Arctic Exploration Research Articles

The Influence of Whaler William Scoresby, Jr. on the Arctic Observations of Sir James Lamont

Scottish adventurer James Lamont led hunting expeditions to Svalbard (1858 and 1859) and to Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya (1869 to 1871), voyages chronicled in his two publications, Seasons with the Sea-horses (1861) and Yachting in the Arctic Seas (1876). These works were modeled on the English whaler William Scoresby, Jr.’s An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale-Fishery , Vol. 1, written in 1820. Scoresby’s book, as well as a correspondence with evolutionary theorist, Charles Darwin, inspired Lamont to pursue science during an Arctic hunt. Lamont’s scientific endeavours included geographical surveys, the collection of geological specimens, and basic experiments in physical oceanography. However, most importantly, Lamont provided the first account of Arctic wildlife in the context of natural selection. Lamont’s legacy as an Arctic explorer linked the early sea-hunters like Scoresby to a later generation of Victorian hunter-explorers, such as Benjamin Leigh Smith, who followed Lamont’s lead and journeyed northward to hunt and conduct scientifically grounded explorations.

Problems of shipbuilding science at the current stage of Arctic exploration

The authors analyze problems that arise for shipbuilding science at the current stage of the Arctic’s development. The production and transportation of mineral resources in the Arctic and offshore shelf regions and the development of commercially attractive Arctic transit of heavy-tonnage vessels require new engineering solutions, focused on ice conditions, as well as the revision of many traditional approaches to and standards of ice machinery. It is possible to solve these problems only in cooperation between representatives of applied and basic science.

Exploring the North in a Changing Climate

During its nadir between approximately 1565 and 1720, the Little Ice Age cooled the Arctic by 0.5° C relative to early twentieth-century averages. Historians of past climates often craft declensionist and even determinist narratives of the Little Ice Age in the far north. Conversely, social or cultural historians usually depict the early modern Arctic environment as unchanging. The journals kept by Henry Hudson and his crew during their voyages of Arctic exploration provide detailed information on environmental conditions and human responses that bridge these different historical perspectives and concerns. The journals reflect the influence of the Little Ice Age in the Arctic, but also demonstrate that voyages of northern exploration were affected by complex and even counterintuitive relationships between global climate change and its local environmental manifestations. These relationships can only be examined with a rigorous methodology that confronts issues of scale and causation that are still rarely considered by climate historians. Ultimately, the journals reveal that a shifting climate was a dynamic, but hardly determinist, agent in the early modern exploration and exploitation of the Arctic.

Translation, adaptation or amputation? Arctic explorer-writer-anthropologist Peter Freuchen’s little-known Danish translation of Moby Dick

This article discusses how the simplification of adaptation can actually empower a translation with a historically and culturally significant function. The study analyses and discusses the fairly unknown first Danish translation of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick made in 1942. The translation was made by the internationally famous Arctic explorer and writer Peter Freuchen, and his version of the novel has been so drastically cut down to the bare skeleton of the plot that we may speak of amputation rather than adaptation. The result is a so-called real “man’s book”, as is pronounced on the back cover of the book, but what is a man’s book? The aim of this study is to draw attention to an interesting story of translation strategies for a male readership as well as to provide new insight into verbal adaptations classified as interlingual translation.

In the Warming Arctic Seas

In the Warming Arctic Seas

Into the wild

While big oil scales back Arctic exploration, the military is muscling in. This frozen wilderness never gets a break, says Fred Pearce

P.J. Capelotti, Shipwreck at Cape Flora: The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England's Forgotten Arctic Explorer. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2013. Pp. xxix + 269. ISBN 978-1-55238-705-4. US$41.95 (paperback).

Shipwreck at Cape Flora : The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England's Forgotten Arctic Explorer

Arctic observers: Richard King, monogenism and the historicisation of Inuit through travel narratives

In 1848 the ethnologist, surgeon and Arctic explorer Richard King (1810–1876) published a three-part series on Inuit in the Journal of the Ethnological Society of London. This series provided a detailed history of Inuit from the eleventh century to the early nineteenth century. It incorporated a mixture of King's personal observations from his experience travelling to the Arctic as a member of George Back's expedition (1833–1835), and the testimonies of other contemporary and historical actors who had written on the subject. The aim was to historicise Inuit through the use of travel reports and show persistent features among the race. King was a monogenist and his sensitive recasting of Inuit was influenced by his participation in a research community actively engaged in humanitarian and abolitionist causes. The physician and ethnologist Thomas Hodgkin (1798–1866) argued that King's research on Inuit was one of the best ethnological approaches to emulate and that it set the standard for the nascent discipline. If we are to take seriously Hodgkin's claim, we should look at how King constructed his depiction of Inuit. There is much to be gained by investigating the practices of nineteenth-century ethnologists because it strengthens our knowledge of the discipline's past and shows how modern understandings of races were formed.

