Anthology of Arctic Reading Canada and Greenland General Works Canada Abel, Kerry and Ken S. Coates, eds. Northern Visions: New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2001. Canadian nationalists in the nineteenth century argued that the North, with its extremes of winter, distance, and isolation, defined the country's essential character and gave its population the resolve and determination necessary to create a prosperous nation. Promoters lauded its enormous economic potential while cursing its vast expanses and dangerous winters. Novelists, poets, and painters were awestruck by its boundless reaches and environmental diversity. Today, the North retains its complex place within the Canadian psyche, at once celebrated as the very essence of the nation, while being largely ignored by a population that clings to the Canada-USA border. Many have debated its significance in Canada's history, and have attempted to bring the region to the attention of the rest of the country by carving out a niche for northern history within the academic curriculum. The current generation of historians has a more ambitious and complex agenda. While they are interested in the North for its own sake, they also firmly believe that the study and teaching of Canadian history as a whole does not currently recognize the North's importance to the development of the nation. Northern Visions, by bringing together a variety of perspectives on the history of the North in Canada, raises new questions and challenges existing ideas. Provocative in their interpretations, these essays do not point to a single path forward in the writing of regional history, but instead suggest that it is 1 time to rethink some of our basic conceptions - and misconceptions - about the North. Northern Visions calls upon historians of both region and nation to broaden their range of research, to connect regional developments to activities in other northern regions of the world, and to think much more widely about the place of the North in the understanding of Canada's past. [Source unknown] See especially Chapter 11: Hodgins, Bruce. “Reflections on a Career of Northern Travelling, Teaching, Writing, and Reading,” in Northern Visions, ed. by Kerry Abel and Ken Coates. (Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2001), p 177-86. p. 180, the great national conundrum according to W.H. Morton: “…the ultimate and comprehensive meaning of Canadian history is to be found where there has been no Canadian history, in the North.” Bartlett, Bob. Miscellaneous Materials While most of these texts record observations and actions, on three occasions Bartlett mentions his reading, an activity that explorers on other expeditions often used to stave off boredom. Lists of books read can indicate something about the mental life and preoccupations of figures who otherwise restrict their accounts to facts and action. A significant choice for Bartlett on this expedition was Bernacci’s book on the Antarctic xxxx, read on and about July 15 [1909], when Bartlett still believed that Peary’s Antarctic expedition would happen. On that day Bartlett records, “Commander was asking me about the new Antarctic ship, how I would wish her built. I told him how if it comes off, I will have some of my ideas put into practice.” Bartlett refers on June 11 to Robert Falcon Scott’s observation about grounded seals, but does not indicate whether this knowledge was from a recent reading experience (June 11) or from general knowledge. He also reported reading a novel by Elizabeth Robins, Come and 2 Find Me, lent to him by Peary, that he did not enjoy (June 13th). “It’s a story something in the style of Man’s woman [by Frank Norris]. It’s rather a long spun out yarn. I did not care much about it.” This evaluation, coming from Bartlett, is somewhat surprising since Bartlett’s own natural style, seen in his later books as characterized by others, was exceedingly “spun out,” bordering on the garrulous. Bartlett, Robert A. Sails over Ice. New York: Scribner’s, 1934. Bartlett’s slightly whimsical account of his cruises aboard his schooner, the Effie M. Morrisey. Although Bartlett was a prodigious reader (see accounts of him on the Karluk), there is little indication of his reading here, perhaps because most of the adventures recounted here took place during summer in the Arctic when he worked with his student sailors. Bernier, J. E., Captain. Master Mariner and Arctic Explorer: A Narrative of Sixty Years at Sea from the Logs and Yarns of Captain J. E. Bernier. Ottawa, Ont.: Le Droit, 1939. Autobiographical collage by the well-known Canadian mariner, with emphasis on his obsession with the North. Introduction by E.T. [?] is