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Antarctica Observed: Who Discovered the Antarctic Continent? by A.G.E

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Antarctica Observed: Who Discovered the Antarctic Continent? by A.G.E REVIEWS 307 ANTARCTICAOBSERVED: WHO DISCOVEREDTHE ANTARCTIC no-nqq dpconfm Rupert GouM’s classic 1941paper on the subject; there CONTINENT? By A.G.E. JONES. Whitby: Caedmon of WhitbyPress, 1982. canbeligiedoubtthatthetwomensawthemLsandpcpksofTrinityLandon vi + 1 18p., illus., maps, index. Hardbound. f 7.95. (Order from Caed- 30-31 January 1820 and that Bransfield was the first to chart the Antarctic mon of Whitby, 9 John Street,Whitby, Yorks, England.) malnland. As Mr. Joncs remarks: “If rock is to be the criterionthen priority should go to these two men.” A final chapter dealing with claimsmade for the American sealer Nathaniel Palmer again says nothing new. Palmer may well Students of Antarctic history will need no introduction to the works of have discovered Deception Island in November 1820, but hismainland land- A.G.E. Jones, who formy years past has carried out indefatigable research falls off the Antarctic Peninsula shortly after occurred ten months alter the on polar exploration navigation in the eighteenth nineteenth centuries, and and achkaremeut of Smithand BransfEld. shedding light on the personalities and achievements of little-known sealers, We are left stillundecided WeenBellingshausen and Bransfield, a dilem- whalers, and explorersin polar waters. In this, his first book-length ma of no is a valuable summary of some very scat- monograph, written in his customary economical style, Mr. Jones has great consequence. This grasped tered material and a reminder to historians of the need to return again and what in pre-Antarctic Treaty days would have been an exceptionally painful again to original sourcesif the truth is to be established. Less praiseworthy is nettle indeed the vexatious problem of whofirst set upon the Antarctic - eyes the quality of the book itself whose press workis unworthy of the publishers. continent. The question is bedevilled by two virtually insoluble problems; what precisely were these early navigatorslooking at when they reported An- H. G.R. King tarctic “land”; and how trustworthy was their navigation- that is, were their Scott Polor Research Institute ships necessarily where they were reportedto be? Lensfield Road Antarctica, a dome of ice some 5% million square mi& in area, exposing cambridge CB2 IER only a small fraction of the underlying rock,is a retent discovery unknown to England eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century navigators. Reports of “land” need to be treated with the greatest scepticism. A distant iceberg, a strange cloud formation, a mirage lifting distant objectsinto view, allcan be understandably mistaken for a dimvery of land. The historical evidencecan be equally am- biguous as well as inwmplete. Mr. Jonesis all too aware of these difficulties. NORTHERN TRADERS: CARIBOU HAIR INTHE STEW. By ARCHIE He devotes a preliminary chapterto the Inaccessibility of Antarctica,remind- HUNTER. Victoria: Son0 Nis Press, 1983. 151 p. + illus. Can$13.95. ing us of its allencompassingand at times inpenetrable pack ice, and the un- predictability and severity of its weather. He takes pains to stress the special Like Charles Camsell’sSon ofthe North and Erik Munsterhjelm’s Ihe Wind problems of navigating a sailing ship in these waters, particularly the fixingand of the Curibou, Northern Traders is Archie Hunter’s memoir of the years he longitudeand the difficulty of maintaining dead reckoning with little spent in the Canadian north.Sent by the Hudson’s Bay Company to Repulse knowledge of magnetic variations. Bay when he was 18 years old, the author worked in the furindustry until his In a further chapterwe are reminded of the achievements of early British ex-retirement. He was moved about to Wager Bay, Pine River, Lac du Bmhet, plorers of southem waters suchas Francis Drak and Edmond Halley, whose Telegraph Creek, and numerous other postings during his nearly *year discoverieswhittled down in sivc the vast SouthernContinent ofthe employment with the Company, and consequently, Hunter’s account has a geographers, paving the way for Cook and his successors. Mr. Jones takes solid air of authority to it. Few, if any, are better qualified to speak about life crptpin Cook as the first of five navigators for whom claims to Antarctic in northern trading posts. Although his trading dutiesmade his life somewhat priori@ havebeen made. Other candidates are Edward Bransfield jointly with more domesticated and perhaps less glamorous than Camsell’s prospecting William Smith, the Russian Thaddeus von Bellingshausen,and the American andMunsterhjelm’s treppias livelihoods,the geographic breadth of his Nathaniel Palmer. The history of early Antarctic voyages has already been ptings and the length of his tenure in the north clearly qualify him as a chronicled by historians of the calibre of J.J. Bertrand, M.I. Belov, R.T. significant spokesman for such an experience. Gould, and J.C. Beaglehole. Mr. Jones’s special contribution