North by Degree: New Perspectives on Arctic Exploration, edited by Susan A. Kaplan and Robert McCracken Peck

North by Degree: New Perspectives on Arctic Exploration, edited by Susan A. Kaplan and Robert McCracken Peck

Cruise Tourism in Iceland and the North Atlantic: Gateways to the Arctic and the Challenges to Port Readiness Programs

This article details the findings of research undertaken on cruise ship operations around Iceland and in the North Atlantic in the year 2013 and until the end of the summer season 2014. The focus of the research was on the socioeconomic impact of cruise ship arrivals on small and/or peripheral destinations in Iceland, set within the context of cruise tourism development in the North Atlantic and the Arctic more broadly. The article details who can expect to receive benefits from cruise ship arrivals in a peripheral destination in Iceland. The findings demonstrate that Iceland is largely dependent on big cruise ships for the accrued benefit, yet opportunities exist for smaller harbors to cater to expedition-type vessels, vessels that are indeed doing arctic exploration, and Iceland could function as the gateway harbor, with well-developed infrastructure for these purposes.

Manliness and Exploration: The Discovery of the North Pole.

Americans crowded newsstands in early 1910 to read Robert Peary's firsthand account of his expedition to the North Pole. As they read "The Discovery of the North Pole," serialized exclusively in Hampton's Magazine, few knew that this harrowing, hypermasculine tale was really crafted by New York poet Elsa Barker. Barker's authorship of the North Pole story put her at the center of a large community of explorers, writers, patrons, and fans who were taken with Arctic exploration as much for its national symbolism as for its thrilling tales. The fact that Barker was a woman made her ascent into elite expeditionary circles remarkable. Yet this essay argues that it was also representative: women shaped the ideas and practices of manly exploration at home as well as in the field. Peary's dependence upon women writers, patrons, and audiences came at a time when explorers were breaking away from their traditional base of support: male scientific networks that had promoted their expeditions since the 1850s. Despite the "go-it-alone" ideals of their expedition accounts, explorers adopted masculine roles shaped by the world around them: by the growing influence of women writers, readers, and lecture-goers and, simultaneously, by the declining influence of traditional scientific peers and patrons. Barker and Peary's story, then, reveals a new fault line that opened up between scientists and explorers in the late nineteenth century over the issue of manliness, a fault line still largely uncharted in historical scholarship.

A note on bird song: Samuel Hearne’s observations on the Snow Bunting (<em>Plectrophenax nivalis</em>)

In 1795, the Arctic explorer Samuel Hearne recorded detailed observations on the distribution, ecology, molt, and behaviour of the Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis). The most significant of his observations was that Snow Buntings imitated the vocalizations of Atlantic Canaries (Serinus canarius) when housed with that species. His account has apparently not been widely recognized by ornithologists, but it is one of the first such observations on bird’s acquisition of vocalizations.

John Rae to be honoured in Westminster Abbey–but not for discovering the northwest passage

ABSTRACTSince at least 2001 Ken McGoogan has been claiming that in discovering Rae Strait in 1854 John Rae also discovered the final link in the northwest passage. This claim is false, in that a substantial section of the passage further north, some 240 km in length (between Bellot Strait and where James Clark Ross had found the north magnetic pole) was still undiscovered in 1854. On the basis of McGoogan's false claim Mr. Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland, has been pursuing a campaign to have a corrective plaque installed near the Franklin cenotaph in Westminster Abbey to the effect that Rae, and not Franklin, discovered the northwest passage. The Dean of Westminster and the Abbey authorities have decided that a simple tablet with the words ‘John Rae; arctic explorer’ but with no further elaboration, will be installed in the Abbey near the Franklin cenotaph.