dedicated to Bernier’s wife and gives a succinct summary of Bernier’s life including his four Canadian government expeditions to the North. He was a dedicated Catholic, a lifelong teetotaler, and put his faith in divine Providence. p. 8, with little formal schooling, Bernier: …became later a student, a selfmade man, laid in a stock of books on all matters concerning the North and the discoveries generally, made numerous lectures and kept a voluminous correspondence. He was not short on matter either, for he had a diary of every day of his life and after he had been superintendent of the Quebec gaol, 3 he had collected newspaper cuttings of every thing he was interested in and had blank books full of them. p. 289: My term as governor of the Quebec gaol gave me the opportunity I had been seeking for so long, of concentrating on my Arctic studies. I fitted up one of the rooms of my lodging as a library, with shelves lining three of the walls. Soon these shelves were filled with books. I bought every new book, and many old ones, relating to the north, and my clippings from newspapers and magazines filled numerous scrapbooks. p. 323, on his first Arctic voyage: The Moravian Brothers came on board and brought a lot of newspapers for which we were very thankful. This remarkable body of men has been established on the Labrador coast since 1765, when they were granted a large grant of land north and south of Nain. They have done good work among the natives. Bessells, Emil. “Smith Sound and its Exploration.” Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute X 3 (1884) p. 333-447 p. 335, John Barrow: the English geographer, who credited only those discoveries that were made by officers of the Royal Navy. p.337, North Baffin Strait and the Bylot-Baffin survey: gave by far a more correct representation of the northern outlets of Baffin Strait than the chart of Ross, which was magnificently engraved on copper in artistic style, but which owes many of its most interesting details to mere imagination…. [Bessells goes on to tell stories of various expeditions: Ross, Parry, Inglefield, Kane (see Rink, JRGS 28 re Kane)]. p. 347, on the retreat from the abandoned Advance: The more bulk apparatus, as well as the library, had to be left behind. Only the log of the vessel and the various documents of the expedition could be given a place on the boats. (June 1855). A review of Bessell’s work appears in Science III No. 68 (May 23, 1884) 622-3. 4 Bilby, Julian W. Among Unknown Eskimo: An Account of Twelve Years Intimate Relations with the Primitive Eskimo of Ice-bound Baffin Land: with a Description of Their Way of Living, Hunting Customs & Beliefs. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1923. A detailed description of Baffin Island and the Inuit way of life, with an appendix of Eskimo deities, including the vampiric Aipalookvik who 'Has a large head and face, human in appearance but ugly like a cod's. Is a destroyer by desire and tries to bite and eat the kyakers.' (p.266). His account is also notable for descriptions of euthanasia: a blind man is willingly led to an ice hole where 'He went right under, then and there under the ice and was immediately drowned and frozen. A handy piece of ice served to seal the death trap, and all was over. Nandla had died on the hunt, and had entered the Eskimo heaven like the other valiant men of his tribe, and taken his place with the doughtiest of them, where there would be joy and plenty for evermore.' (p. 153) [From John Bockstoce collection catalogue, item 10, from McGahern Books, 2019.] p. 57: The origin of the Eskimo is a matter of ethnographical conjecture. They themselves had no written language until comparatively few years ago, and depended upon oral tradition for their history. And even to-day it is only the few who have been taught to read and write, so that legend still holds sway throughout the greater part of Baffin Land, Cock-burn Land, and the rest. Their past is lost in obscurity. In the obscurity perhaps of that neolithic or "reindeer age" of which their life, even now, has so often been cited as a close replica. p. 85-86, on native seal hunting: No food is borne on the sled, for the hunter depends upon himself for his dinner. The duty of the boys is to watch the sled, to mind the dogs, and see they do not fight or stampede, to study the conditions of the ice, the signs of the weather, the habits of animals, to note their calls and movements and how to imitate them, to take careful notice of the 5 topography of the country and make mental drawings of it to serve as charts and maps, to read the stars, and, generally to endeavour to become skilled and successful hunters themselves.