the entire Arctic. In so doing, it details a vast amount of information about ARCTIC EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT which little has been known. Most notable in this vein are C. 500 B.C. TO 1915: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Clive the accounts of expeditions in the Russian Arctic, many of Holland. 1994. New York and London: Garland Publishing, which have previously been totally unfamiliar to western xvi + 704 pp, maps, hard cover. ISBN 0-8240-7648-6. researchers. Of course, the book has lengthy summaries of US$125.00. all of the major expeditions and events as well, so that the In 1653 the Danish Northern Company sent out an general reader can benefit from it as much as the specialist. expedition to explore the Arctic waters north and east of Hudson, Ross, Nordenski0ld, Nansen, Peary, and Norway. The expedition apparently reached the Kola Stefansson are here, along with the less well-known, but Peninsula, the Pechora region, Novaya Zemlya, and equally significant, Otto Torell, Elling Carlsen, Joseph Spitsbergen. The only first-hand account written about the Wiggins, A.G. Nathorst, and Vladimir Rusanov. Also voyage was by the Frenchman Pierre Martin Brazen de la included are synopses of whaling, hunting, and trading Martiniere, the surgeon on one of the three ships. His book expeditions, including annual accounts of whaling activity was enormously popular, and was issued in at least six since 1624. languages and 16 editions. However, it owed as much to Arctic exploration and development is an extremely his vivid imagination as to any semblance of reality, as he useful tool for the northern researcher. The entries are, not only included aremarkably inaccurate map, but fantastic first, chronological and, then, by geographical locations. descriptions of strange fauna and native peoples never Each entry has at least one reference, and the book has an seen before or since. extensive bibliography. There is an appendix of signifi- More than two centuries later, the Confederate Navy cant members of expeditions, with acomplete listing of the ship Shenandoah, under the command of James Waddell, expeditions upon which they served. The book also sailed through the Pacific and the Sea of Okhotsk to the includes a geographical glossary, as well as approximately Bering Sea, where Waddell and his men encountered the 30 maps. And there are two indexes, one of place-names, US whaling fleet. Within a week, they had captured and companies, and other entries, and one of ships that sailed into the Arctic. burned at least 19 whalers, despite having been told by several captains that the American Civil War had ended Regrettably, the book does have several editorial flaws. more than two monthspreviously (9 April 1865). Working After the proof stage, for example, a number of changes his way back south after being stopped by ice in the Arctic were made that resulted in a lack of consistency in the Ocean, Waddell finally received confirmation from a usage of fjord/fiord, which appears in a variety of forms, British ship that the Confederate States of America had some correct, others not. In addition, the maps are in a indeed collapsed and hostilities had ceased. In order to random order, and one is a draft, rather than a final, copy. Fortunately, these rather minor problems are being cor- avoid the US Navy, Waddell thereupon sailed around rected for the second printing. Cape Horn and on to England, having destroyed a total of 29 US whalers. Holland spent many years researching and compiling In 1901 the Russian icebreaker Yermak, having been this work. It is surely destined to repay his efforts by being restrengthened in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, headed toward recognized as a classic in its field, and scholars surely will Novaya Zemlya on a test-run. Stopped by heavy ice, anxiously await its sequel. (Beau Riffenburgh, ScottPolar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Lensfield however, Stepan Makarov, the expedition commander, Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER.) turned to Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, and anchored at Mys Flora, his command thereby becoming the first Russian Reference party to reach that archipelago. After conducting some Cooke, A., and C. Holland. 1978. The exploration of north- oceanographic work, the expedition again headed for em Canada, 500-1920: a chronology. Toronto: Arctic Novaya Zemlya, but was again halted by the ice. These History Press. failures to reach Novaya Zemlya were viewed very unfavorably by the Russian government, which removed THE ARCTIC: A HISTORY. Richard Vaughan. 