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northern aboriginal peoples. The people of his arebook Cree, life of the 1950s. Today, of course, such a scene would Chipewyan, Dogrib, and Mbtis, but aside from some captionsfeature snowmachines,which have largely replaceddog that identify certain individuals, they are presented as a teams. It is clear from both text and photos that Garvin relativelyundifferentiated “Native,” which glosses over realizes that people are already incorporated into an considerable variation inculture, language, and place. In the industrialized economy, though in his writing he seeks to glossary, the Athapaskan language is subsumed under the distinguish betweenthe “bush economy” - the focus of this entry for “Algonquian,” and elsewherehe implies that their book - and what he terms an “industrialized culture. ” respectivelanguages derived simply from community Teachers, students, and general readers will find this book separation andthe consequent development of language an enjoyable read, and it may pique their interest in the variations (p. 146). In fact, Algonquianand Athapaskan subject. Northerners may see old friends in the photos, and languages are members of entirely different language families. scholars will find much of historical interest. As a source Similarly, his understanding of the impacts of the European of information, the book conveys a nostalgic and somewhat fur trade on aboriginal culture is flawed, and areader impressionist, broad-brushedportrait of a land-based mixed unfamiliar with northern history might thinkthat before the economy and way oflife whose existence today is threatened arrival of Europeans and the development of the fur trade by its disappearance. economy, aboriginal peoples lived in log houses (in this region, the winter use of log housesbegan in the late Patricia A. McCormack 19th century) and used dog teams (considered a post-contact Curator of Ethnology development). There is no evidence that the fur trade put Provincial Museum of Alberta aboriginal people under pressure to read or write English 12845 - 102nd Avenue or French or even, really, to speak it (p. 146), or that people Edmonton, Alberta, Canada living in the bush were pressured to move into local trading T5N OM6 communities (p. 154). On the contrary, the traders wanted their trappers to remain in the bush and, when people lingeredA FRENCHMAN IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN: DE at the posts, were often concerned about encouraging them BRAY’S ARCTIC JOURNAL, 1852-1 854. Translated and to leave. edited by WILLIAM BARR. Toronto: University ofToronto In some instances, it is not obvious whether terminology Press, 1992. xxii + 329 p., 8 maps, 20 illus.,index, bib. is Garvin’s or that of the people. Garvin refers to “curing” Hardbound. Cdn$35.00. fish, which is technically correct but a usage I have rarely heard from Native people I know, who talk instead about The North West Passage drying or smoking. It was particularly disconcerting to see is found the term “flesher” renderedconsistently as “flusher” needs no more searching and for lack of anything better to do (p. 48-50, glossary p. 185). A flesher is a hide-working tool waiting the plane’s departure north from Frobisher used to remove the fat and other particles, or flesh, from I lounge on the bed poring over place-names the inner side of a hide.A specialized tool, it is distinct from on maps a scraper, or grainer, which is used to remove the hair from and baby it’s cold outside a skin. These are not distinguished in the text. ... There are errors that should have been caught in the editing The North West Passage is found process. For example, Roddy Fraser is a descendent of Colin and poor old Lady Franklin well Fraser, notSimon Fraser (p. 114-5). There are suitable she doesn’t answer the phone microclimates for gardens in the North@. 93); the long hours tho once she traded her tears for ships to scour the Arctic seas for her husband of daylight compensatefor the short growing season.A lake but the Terror and Erebus sank long ago skiff is not just a smaller version of a scow; theseare distinct and it’s still half an hour before dinner boattypes. The skiff may more properly be seen as a and there isn’t much to do but write letters descendent of theYork boat. Fort Chipewyan was constructed and I can’t think of anything more to say in 1788 at its first location, on the south shore of Lake about the North West Passage Athabasca, and did not move to the north shore near its but I’ll think of something present location until c. 1800 (see p. 162, 164). Diesel- maybe powered boats were introduced in the North in the%Os, late 1 a break-thru not