Classical codes: biogeographical assessments of environment in Victorian Canada

Abstract

This paper offers a case study of the historical role of ideas in changing perceptions of place during the nineteenth century. It focuses upon Rupert's Land in British North America, highlighting Victorian scientific assessments of landscape and environment. In addition to Humboldtian influences that shaped geographical sciences, the persistence of a more deeply rooted context warrants scrutiny. Adherents of Victorian culture greatly valued its Graeco-Roman heritage, whose tripartite impact upon the history of Rupert's Land is explored here. This classical tradition transmitted crucial practical lessons: through Euclidean geometry, in defining new physical spaces; through dualistic Hyperborean myths, in formulating (sometimes contradictory) expectations of these lands; and, through a Lucretian revival, in confronting some increasing uncertainties in late Victorian science. The evidence suggests that aspects of these classical influences held similar sway in Victorian cultures elsewhere, warranting closer examinations of their details in different historical/geographical contexts.