1994. Makarov from the icebreaker experiments and shelved Stroud, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton. ix + 340 pp, plans for icebreakers for almost two decades. illustrated, hard cover. ISBN 0-7509-0177-2. £20.00. These three adventures are only examples of the ap- To attempt to discuss the history of the entire circumpolar proximately 1900 expeditions that can be found in Arctic Arctic from a mammoth hunt on the Berelekh River in the exploration and development, Clive Holland's new Indigirka basin around 12,000 BP to the negotiation of the sourcebook for the history and exploration of the north. Nunavut settlement in 1993 within the constraints of 340 REVIEWS 227 pages of text represents a challenge that few scholars general thrust of the arguments. One might fault Vaughan, would have the temerity to tackle. Richard Vaughan is one for example, for the remark that the three members of of those few, and the result of his efforts is a masterpiece Andree's disastrous expedition in the balloon Omen 'were of selection, organization, and synthesis. What is imme- entirely without experience of travel and survival in the diately evident is that such a challenge could have been Arctic' (page 194), whereas Andree had in fact been a successfully met only by a scholar with Vaughan's im- member of the Swedish expedition to Kapp Thordsen, pressive command of languages: Dutch, Norwegian, Ger- Spitsbergen, as part of the International Polar Year in man, and Russian sources are incorporated into the fabric 1882-1883; one might, however, argue, in support of of the book with consummate skill. Vaughan's statement, that such an Arctic experience did One is immediately struck by the fact that the scope of not necessarily contribute to his skills at either survival or the book is much wider than that of a traditional history of travel. Elsewhere Vaughan suggests that Roald Amund- 'exploration' and 'discovery' by incursive Europeans. sen's passion for aviation dated only to the period of the Many of the traditional ingredients — such as the Royal Maud expedition (1918-1921), whereas in fact he had Navy' s search for the Northwest Passage (and, after 1847, obtained his pilot's license in 1914 in preparation for using for the missing Franklin expedition), the Russian expan- aircraft on a planned drift across the North Pole in Fram, sion across Siberia and to its Arctic coast, and, a century on the same day as Wilhelm Filchner, the German Antarctic later, the Russian Navy's remarkably successful Great explorer who was also to participate in the expedition. Northern Expedition — are covered succinctly yet con- Undoubtedly some readers will fault Vaughan for casting his vote in favour of Peary in the long-running debate as to vincingly. But Vaughan also includes important aspects of whether he reached the North Pole or not. In this connec- economic and social history. Thus, one of his most useful tion this reviewer would only fault Vaughan for devoting contributions is his excellent coverage of Arctic whaling in so much valuable space on an activity and a debate that are the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, particu- so peripheral to the real theme of his book, namely the larly by the Dutch around Svalbard, where Smeerenburg history of the peoples of the Arctic. has long been thought to have been a seventeenth-century whaling metropolis. As Vaughan reports, however, recent Vaughan's book will be invaluable in the classroom Dutch excavations have 'cut Smeerenburg down to size,' and for the general reader, as a sound, comprehensive, and revealing it to have been 'more like a typical Dutch single- succinct source on the history of the Arctic. To more street village' (page 86) and only a seasonal settlement. specialized readers, its value lies in its magnificent, up-to- From these beginings, Vaughan follows the history of date bibliography, containing more than 850 citations. Arctic whaling in the North Atlantic, Baffin Bay, Hudson (William Barr, Department of Geography, University of Bay, and the Beaufort and Chukchi seas to its last gasp in Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 0W0, Hudson Bay around 1915. Canada.) Other chapters focus on the impact of the Hudson's Bay Company and, from a much earlier date, that of the CLIMATE SINCE A.D. 1500. R.S. Bradley and P.D. Royal Greenland Trade on the inhabitants of what are now Jones (Editors). 1992. London and New York: Routledge. xv + 679 p, illustrated, hard cover. ISBN 0-415-07593-9. the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. Elsewhere the signif- £85.00.