Interesting for the accomplishments in surveying the Arctic coastline and for the interactions between Dease and Thomas Simpson, the co-leaders of this HBC expedition. Dease is modest, competent and, in his journal at least, dull. Simpson is the better educated, more egocentric (a la Peary), volatile, and in the end gets himself shot (or shoots himself). Simpson, the cousin of Governor George Simpson, is contemptuous of both Dease and George Back (who is also exploring at the same time), but can also be fawning and almost sanctimonious to his superiors.
David H. Stam's Anthologies of the Reading Experience