the 1950s (p. 149). to strawberries and ice cream for dinner Despite such historical irregularities, I particularly liked [A1 Purdy, “The North West Passage,” 19671 the positive manner in which Garvin portrays the integration Why do journals about the 19th-century British search for of imported commodities into a bush-focused way of life. a Northwest Passage or about the search for the missing I was especially taken with the photo of dog teams in a Franklin expedition continue to be published, some for the “dog-team parking lot” in downtown Yellowknife, waiting first time? Surely, some reasonsare their subject matter. For for their drivers who were shopping at the nearby shopping one, such remarkable northerntravel is no longer attempted center (the modern equivalent of the local trading post). by white men. For another, the fate of Franklin remains a Garvin doesnot characterize this as some unfortunate mystery, and, as long as it does, the mystique of the North corruption of a “real” Indian life; this was modern Indian can never be entirely shed, as A1 Purdy’s poem shows by REVIEWS / 369 its arresting combination of a jet traveller’s ennui, on the Steam from the cooking, “along with our breath, condenses one hand, but the resonance in his imagination of the old and forms a fine snow which clingsto the walls of the tent” names, on the other. A third reason must be the accounts (p. 61). At this point, Barropens a note to quotea themselves, which,by virtue of their temporal distancefrom complementary description from assistant carpenter us, give scope for our own imaginings about what P.G. Mumford’s private journal, which details the rotation of the Downes, in Sleeping Island, called “the back-of-beyond. ” duties of cooking, pitching the tent, rolling out the India These are some of the reasons, but only some. Another rubber flooring, banking the outside walls with snow, and paramount oneis the quality of the neweditions, and on that the like (p. 252). What results is virtually a handbook for score William Barr’s work ranks among the best. 19th-century tundra sledging that provides a healthy antidote Barr has mace a very readable and engaging translation to the current conventionof deprecating all non-native of a journalby Emile-Frd6ric de Bray (1829-79), the second, customs of dealing with northern conditions. The only regret little-known, French officer who was secondedthe to British to be expressed concerning the notes is the lack of them for search for Franklin in the 1850s. The better-known the various appendices; Barr’s reader growsby journal’s end Frenchman, Joseph-Ren6 Bellot, drowned on18 August 1853 to expect themalso to be annotated evenif publishing practice in Wellington Channel while taking communications from does not always do so. Captain Edward Inglefield to Sir Edward Belcher. During Kellett’sexpedition became ahub by chance when the same storm, which probably caused the movement of iceLieutenant Bedford C .T. Pim contacted the languishing that also sliced andsunk HMS Breadalbane four daydater, McClure expedition, whose members gradually madetheir de Bray, who had sailed with Captain Henry Kellett in May painful way from Mercy Bay on Banks Island toResolute the 1852, was stuck in ice aboard HMS Resolute off the south at Dealy Island, swelling its contingent to 138 men (p. 271) coast of Bathurst Island: “Nothing can give an idea of the through the summer and winter of 1853-54. By means of speed with whichour situation changed during this terrible Lieutenant George Frederick Mecham’s astounding sledging squall. In aninstant the floes were piling against eachother expedition of 1862 km, news was also gained of Captain forming veritable mountains, with a horrible and terrifying Richard Collinson’s voyage in HMS Enterprise, the only noise” (p. 138). other voyage unaccounted for in 1854. Thereby does de Because Kellett’s own voyage did not break new ground Bray’s journal adopt an excitingcharacter, one that,thanks in the sensational way that Robert McClure’s did or that to all Barr’s painstaking contributions, takes on the hum of Francis Leopold McClintock’s would - indeed, Kellett’s communication occurring among the widely separated ships. orders did not call for discovery - and is known best for In other respects it is entertaining; the shipboard theatre and the embarrassing reappearanceof the Resolute after Kellett’s plays are described at length, as are hunting trips, daily life crew had abandoned it in 1854 at Belcher’s command, it is in a ship when it is moving and especially once it is not, crucial that a journal about it show how itserved, partly by modes of sledging with and without sails, and the feelings design, more by