380 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING Arctic mapping problems. During the war Last but not least, a member of the he organized and assisted in the. develop­ highly respected Corps of Engineers of the ment of trimetrogon mapping and was U. S. Army will tell us why military map­ commissioned in the Air Corps in 1942, ping of the Arctic and sub-Arctic is of such where he served as Commanding Officer of importance. Lieutenant-Colonel Albert the Aeronautical Chart Service until 1946; Nowicki was born in Milwaukee, Wiscon­ when he returned to the Geological Survey. sin and received his education at Mar­ He was appointed Chief Topographic quette University, where he received a Engineer of the Geological Survey on May civil engineering degree. His advanced de­ 22, 1947. grees in civil engineering were obtained at Colonel FitzGerald is past President of the University of Minnesota. His ex­ the American Society of Photogrammetry perience includes teaching on the faculty and of the American Congress on Survey­ of Marquette University and the Univer­ ing and Mapping, is a member of the sity of Minnesota in civil. engineering and American Geophysical Union, Washington also mapping experience with the Forestry Society of Engineers, the Cosmos Club, Service, the T.V.A., and the Corps of Engi­ and the Explorers Club. He received the neers. Legion of Merit from General Arnold in Colonel Nowicki's civilian position is 1946 for his work as Commanding Officer that of Chief Engin'eer, Army Map Service, of the Aeronautical Chart Service. In 1949 and he is on temporary duty at present he was awarded the Department of In­ with the Army. terior's gold medal for distinguished service. THE CONTRIBUTION OF EXPLORERS TO THE MAPPING OF, ARCTIC NORTH AMERICA Norman L. Nicholson, Assistant to the Director, Geographical Branch, Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, Ottawa, Canada SYNOPSIS so as to account for any apparent limita­ Early knowledge and mapping of Arctic­ tions of their contributions. Greeks, Romans, Mercator Whatever knowledge the Greeks and The idea of a northwest passage-17th cen­ Romans had about the northern part of tury exploration-Hudson's Bay Company­ this continent is always a subject of much Mapping methods-limitations-the problem discussion among Arctic specialists. How­ of longitude. ever, it is certain that they contributed 18th century activities-Hearne's overland nothing to the maps of Arctic North journey-scientific advance in instruments and America as we know them today. The ships. 19th century-the north magnetic pole­ ideas of the ancients were at best hypo­ completion of main outlines of continental thetical and imaginary, a state of affairs coast-the search for Franklin-the beginning which existed until the late 16th century. of the penetration of the northern islands In 1508,' for example, a map was pub­ region. lished which maintained that under the 1880-the whaling industry-the assault on Arctic Pole there was a towering boulder the North Pole-Canadian government ex­ made of magnetic stone which was 33 peditions. German miles in circumference. It was The end of old style exploration-advent of maintained that this boulder was sur­ the airplane-development of separate sys­ tematic branches of geography-modern diffi- rounded by a sea which resulted from the culties. water said to flow freely out of the stone. The debt to explorers-names in the north. This general idea was preserved to some extent in the polar inset of Mercator's The purpose of this paper is to show how great. Chart of the World, published in the map of the northern part of this con­ 1595. This showed a polar whirlpool fed tinent was gradually unrolled by the by' four channels entering it from the various explorers who visited the area, and north, south, east and. ,vest. But Mer.­ at the same time to point out some of the cator's map also indicated a through chan­ difficulties under which these men worked nel from Europe to the Orient. This belief PANEL ON ARCTIC MAPPING 381 in a passage around the north of North But there was no easy means of determin­ America to Asia became widely accepted ing longitude. A ship's position was usually and formed the first and certainly the recorded by dead-reckoning, a method strongest and most lasting of the several subject to many errors in the days of sail­ motives which led to the detailed explora­ ing vessels. Occasionally, a navigator tion and mapping of the North American would attempt to find .longitude by ob­ Arctic. serving the altitude of the moon and some Such exploration began in the late 16th other heavenly body and measuring the century with the voyages of Frobisher angular distance between them, a method (1576-78) and Davis (1585-87), who out­ first