Book Reviews

Michael A. Goldstein, Professor of Finance, Babson College reviews “Arctic Economics in the 21st Century: The Benefits and Costs of Cold” by Heather A. Conley. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores the economic benefits of an increasingly open Arctic region and the costs of exploring the riches of the American Arctic. Discusses Arctic frontiers; U.S. Arctic oil and gas development; Arctic mineral resource exploration; Arctic destination and trans-shipping; Arctic commercial fisheries; Arctic ecotourism; and Arctic infrastructure investment. Conley is Director and Senior Fellow of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”

Big Barriers to Building a New Generation of Arctic Vessels

The industry’s experience thus far drilling offshore the Arctic is a powerful argument to build a new generation of vessels and drilling rigs purpose built for operations in heavy ice. Many of the new exploration concepts that seek to overcome challenges in the Arctic were presented at the recent 2014 Arctic Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. Alexander Brovkin, a facilities and logistics adviser at the Chevron Arctic Center, agrees that while new vessel technology is needed for exploration drilling in the Arctic, first the resource must be proved by the drill bit. “An operator must first have a portfolio of Arctic wells before making a significant capital investment to design or build something new,” he said, adding that companies will be pushed to make decisions soon in order to comply with the terms and deadlines set by their offshore leases. Following Shell’s recent experiences, Arctic exploration off North America is at the moment paralyzed. Considered to be two of the most promising Arctic areas, development in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas offshore Alaska has stalled out despite there being dozens of leases in those areas set to expire over the next couple of years. And after spending billions of dollars on its Arctic drilling program to date, Shell canceled all operations in the area for this year. The decision followed a series of accidents during the company’s Alaskan expeditions that began 2 years ago, one of which involved a drillship running aground, and a United States federal court decision that created uncertainty over the terms of its leases. ConocoPhillips and Statoil followed suit and have indefinitely postponed their Arctic drilling plans off Alaska. However, in the Russian Arctic, ExxonMobil and Rosneft are pressing ahead with a joint venture using conventional semisubmersible technology, which limits their operations to the open water season.

Responding to Oil Spills Under Ice: Alaska Clean Seas' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) Training Course

The Alaska North Slope region is a demanding operating environment for oil exploration, production and transportation operations. The Arctic Ocean remains frozen for an average of nine months of the year, with only a limited open-water season in the summer. There are long periods of darkness, extremely harsh weather conditions, remote installations and limited infrastructure. As Arctic oil exploration, production and transportation activities expand, there is growing concern about the ability of public and private sector response organizations to effectively clean up oil spills under ice. Alaska Clean Seas (ACS) is the Alaska North Slope oil spill response cooperative based in Prudhoe Bay, AK. ACS oversees the training and coordination of the North Slope Spill Response Team (NSSRT), a volunteer-based organization consisting of personnel from the workforce of ACS' Member Companies and their support contractors. Beginning in January 2012, ACS partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, NH, to develop an Advanced Oil Spill Response in Ice Course. Now in its third year, this partnership has combined the unique facilities, capabilities and ice research history of CRREL with the Arctic response expertise and experience of Alaska Clean Seas to deliver realistic, one-of-a-kind training for recovering oil spilled under ice. Participants have included members of the NSSRT, several federal regulatory agencies and representatives from the Global Response Network. ACS provides response equipment from the North Slope and several vendors have demonstrated additional skimming and pumping systems specifically designed for recovery in ice. Central to the course is CRREL's outdoor saline test basin, a 60′ × 25′ × 7′ refrigerated in-ground tank equipped to grow and maintain a two-foot cover of sea ice. Approximately 600 gallons of Alaska North Slope crude oil are injected under the ice to provide a realistic field scenario to practice response tactics. These tactics include assessment and profiling techniques for safely working on the ice; employing underwater lights and ground penetrating radar for detection of oil under ice; use of augers and chainsaw sleds to cut holes and slots in the ice; deployment of recovery and storage systems to remove oil from an ice environment; and in-situ burning operations in slush and broken ice. This poster highlights the development of the CRREL Training Course and provides guidelines for course content, length, and special considerations for similar advanced field training courses.

Implementing U.S. Arctic Policy: An Analysis of Federal Recommendations

ABSTRACT We outline U.S. Arctic policy recommendations, goals, and strategic plans promulgated by federal entities in recent years, then analyze the policies and determine the most commonly referenced policy recommendation. This analysis is valuable in the interest of identifying an overall direction for Arctic policy as suggested by the selected federal entities in the United States. We then delve into the oil and gas industry presence in the U.S. Arctic outer continental shelf and the existing federal permitting process by conducting a case study of Shell's 2012 Arctic offshore exploration activities in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. We conclude with an assessment of key policies and recommend next steps for implementation.

Circumpolar science: Scandinavian approaches to the Arctic and the North Atlantic, ca. 1920 to 1960.