chance, as a hub ofthe search for Franklin attendantupon the abandoningof a ship. Surprisingly over the three-year period 1852-54. In illuminating ways, interesting is the early portion of the journal: most of the Barr offers his reader just such contexts. Besides bringing British officers’ accounts show less interest in the voyage out of obscurity thisFrench naval officer and translating his up the western coast of Greenland than doesde Bray’s. He polished journal into English, Barr has placed on view in evinces genuine avidity for the Danish and native populations ways that interested northernists from all walks of life will and the fraternity of whalers with whom Kellett’s voyage find fascinating the panoply of British arctic activity in its came into contact. Interactions between a foreigner and the busiest years. In the notes so carefully prepared by Barr, British officers furnishes afurther dimension to this journal. biographical sketchesare offered forall the officers involved, Especially perhaps inan English translation, the reader and the contents of de Bray’s journal are compared not only watches the process, if not of a European going native, then to books about Kellett’s and Belcher’s voyages by George of a Frenchman going English. At one point, in a letter home F. McDougall and Robert McCormick and to the host of (which forms one of the four salutary appendices to this papers by other officers thatwere presented as parliamentary edition), de Bray excuses his poor French and admits to reports and published by Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1855, having to look up French words in his dictionary (p. 230); but also, by Barr’s going theextra yard, to the unpublished interestingly, however, hestill notes longitude based onParis, journals ofWilliam T. Mumfordand James H. Nelson not Greenwich. (respectively assistantcarpenter and able seaman aboard the After raising high expectations in his readers thankshis to Resolute), as well as of McClintock (lieutenant in command work on Overland to Starvation Cove (1 987), expectations of the screw steamerIntrepid under Kellett), Robert C. Scott that one would not think of bringing to the work of lesser (doctor aboard Intrepid), and Thomas C. Pullen (master editors, Barr fulfils them admirably. His introduction and aboard the North Star in 1853-54). Invariably, the reader postscript richly paint a detailed portrait of de Bray and more finds abundant recompense in interrupting the narrative to than sketch out the history of arctic exploration up to the read Barr’s notes. One example among many stems from point thatmade Kellett’s voyage necessary, and afterit, when de Bray’s excellent detailed descriptions of sledge travel. the Resolute was discovered by the American whaling barque Citing the preparation of foodas the chief problem on sledge George Henry in October 1855, sailed to the UnitedStates, journeys, he describes the discomfort of life in a tent that returned to Queen Victoria, and finally broken up. Details is accentuated when cooking is forced inside by blizzards. extend even, for example, to an uncommon and welcome 370 / REVIEWS description of what is meant by the term “bomb vessels” providing clear photographs to illustrate the species he as it is used (but rarely glossed) to describe Franklin’s ships described. The authors put Mfller’s work on Greenland (p. xii). Indeed, as to detail, Barr lets down his readers only molluscan fauna “into a historic perspective” (p. 3) by on one count, the presentation of maps and illustrations: presenting a brief biography, compiled from the few avail- whether or not thereare enough mapsis, in the end, probably able sources about his life. It is clear that his best known a matter of taste, but most readers will find that there ought publication, Index Molluscorurn Groenlandiae, dating from to be a map showingin detail alarger area than does Plate 27 1842, includes “regrettably very little ws]of unusually broad (p. 172) of the region of the unexpected second winter’s knowledge of his field” (p. 4). mooring. Cape Hotham, Moore Island, Brown Island and Born in 1810 in Helsinggh-, Denmark, and educated at the Assistance Bay will notbe well known by most readers. With University of Copenhagen, Mfller became acquainted as a respect to the illustrations done by de Bray himself, neither student with noted zoologists at the University of Copenhagen their media nor their measurements are given. Some are and developed an interest in zoology and marine fauna. clearly just sketches, but it is unclear what the term During his first visit to Greenland,in 1838 Mmer compiled “painting” (p. 77, 130) is meant to convey in two of the material for a