suggested in 1474. This seems to have lined the east coast of Baffin Island. been particularly true of Arctic 'navigators Their discoveries showed that this land perhaps because they had to be mentally mass was an extensive north-south barrier adventurous as well as physically daring. to any northwest passage which might Baffin, for instance, was constantly think­ exist. Early in the following century ing out new means of finding longitude. Henry Hudson's last voyage revealed a He was the first to ever attempt to'do so ,huge sea west of Hudson Strait. But even by the moon's culmination at sea, and he this was blocked on the western and produced surprisingly accurate results southern sid'es by land and on the north by which show his mastery of the subject and ice, as the subsequent voyages of Button, his inventive faculty. Bylot, Baffin, Foxe and James showed. Besides the astrolabe, the earliest Arctic ot that these discoveries were without navigators were supplied with large blank com'mercial reward for the route to Hud­ globes and armillary spheres, charts of son's Bay was the foundation of the various kinds, compasses and hour glasses. famous trading company which received With such slight and unreliable help the its charter in 1670, and from that time seamen of this period, in great peril and many ships entered the bay, although difficulty found their way over the track­ their interest lay in the wooded areas to less ocean. But by 1740 the modern level the south rather than the treeless Arctic to had been developed and the problem of the west and north. longitude had been solved with the in­ Thus exploration in the 17th century vention of the chronometer. As a result the was concerned chiefly with finding a route ma~s of northern travellers began to as­ through the Arctic rather than investigat­ sume greater accuracy. ing the region itself, and because of this A short flurry of exploration in Arctic overriding motive as well as the difficulty Canada occurred in 1742, aiming at the of travel on land, Arctic journeys were penetration of northwest Hudson Bay, for restricted to movement by boat and con­ Baffin's report had led to the idea that the fined to the coasts and larger inland water­ entrance to the northwest passage lay in ways. Moving slowly along the shore, the this area. But Middleton, Moore and early explorers mapped or sketched the Christopher only succeeded in finding shape and distribution of all the land they land at the heads of Repulse Bay, Wager could see and hence their results were Bay and Chesterfield Inlet. Finally, in more in the nature of our nautical charts. 1770-72 Samuel Hearne made the first The accuracy of these documents was in epic overland journey along the edge of direct proportion to the advances made in the treeline from the Hudson's Bay Com­ the methods and practices of navigation pany's fort at Churchill to the mouth of and surveying. Latitude was usually de­ Coppermine River. His maps indicated termined by means of an astrolabe. The the great size of the Arctic mainland and accuracy of the observations appears to were the first to depict the western Cana­ have beeh reasonable but' to take such dian Arctic. He made two false starts, the readings from the deck of a small sa.iling second being of in terest here. He had been ship with a comparatively high center of some months on his journey when he had gravity, and therefore prone to pitch and to return because his quadrant was roll, using a hand instrument with no tele­ broken when blown over by a sudden gust scopic sights must have been difficult of wind. The only instrument he could ob­ enough. Frobisher used a "ballestilla," an tain was an old quadrant which had been instrument similar to the cross-staff which at Churchill for about thirty years. Un­ was the forerunner of the modern sextant. wieldy and unreliable, this quadrant was 382 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING partly to blame for the inaccuracy of many and Victoria Islands. of his observations which were never too But Hearne's journey was not only im­ reliable at the best of times. Hearne was portant for paving the way for this western particularly unfortunate with his instru­ Arctic -coastal work; it was also im­ ments for he lost his second quadrant on portant because it began a series of inland his return journey from Coppermine to journeys. From 1829-33, John Ross Great Slave Lake, and while there his continued the exploration of the channels watch stopped, thus depriving him of every about Boothia Peninsula. He was the first means of estimating distance with any to use a steamship in Arctic exploration • accuracy. But his work should not be instead of a sailing vessel which had minimized for he at least proved the hitherto been used.