ArgumentThe Scandinavian countries share a solid reputation as longstanding contributors to top level Arctic research. This received view, however, veils some deep-seated contrasts in the ways that Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have conducted research in the Arctic and the North Atlantic. In this paper it is argued that instead of focusing on the geographical determinism of science – the fact that the Arctic is close to, indeed part of, Scandinavian territories – we should look more closely at the geopolitics of science to understand the differences and similarities between these three Nordic countries. Through case studies of, mainly, Swedish Arctic and North Atlantic glaciology in the 1920s through to the 1940s, and of Norwegian preparations in the 1950s for the International Geophysical Year 1957/58, the paper demonstrates how different styles of research – research agendas, methodological choices, collaborative patterns, international networks, availability of infrastructure, relations to politics and power – are conditioned on economic interests and strategic and geopolitical trajectories, either these are explicitly put in the forefront of scientific priorities as in the case of Norway in the 1950s, or when they are manifestly disregarded in the name of scientific internationalism, as in the case of Swedish glaciology. The case of Danish colonial science in Greenland is only cursorily drawn into this analysis but corroborates the overall thesis. The analysis of this wider science politics of Scandinavian circumpolar science is exercised against a brief introductory backdrop of Arctic science historiography. Its chief message is that the analysis of polar science applying modern theory and method of the social studies of science is comparatively recent and that the full potential of merging the literature of Arctic science and exploration with those of security, geopolitics, indigenous voices, and the politics of nationalism is yet to be realized.

I Am Canada: Graves of Ice: The Lost Franklin Expedition by J. Wilson

Wilson, John. I Am Canada: Graves of Ice: The Lost Franklin Expedition. Toronto, ON: Scholastic Canada, 2014. Print.Graves of Ice is the most recent title of I Am Canada, a series of historical fiction aimed at 9-12 year old boys and a companion to the very popular and award winning Dear Canada series for girls of the same age. The series, which sets a fictional child or youth within a significant Canadian historical event or period, is designed to inspire “adventure, duty, danger, fear” and it certainly succeeds with its exciting, first person vantage and journalistic style.In Graves of Ice, young George Chambers, approximately 14-years-old, leads a simple but comfortable life with his brothers and sisters in Woolwich, England. His father, a former Royal Navy seaman, enthralls the Chambers boys with tales of high seas battles while in service which in turn plants a seed of adventure in the impressionable George. Succeeding in having his father call in a favour earned while in the service of Sir John Franklin, George sets off as a cabin boy on a voyage of Arctic exploration led by Franklin that departed England in 1845.This volume starts with George recounting the story of how things came to be with only two remaining survivors: George and Commander James Fitzjames. As George becomes weaker, his past and present merging, he recalls the events and moments that led to this– including a run in with a polar bear, possible mutiny, loneliness, frostbite, sickness and his own uncertain fate on what we now know was a doomed expedition.Author John Wilson, author of other titles in the I Am Canada series, has 40+ titles to his name for kids and adults alike and has produced an exciting and well-researched tale with just the right amount of drama that will hold the reader’s attention. Adults will find themselves reading it in one sitting while younger readers will want just one more chapter. The only quibble I had is with the choice of some of the language of the younger characters, which was perhaps historically accurate but seemed too formal for an adolescent and which may seem unrealistic for today’s reader. Younger readers may also need a bit of help with some of the vocabulary, but the high action and excellent writing makes up for these small details. The companion web site includes a discussion guide as well as activities suitable for classroom use.Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

THE FRANKLIN RELICS IN THE ARCTIC ARCHIVE

In August 2013 the Canadian governmentlaunched its largest search for the ships, relics, and records of the John Franklin expedition, which disappeared with all 129 hands lost searching for the Northwest Passage in 1845. Canada's latest search was its fifth in six years, one of dozens of search expeditions launched since 1848, in a well-known story of imperial hubris elevated to an internationalcause célèbre. Recent work in nineteenth-century literary and visual culture has shown the significant role that Franklin played in the Victorian popular imagination of the Arctic (see Spufford, Potter, David, Hill, Cavell, Williams, Savours, MacLaren). In panoramas, stereographs, paintings, plays, music, lantern shows, exhibitions, and popular and elite printed texts, record numbers of Britons could enjoy at their leisure the Arctic sublime in which Franklin's men perished. Alongside this work on how Europeans represented Arctic peoples and places, we also have a growing body of Inuit oral histories describing their encounters with nineteenth-century Arctic explorers. Drawing on these traditional histories of British exploration, visual culture, and literary imagination, and on postcolonial, anthropological and indigenous accounts that shift our attention away from the Eurocentrism of exploration historiography, and toward the “hidden histories of exploration,” this essay uncovers an unexamined material dimension of these encounters – the “Franklin Relics” collected by voyagers searching for Franklin.