monograph of the Greenland molluscs, captions. Further, the Table of Contents includes no list of including “a wealth of notes on distribution, behaviour, the maps and plates - a surprising absence. zonation, and feeding biology, supplemented with pencil As to the translation, it sounds very well to the English drawings and watercolour paintings of the crawlinganimals” ear. The word “sinuosities” might strike some as archaic, (p. 4), as well as a large collection of Greenland molluscs. but if it does it is the exception to prove the rule that Barr After his return to Copenhagen in 1840, M6ller studied has succeeded unexceptionablyas a translator from French arctic collections in the Royal and University museums. His to English. That few typos mar the edition comes as a relief observations on northern pteropods of the genus Limacina in view of the fact that the University of Toronto Press has were published in 1841 and the Index Molluscorum Groen- not distinguished itselffor faultless texts. The indispensable landiae in 1842. Studies on zonation and distribution of North index is comprehensive and, as near as I can tell, faultless. Atlantic molluscs and onthe influence of salinityon the size In sum, Barr has produced an excellent new contribution of the animals were published in 1843. But the monograph to published accounts of the searchfor the Northwest Passage on Greenland molluscs was never published. His secondtrip and for Franklin. In his capable hands, de Bray’s account to Greenland, in 1843-44, as a government official, was less assumes the character of an omnibus edition, deserving of productive, perhaps because of his duties and partly due to close study and possessed of a mostengaging and thorough poor health. After leaving Greenland, he traveledin Europe, scholarship that is sure to stand the test of time. and he died in Rome in 1845. M$ller’s writings from his Greenland travels, his letters, I.S. MacLaren the unpublished Greenland manuscript,journals, illustrations, Canadian Studies Program, Department of English and a catalog of his collection are now in the archive of the and Canadian Circumpolar Institute, Zoological Museum, Universityof Copenhagen. The authors The University of Alberta list and summarize this collection of documents as an aid Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to further research on M$ller’s taxa. T6G 2E5 Schifitte and WarCn have based their annotated list on Mfller’s mollusc collections in the Zoological Museum, ANANNOTATED AND ILLUSTRATED LIST OF University of Copenhagen, and other institutions, as well THETYPES OF MOLLUSCADESCRIBED BY as other specimens thatMfler studied. They have “extracted H.P.C. MGLLER FROM WEST GREENLAND. By from Mfller’s notes and labels the localities from which he TOM SCHIOTTE and ANDERSWA&N. Meddelelser om collected hisspecimens” (p. 5). They comment thatMfller’s Grqhland, Bioscience 35. Copenhagen: Commission for type material is “widely scattered in museum collections” Scientific Researchin Greenland, 1992. 34p., maps, illus., (p. 5) and advise that future workers select their lectotypes bib. Softbound. US$8.75. “restricted to the lots kept in Copenhagen or . . . the collections in Stockholm” (p. 5). In two papers published in 1841 and 1842, the Danish A list of Mfller’s new taxa, including “all names marine biologist Hans Peter Christian Mfller (1801-45) introduced or made available” (p. 5) in Index Molluscorum described 83 molluscan taxa fromWest Greenland. His brief Groenlandiae and hispublication on Limacina follows and, but accurate descriptions were not accompanied byillustra- with the photographs, is the core of this book. The authors tions or by defined type localities. The lack of illustrations have tried also to “include all names credited to Mfller but has led to “misinterpretations of some names” (p. 3), published by other authors”(p. 5). Each entry gives the taxon especially because many theof species hedescribed are both name and source. The type locality, derived from Mfller’s abundant in the waters from which they were described and manuscripts, and deposition of the syntype or lectotype widespread in the Arctic and boreal regions. Further, some specimens are given. Remarkson each taxon usually include have been named the type species for their genera. “what wenow consider the presently valid name and The authors of this short but thoroughly researched publi- systematic positionfor each taxon” (p. 5). Interesting to me cation seek to facilitate future taxonomic work by compiling as I try to understand the Alaskan and northern molluscan unpublished information from Mfler’s manuscripts and fauna isthe statement attachedto each entry on “DeffMcia,”