tothe debate is Hunter’s book is not concerned with evoking the landscape, nor with il- his careful reappraisal of the known facts based on a critical examinationof luminating the relationship between the residents of the tiny posts and their original logbooks and cherts, and bis use of the informationcontained therein wilderness environment. Tbe focus falls instead on the social dimension of to reconst~ctthe muse of events on the critical daysconcerned. domestic routine in these isolated northem outpts. The wilderness is not a The problems of plotting trackcharts from the available materialare con- primary actor in Northern Tmders, as one might expect, but rather servesas a siderable,requiring specialized knowledge and expertise.As the author behind-the-scenes force that isolates these small cultural centers from the stresses, there appears to be no detailed study of the methods of navigation mainstream of Canadian society. In many ways, the response to life is similar used by the explorers of this period. Navigation in the uncharted Southern to that found in small prairie townsor Atlantic outports, although the highly Ocean, with its attendant climatic hazards, would have resultedany in course distinct regid environment - the “midnight sun”, the winter dark and set by dead reckoning being subject tonumerous inaccuracies. For Cook’sne cold, the dependence on game - shapes that response in a unique manner. In- plus ultm of 71 “105, Mr. Jones has examined the Captain’s original log terestingly, whethcr the authoris writing of his postings at Baker Lake,Lac du book, along with that of his subordinate U.Clerke, and the observations of Bmhet, or Churchill, a homogeneous and characteristic “northern” quality other officers, in the reconstruction of Resolution’s track chart for26 January is broughtout. In spite of thethousands of miles separating Repulse Bay from - 3 February 1774. All are a@ on Istiade, but for longitude “therecould Telegraph Creek, Hunterresponds to these settings as though - collectively be almost as many positionsas log books”. To the chart Mr. Joneshas added - they collstihlte a distinct region that is clearly distinguishable from any notes on relevantweather conditions extracted from the logs.Thus the region on the “Outside”. weather on 30 January,reported as “tolerably clear”, would not have enabled The book gives the rcader glimpses of some celebrated personalities - Cook to have seen the Walker Mountains of the Thurston Peninsulasome 100 Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who landcd at Baker Lake to refuel, nautical miles distant. Nor were conditions calm enough to haveraised these and Sergeant W.O. Douglas of the Royal Cpnadian Mounted Police, for in- mountains by refraction. Cook and his officers never claimed to have seen stance - but more significant appearancesare thosc of themany inhabitants of land, and the author’s careful observationsconfirm this. the posts, men and womenwho would otherwise remainnameless and Similar detailed attention is given to Belligshausen’s cruise in January- unknown - the trappers, the Natives, the missionaries, the other traders. February 1820, thaugh here the evidence is much more frapntary. The These people are thebackbone of society innorthern Canada, and they original logbooksare lost and the narrative muchedited. Only the manuscript became the true centre of Hunter’s book. Who they are, what they do with charts and some other observations, plus theHakIuyt Society’s translation of theirdays,andhowtheyinterPctwithoneanotherisperhapsthemostimpor- the narrative, are gurwally available. In reconstructing the tracks of Vostak tant revehtion of Northern Traders. and Mirnyy, Mr. Jones’s confidence in theaccuracy of the Russian’s calcula- The book has a rather basic -re, one that is sometimes annoyingly tions of longitude is derived from the many lunar observations made. His simplistic and repetitious. Hundreds of anecdotes, usually less than one page comparison of the ships’ positions with the probable position theof adjacent in lcngth and often no longer than five or six sentences, are arranged accord- continental ice shelves at that time 6ecm to support the claims made for ing to where they originated, that is. at which post. Other than this arrange- BeUingshausen’s sighting of the continentalice shelf on 27 and 29 Januaryand ment, one cddalmost shuffle the anecdotes without any serious logs to the 15 February 1820, even though there is no evidence that he saw continental book as a whole. -re is no build-up of suspense or curiosity, nor is there any mountains in these regions. developmentin the attitude of the author. Perhaps “collection of The evidence for Smith and Bransfield’s voyage is even skimpier than for reminiscences” is a more accurate descriptiveterm for Hunter’sbook than is Bellingshausen’s. Only Bransfield’s chart and a contemporary account, at- “memoir”, for little ofthe author’s thoughts, feelings,or personal growth ap- tributed to a midshipman, survives. Mr. Jones’s review of their voyage does pear in this work; hebecomes an observer of life at northern trading posts. .
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