Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic.

Diubaldo, Richard J. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1978. [Reprinted in paperback 1998.].
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Tries to analyze as objectively as possible the roots of antagonism between Stefansson and Canadians—sees a degree of arrogance, opportunism, manipulation, and pig-headedness on Stefansson’s part, but also a competence hard to deny. Sees the debacle of Wrangell Island as the final blow to Stef’s reputation in Canada, but there is much else documented here. By 1924 Stef’s connections with Ottawa and Canada were essentially severed and by his choice he ended his Canadian career.

Lure of the North.

Finnie, Richard. Philadelphia: David McKay Co., 1940.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Finnie was a Canadian photographer, filmmaker, and lecturer who gave regular presentations on the Arctic throughout the 1930s. He “spent a year in the western Arctic between Herschel and King William Island in 1930, revisited the region in 1934 and 1939, and gives here sketches and essays on its people, the Eskimos and the whites, and their way of life” (Arctic Bibliography 4991). In this work, he was particularly concerned with the impact of new sub-Arctic wells and mines, as well as other forms of development, on the native population. [ABEBOOKS 11/24/2019]

Labrador: Its Discovery, Exploration, and Development.

Gosling, William Gilbert. New York: John Lane, 1911.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 36: A book called the Chronicles of Eusebius, published by Henry Estienne in Paris, in 1512, describes seven savages who had been brought to Rouen from the country called Terre Neuve. There can be no doubt that the French fishermen, particularly from Normandy and Brittany, greatly preponderated in the fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador during the sixteenth century. The New Interlude, 1517, to be quoted fully later, laments that while the English were neglecting the countries discovered by them, “full a hundred sail,” of the French loaded with fish there every year. While some allowance must be made for poetic licence, it was no doubt mainly correct. John Rut encountered eleven Norman vessels in the harbour of St. John’s in August, 1527, and the St. Malòins showed by their opposition to Jacques Cartier in 1533 that they carried on a regular fishery in the Straits of Belle Isle, and probably in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well. In Edward VI’s Journal of his reign, he mentions that the French Ambassador informed him that the Emperor of Spain “had stayed certain French ships going fishing to Newfoundland.”

Bob Bartlett: Master Mariner.

Green, Fitzhugh. New York: Putnam’s, 1929.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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A juvenile account of Bartlett’s life up to his late 20s. Chapters include introduction on Bartlett’s own skepticism about books in general and on him in particular; his abortive Methodist College divinity studies in St. John’s at age 15; his first command of a fishing boat; sealing; his maritime certification; Peary’s Windward in 1898; Ootark and building snow igloos; the first and nearly disastrous Roosevelt trip when they had to cannibalize the ship for fuel returning to Newfoundland; the polar sledging trip; Dr. Cook, the “faker”; Karluk; Morissey; and a final tribute to the natives: I feel that men like Ootark, Seegloo, and Inughitag should have their pictures and stories go into permanent form…. If he [Ootark] can’t go into the Hall of Fame, he at least ought to have his name on the vestibule list. (p. 208-09).

Forty Years for Labrador.

Grenfell, Wilfred, Sir. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Riverside Press, 1932.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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A revised and mostly rewritten version of his earlier A Labrador Doctor,the autobiography of a medical missionary in Labrador.

Labrador, The Country and the People.

Grenfell, Wilfred T., et al. New York: Macmillan, 1909.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 175: The best educated people in the country at present are the Eskimo. Almost without exception they can read and write. Many can play musical instruments, share in part singing, and are well able to keep accounts, and know the value of thins. These accomplishments, entirely and solely due to the Moravian missionaries, have largely helped them to hold their own in trade, a faculty for want of which almost every aboriginal race is apt to suffer so severely.

Sport and Travel in the Northland of Canada.

Hanbury, David T. New York: Macmillan, 1904.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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A sporting memoir but with good historical material on the “Barron Lands.” Stefansson cites this book most favorably in his My Life with the Eskimo.

The Hargrave Correspondence 1821-1843.

Hargrave, James. Edited by G. P. de T. Glazebrook. Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1938. [Reprinted Greenwood 1968.].
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 44-5, Cuthbert Cumming to James Hargrave, 2 March 1830: The Manner of doing a thing well is of the utmost consequence, & it would appear that in presenting the Books to the old Gentleman [John Stuart], you were aware of this, & did it well in his last letter to me he dwells with pleasure, & dilates with much apparent satisfaction on this triffling affair— I rejoice to think that I have been in the least instrumental in giving the old Gentleman one moments satisfaction & I am sure so are you.—In my mind there was not a doubt as to your choice. I was fully aware that the Life of Napoleon by our renowned Countryman, would never by you be willingly transferred to any others & yet I assure you that Southey’s Peninsular War is highly extolled by all parties—apropos you have seen Lockharts life of Burns it is said to be the best that ever appeared—I have every reason to expect it out this Summer— Your Indians Select’d Library I have every reason to approve of, yet I cannot conceive it all together Complete, without the addition of the Life of the Bard of Coila above mentioned— I expect this Summer the life of J. Knoxthe stern the austere the undaunted Champion of the Kirk— I am inclined to think, that much information & instruction is to be found in it, and no doubt, will through [throw?] much light on the obscurity of our Kirk History in those eventfull times, & help to clear many doubtfull & disputed points of Scottish History in days of yore—the only books I had from England this year was several volms of that masterly performance Blackie’s magazine and a few reviews. (by the by I sent you 2 or three pr Mr. Jos, pr’y have you received them, I wish’d to send you Blackie’s, but this is impossible as anything of bulk is rejected san[s] ceremony by the light Canoe.—I am by no means surprised however disappointed I may be—that my books should be detained at Swan River every thing considered I expected no better— I hope you will recover some of them this Summer— I cannot for the Soul of me imagine for what reason he is continually spouting at me of this….

Arctic Smoke and Mirrors.

Kenney, Gerard. Prescott, Ont: Voyageur Press, 1994.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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A detective story with a human rights impact. Inuit politicians are revealed as manipulators of history and people. This book should cause reporters and concerned citizens alike to think again not just about Inuit relocations but about the dangers of herd journalism and revisionism that ignores historical context. (ABEBOOKS).