The Rainbow in the North: A Short Account of the First Establishment of Christianity in Rupert’s Land.

Tucker, S. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1852.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Tucker’s book attempts to vindicate the subjugation of a “barbaric” and “savage” people; people who are uncertain in their survival which “arises very much from their deeply-rooted habits of improvidence” (p. 11). His pride in conversions of the natives thanks to his piety, is belied by an obvious transience of such success. His prose is too unctuous to need repeating here, a significant contrast to the more thoughtful Archdeacon of the Yukon sixty years later. A few samples will suffice.

The Present State of Hudson’s Bay Containing a Full Description of That Settlement, and the Adjacent Country; and Likewise of the Fur Trade with Hints for Its Improvement, &c. &c….

Umfreville, Edward. Edited with an introduction and notes by W. Stewart Wallace. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1954. [First published London: Charles Stalker, 1790].
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

An intimate critique of the activities and business methods of the Hudson's Bay Company and one of the earliest narratives of the fur trade in Western Canada and the Great Lakes region. Umfreville had been in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company for eleven years from 1771, and was at York Fort in 1782 when it was captured by the French under La Pérouse. Upon his release after the Treaty of Paris in 1783, he joined the rival North West Company and was engaged in exploring a new canoe route from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg (via Lake Nipigon). From 1784 to 1788, he served on the North Saskatchewan River, commanding at its most westerly post.

William Henry Seward.

Van Deusen, Glyndon. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 531: He [Seward] had that insatiable expansionist Robert J. Walker draw up a report in 1867 on the resources and geopolitical importance of Greenland and Iceland. [Walker wanted to purchase them for resources but also to encourage annexation of Canada by the US. Seward had it printed.]

Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The Story of the Square-Rigged Merchant Marine of British North America, the Ships, Their Builders and Owners, and the Men Who Sailed Them.

Wallace, Frederick William. New York: George Sully & Company, 1924.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Largely an encomium to the British men and ships operating in what is now known as Canada, with emphasis on the maritime provinces. There is a great deal of information about the building and history of Canadian, particularly those of Nova Scotia, but nothing I could find on the provision of reading matter. Probably the officers and men were too busy setting speed records.

Battle for the Soul: Métis Children Encounter evangelical Protestants at Mackinaw Mission, 1823-1837.

Widder, Keith R. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

This deals mainly with a US phenomenon of attempted religious colonialism with relevance to Métis in Canada (Mackinaw Mission, 1823-37). It seems a good example of indoctrination requiring a degree of literacy devoid of independent thinking. An Anglo-Métis at Lake Leech in 1833 describes the house he built, with its old straw Hat, a violin with all its appendages; a small shelf upon which are the few books we possess…” etc. (p. 12). Unlike their Chippewa cousins, Métis children at times slept on beds off the ground, listened to their fathers read from books illuminated by candlelight, and danced to fiddle music. Under the same roof, they observed their fathers transact business with their Chippewa relatives and neighbors, who did not utilize amenities such as books and coffee mills…. Boys watched their fathers, some of whom were illiterate, keep records in ledgers of each transaction, often using symbols or pictures to identify each Chippewa customer’s account. Fathers recognized the advantage of written language as a tool to improve the operation of their businesses” (p. 13). Métis boys learned to speak French and/or English from their fathers and Chippewa from their mothers. Métis males could thus communicate with all members of the fur-trade society. Métis boys possessed skills that Chippewa youth did not. (p. 14).

The History Of Greenland: Containing a Description of The Country And Its Inhabitants: And Particularly a Relation of the Mission Carried on for above These Thirty Years by the Unitas Fratrum, at New Herrnhuth and Lichtenfels, in that Country.

Cranz, David. Two Volumes. (London: Printed for the Brethren's Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel among the Heathen; And sold by J. Dudley, T. Becket & P. A. De Hondt, 1767.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

First Edition of the English Translation. An authoritative description and history of Greenland and chronicle of the establishment and progress of the Moravian missionary settlements at New Herrnhuth and Lichtenfels. Cranz's work contains extensive discussion of natural history, whaling, sealing and fishing, the manners and customs of the native Greenlanders, their moral character, diseases, health and medicine, language, &c., and an account of early Norse exploration. Dr. Johnson declared that very few books had ever affected him so deeply as Cranz's. The continuation, covering the period 1763 to 1768, includes the narrative of Matthaeus Stach's travels in the south of Greenland, and further observations on the country and its inhabitants.

The Snow People.

Herbert, Marie. New York: Putnam’s, 1973.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

An account by the wife of Wally Herbert of a year living in northern Greenland and a year-old child and the Inuit.

On Greenland’s Closed Shore.

Hutchison, Isobel Wylie. Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood, 1930.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

On this trip Hutchison took a fair number of books with her and she generously shared them with her hosts.

The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule.

Kavenna, Joanna. London: Viking/Penguin Books, 2005.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Joanna Kavenna went north in search of the Atlantis of the Arctic, the mythical land of Thule. Seen once by an Ancient Greek explorer and never found again, mysterious Thule came to represent the vast and empty spaces of the north. Fascinated for many years by Arctic places, Kavenna decided to travel through the lands that have been called Thule, from Shetland to Iceland, Norway, Estonia, and Greenland. On her journey, she found traces of earlier writers and travellers, all compelled by the idea of a land called Thule: Richard Francis Burton, William Morris, Anthony Trollope, as well as the Norwegian Polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen . . . The Ice Museum is a mesmerising story of idealism and ambition, wars and destruction, survival and memories, set against the haunting backdrop of the northern landscape. Bookseller Inventory #0670913952

Etah and Beyond: Or, Life Within Twelve Degrees of the Pole.

MacMillan, Donald Baxter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927.
  • 1926-27 US Northern Greenland Expedition (commanded by Donald MacMillan aboard Bowdoin).
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

A 1926-27 Greenland expedition aboard the Bowdoin, with the purpose of setting up new magnetic stations and resettling old ones.

The People of the Polar North: A Record.

Rasmussen, Knud. Compiled from the Danish Originals and Edited by G. Herring. Illustrations by Count Harald Moltke. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1908. [another edition London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1908].
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

But, as its title implies, it is first and foremost an account of the most northerly dwelling people in the world, that is to say, of the little Eskimo group of nomads who wander from settlement to settlement between Cape York, North of Melville Bay, and Cape Alexander (approximately therefore between 76˚ and 78˚ N. latitude), and who are called in this book the Polar Eskimos [Editor’s Preface].

Camp Century: City under the Ice.

Wager, Walter. Philadelphia and New York: Chilton Books, 1962.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

An enjoyable read about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s nuclear-powered city tunneled into the Greenland ice cap. The base was 130 mi. from Thule, 100 from a slightly nearer base (Tuto), and thus Camp Century. It operated for about six years and was intended as a model for future bases. I don’t know if there is any summary study of its accomplishments. This is the human interest part of it, not long after it opened up, a rather saccharine account. There are some casual mentions of the library and plate 1 has a picture of the library at Camp Century. Plus these citations: