#franklin expedition historiography

[areyougonnabe]

How would you suggest people get started learning about polar expeditions? I read Frozen in Time but I'm at a loss of where to go now 😭 any suggestions?

Hi!!! It depends on which era you're interested in!!

For Victorian exploration including the FE, I always recommend Erebus by Michael Palin, William Battersby's Fitzjames biography, and Barrow's Boys by Fergus Fleming. Now, all of those books have their flaws as many nerds (like me) will tell you, but they are all great starting points and will introduce you to the cast of characters/run of events of that era. Once you've advanced a bit, you could check out Dave Woodman's Unraveling the Franklin Mystery for an intensely detailed look at Inuit testimony; The Spectral Arctic by Shane McCorristine for an academic exploration of ghosts and clairvoyance in Victorian exploration; or Finding Franklin by Russell Potter for an overview of the search expeditions up to the present day. Michael Smith's Crozier biography is also a solid read. (EDIT: I forgot The Man Who Ate His Boots by Anthony Brandt if you want to know more about Franklin himself and his earlier expeditions!)

If you're more interested in the late Victorian/Edwardian era, commonly referred to under the "Heroic Age" umbrella, you have a lot of potential starting points....

That era could be said to have begun in 1897 with the Belgica expedition, one of the most chaotic and insane expeditions of all time. Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton is a RIDE of a book (more like FRATHOUSE at the end of the earth, amirite) and will get you started with two of my favorite figures of the age: it was the polar origin story of Roald Amundsen, and where he met a pre-pole controversy Frederick Cook (HIS SOULMATE).

For more Amundsen after the Belgica, I really liked The Last Viking by Stephen Brown. You could also check out Roland Huntford's biography buuut this blog is a No Roland Zone so I am hesitant to recommend him, even though re: Amundsen he's more legit than elsewhere.

The Worst Journey In The World is a classic for a reason: a really beautiful and detailed first-person account of Scott's last expedition that is a pillar of travel writing and the foundation for much of the historiography that came after. However, you could also start with A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston (which I haven't read yet but comes highly recommended) or even Cherry's biography by Sara Wheeler which is really excellent. OH and the graphic novel version of Worst Journey just released its first volume which is a WONDERFUL introduction to the story! Buy it here and support the artist!

I've also really enjoyed all of the other first-person accounts I've read, many of which are free & in the public domain: With Scott: The Silver Lining by T. Griffith Taylor and The Great White South by Herbert Ponting are super interesting and give you a taste of what it was like to really be there.

For Shackleton, definitely start with Endurance by Alfred Lansing and go from there. Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition is a good second step & will get you background on him and Scott (& Wilson). I have had Shackleton: A Life In Poetry by Jim Mayer recommended to me as well but haven't read it yet. After that, Frank Worsley (captain of the Endurance) wrote two books which are great supplements: Shackleton's Boat Journey and another one just called Endurance. And Caroline Alexander's The Endurance is really good too but it's a coffee table book with nice pictures, so grab a hard copy!

And last but CERTAINLY not least, I May Be Some Time by Francis Spufford is the be-all and end-all of polar exploration nonfiction, IMO. I'm just finishing a reread right now actually—I first read it post-Franklin obsession but pre-Scott obsession and honestly, it's an entirely different book once you're crazy about the Heroic Age, so while I have recommended it in the past for people just getting started, and still do, at this point I also kind of want to tell people to maybe wait until you've already reached a certain level of derangement to dive into it.

[annecoulmanross]

A Review of Lady Franklin’s Revenge (2006) by Ken McGoogan

Well, I definitely jinxed myself when I wrote in my review of Cookman’s Ice Blink (2000) that “being stuck inside has somehow given me the miraculous ability to read books quickly once again.” But I have, at last, finished another volume in my collection of “paper books on the Franklin expedition that I snatched from my library before it closed.”  So, here are some thoughts on Ken McGoogan’s book Lady Franklin’s Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession, and the Remaking of Arctic History, a sweeping 420-page trek through the life of Lady Jane Franklin.

Below the cut, you’ll find:

– What McGoogan cared about re: writing Lady Jane Franklin

– Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For™

– Select quotes (feat. Sir John doesn’t write good; Sophy Cracroft’s horseback-riding misadventures; homemade jam for polar explorers; Eliza Hamilton; and so much more!)

(Thank you @rhavewellyarnbag for some good discourse about this book during my early reading stages! As ever, your thoughts are so helpful and interesting!) 

What McGoogan Cared About:

In short, everything (re: Jane herself, at least). If there was something interesting happening in Lady Jane’s life, McGoogan at least touches on it, which is helpful. You’re not going to find much information that falls outside of Lady Jane’s direct sphere. (There’s very little on the final Franklin Expedition itself, for instance, except where it was relevant to Lady Jane’s titular quest to establish her husband as the “discoverer of the Northwest Passage,” but that’s not truly a fault, and it’s appropriate for the scope of the narrative.)

The “Revenge” in the title is the grand denouement of the text, i.e. Lady Jane’s efforts to memorialize Sir John after the disappearance of his final Arctic expedition. It makes this pop history sound more sensationalist than it actually is, and does some discredit to McGoogan’s careful work of examining Lady Jane’s numerous diaries held at the Scott Polar Research Institute and crafting an intricate timeline of her entire life, from “A Jane Austen Heroine” in her early years to “A Victorian Penelope” opposite her missing husband and eventually “Lady Victorious,” an accomplished traveller and international celebrity.  

McGoogan doesn’t pull punches when necessary (Lady Jane’s conservativism, imperialism, racism, and brutal social aggression against figures like John Rae are, rightfully, on full display here.) For the most part, however, he’s quiet fair to her character, though I tend to see Jane’s complex relationship with her stepdaughter with more sympathy for Jane than McGoogan offers. Regardless, he’s not wrong to write “Jane had proven far more successful as an aunt [to Sophy Cracroft] than as a stepmother [to Eleanor Franklin.]” (pg. 319)

What I enjoyed most were the detailed descriptions of Lady Jane’s numerous travels – some of them to places I’ve been, and felt as strongly about as Jane, in many ways. The Appendices are quite helpful short references – App. A catalogues Jane’s own personal voyages, and App. B lists the search expeditions Lady Jane coordinated and organized, in aid of McGoogan’s assertion that, “of all individual contributions to Arctic discovery, [Jane Franklin’s] was the greatest.” (pg. 414)   

Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For:

(You’ll notice this section replaces my “errata” section on Cookman – in part because I simply don’t know enough to correct McGoogan as often as I could Cookman, but also because I do think McGoogan’s done a more careful and accurate job with his research, even if his lack of specific citations is occasionally troubling – *repeats to self* it’s a popular history not a philological treatise, it’s a popular history not a philological treatise...) 

Anyway, Lady Jane was wildly influential, historically speaking. Here’s some bizarre things she did that shaped world history (or were just hilariously fun to read about):

– Had herself “smuggled” in to see Mohammed Ali Pasha in Alexandria, à la Cleopatra smuggling herself in to see Caesar (pg. 92)

– Made Athens the capital city of modern Greece, by convincing the Greek king of the historical and symbolic importance of Athens via “behind-the-scenes machinations” and using Sir John as her mouthpiece (pg. 108)

– Learned how to use a harpoon and dissected a giant squid (pg. 149)

– Read 295 books in three years (1837-1840) (pg. 172)

– Attempted to eradicate all snakes in Van Diemen’s Land, i.e. Tasmania (pg. 173)

– Managed to get Van Diemen’s Land renamed “Tasmania” with some assistance from Sir James Clark Ross (pg. 203 and pg. 209)

– Doomed her husband via sewing: having finished crafting a Union Jack flag for Sir John for the third Arctic Expedition, laid it over Sir John while he was asleep, leading to Sir John waking up and freaking out, because this was a terrible omen: during a Naval burial, a Union Jack is placed over the corpse. (pg. 274)

– Wrote of having “a deep sense of gratitude to Sir John Ross for murdering [her] husband” in her anger at him for communicating a story about a group of men who had allegedly been killed in Baffin Bay. (pg. 304)

– “Accidentally" circumnavigated the globe because of the American Civil War (pg. 403)

Select Quotes:

“As a precise writer herself, however, Jane could not contain her frustration with her husband’s inability to sketch incisive word portraits.” (pg. 84)

[Lady Jane Franklin] “marvel[ed] at the ruins of the Temple of Isis and also, inevitably, at the story of how that entrancing goddess had used magical powers to restore her dead husband to eternal life. Certainly Jane did not imagine… that this archetypal myth might somehow prefigure the deepest meanings of her own future.” (pg. 123-124)

During an overland exploration of Australia, “Sophy Cracroft [then 22 years old] was thrown from her horse. Jane reported that ‘her nose received the blow – it was much bruised but it saved her head, and she had no other injury except a headache which existed before.’ Dr. Hobson treated her nosebleed with cold water and had her removed into the cart and then carried by stretcher into that night’s encampment. Showing more alarm than Jane, he described the concussion as severe and wrote that Sophy ‘bore the misfortune with more courage and resignation than most men and contrary to my expectation did not appear to be anxious about its effect on her beauty.’” (pg. 193)

“Jane herself established the closest of platonic bonds with [James Clark] Ross, cementing a friendship that would have ironic consequences. She presented him with jars of homemade jam (whose praises he endlessly sang).” (pg. 209)

“Despite several flirtations [with others], and although she could not acknowledge it, the twenty-nine-year-old [Sophy Cracroft] had secretly committed herself to Jane Franklin.” (pg. 273) McGoogan doesn’t ship Sophy/Jane but he comes DAMN close. (He addresses this as a scholarly debate in very vague terms on page pg. 364.)

During the winter of 1845, “Jane travelled through the West Indies to the southern United States. Proceeding north, she inspected schools, hospitals, factories, and other institutions, more than once being mistaken for the widow of the American Alexander Hamilton – an excellent woman, although much older than she.” (pg. 275-276)

“Almost alone among her contemporaries, Jane grasped that monuments create history.” (pg. 414)

[theherbstorian]

The Terror meets Texas Rev??

My first (public!) AU/fanfic thingy: What if the characters from the Franklin Expedition/The Terror met the Texas Revolutionary-Era people I actually specialize in studying???  Here’s a scene from one of these hypothetical meetings, between James Fitzjames and Texas revolutionary commander Col. James Fannin.  Anyway, I really hope y’all like it, and any comments would be very much appreciated!

................................................  

It was almost preternatural how quickly Commander James Fitzjames and Colonel James W. Fannin Jr came to a quiet understanding of each other, realizing that they held in common something Fannin habitually termed their “peculiar situations.”  These high-spirited officers, whose letters so often sparkled with enthusiasm and charm, who had meteorically risen to high ranks, shared the secret of their illegitimacy.  This trust was no small source of attachment between the two men.  In social gatherings, the Texan and the Englishman would exchange faint, knowing smiles, always letting the others believe that their closeness was a result of shared interests in artillery and gunnery.

Fitzjames was tempted, nonetheless, to envy Fannin—his very name testified that he had enjoyed a much different relationship with his natural father. Sure, during his youth he had gone by the surname Walker, that of the maternal grandfather who raised him.  But even then, Isham Fannin had sent for young James to be present at his deathbed.  He acknowledged him in his will and provided $1,000 for his education. And in adulthood, James F. Walker took the name James W. Fannin, and was welcomed with open arms by his father’s family.  Fitzjames, by contrast, could not go by the name Gambier, nor did he particularly want to.  But any jealousies of this nature were subsumed by the other commonalities they shared: those relating to their tragic final commands.  

Fitzjames had known nothing about Fannin before this strange afterlife meeting--he had been in Mesopotamia during the entirety of Texas’ struggle for independence.  By the time he got back, Fannin and the Goliad Massacre had been all but relegated to the background of Texas’ incipient historiography.  Fitzjames vividly remembered the first time Fannin had told him about how the Matamoros Expedition had ground to a halt, how he had garrisoned Fort Defiance until General Houston ordered a retreat, and about how they were overtaken during their retreat at the battle of Coleto:  “I had my men formed in a square, marching toward Coleto Creek and the cover of its trees. But then our ammunition wagon broke down in what was unfortunately the lowest elevation on the entire plain. Understand--we couldn’t have gone on without our ammunition; we would have been a confused and scattered mass of defenseless men if, as some of my officers suggested, we had made a break for the woodline.  But we couldn’t last very long without water for the men and the cannons, either….  In the end, the water was too far, and we couldn’t make it…my dear Commander Fitzjames, it was just too far--that river was just too far….”  Fannin’s voice trailed off.  Fitzjames had put a comforting arm around Fannin and pulled him close.  He understood all too well the significance of a river too far.

[annecoulmanross]

A Review of Ice Blink (2000) by Scott Cookman

Being stuck inside has somehow given me the miraculous ability to read books quickly once again, so I’ve begun reading some of the physical, paper books on the Franklin expedition that I snatched from my library before it closed. So, here are some thoughts on Scott Cookman’s Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition, an informal history with some… interesting takes.  

Below the cut, you’ll find:

– What Cookman cares about telling his readers re: the Franklin expedition.

– Errata (aka, things Cookman got wrong, and a valuation of how much we can blame him for those errors.)

– Select quotes (feat. Thomas Jopson, some melodrama, and cannibalism!)

What Cookman Cares About:

The “Good” – Cookman goes into very extensive detail on the logistics of the expedition, especially with regard to the mechanics and layout of the ships and their provisioning. This is useful information, though difficult to trust because Cookman’s conversational style does not tend to include very many citations. Cookman also does quite a lot of work to humanize and explore the backgrounds of Sir John Barrow and Sir John Franklin in particular, which is helpful narrative work in a history like this. I also enjoy Cookman’s take on the relationship between Lady Jane and Franklin. He understands that Lady Jane is terribly bright and ambitious, and yet ties herself to Franklin because he is a good man (or at least she correctly sees that he is very genuinely good to her).

The “Bad” – Cookman really, really, REALLY wants you to see Stephan Goldner and his tinned goods as the ultimate source of evil and disaster in this story. He lavishes detail upon the effects of botulism and all the possible contaminants in the cans supplied to the Franklin expedition. He liberally calls Goldner “evil” among much worse things, up to and including the use of incorrect legal Latin and a brutally unnecessary sexual assault comparison. History isn’t simple; the Franklin expedition didn’t have one villain – even Dan Simmons (even the terrible Doctor Who Audio Dramas!) were smart enough to know that.

Errata:

– “Nothing [in the Antarctic] was named for Crozier.” (pg. 53) This isn’t true; cf. Cape Crozier. Furthermore, this is James Clark Ross slander.

– Fitzjames is described as “thumpingly, lispingly English to the core.” (pg. 55) This book was obviously pre-Battersby, but the use of “English” as Fitzjames’s primary character trait is a bit glaring.

– Cookman happily declares that the only non-English officers in the expedition were “the Irishman Crozier and two Scotsmen (an ice master [James Reid] and an assistant surgeon),” (pg. 61) thereby missing the very Scottish Lieutenant John Irving and the other of the two assistant surgeons, both of whom were, in fact, Scottish (The lucky one Cookman is picturing appears to be MacDonald who is noted as a “Scotsman” (pg. 64); the similarly Scottish Goodsir is incorrectly wrapped into “Fitzjames’s all-English-officered Erebus” (pg. 65), as is Fairholme, who was born in Scotland.)

– Cookman manages to interpret the loneliness in Crozier’s last letter to James Clark Ross as solely an expression of Crozier missing Sophia Cracroft. While that was probably a factor, Cookman makes the unfortunate choice of using a quote that was specifically entirely about how Crozier missed Ross: “in truth I am sadly lonely and when I look back to the last voyage I can see the cause and therefore no prospect of having a more joyous feeling.” (pg. 55)

– Cookman sees the “All well” of the Victory Point Note as meaning that not a single man died during the time between the death of the Beechey Three and when the note was left (p. 107). This isn’t a historiographically sound argument.

– Cookman implies that every member of the Donner Party who survived cannibalized the dead to do so (pg. 179); in fact, several families may have managed to refrain (the Reeds, possibly the Breens.)

– This interesting analogy: “The utter hostility of the Passage can only be judged in comparison. Humankind has make eight successful voyages to the moon. To date, it has traverse the Northwest Passage only seven times.” (pg. 197) This manages to be both out of date (re: the Passage) and incorrect (re: the moon).

– Reader, I cringed, when I saw the Cookman had written that it took “over fifty relief expeditions more than ten years to find Franklin.” (pg. 205) Yes, this was written pre-Ross 2002 on the number of rescue expeditions. Still. (To summarize Ross 2002: there were not “more than fifty” rescue expeditions; there were, generously, fewer than 40, and that’s counting supply expeditions too.)

Select Quotes:

“[Crozier] snapped up Thomas Jopson, the steward who’d served with him in the Antarctic, dismissing a steward he’d enlisted only a day before to make room for him. Likewise, he signed on Thomas Johnson, Terror’s old boatswain’s mate, and somehow stole the Erebus’s cook, John Diggle, right out from under Commander Fitzjames’s aristocratic nose.” (pg. 61-62)

“The ship [Terror] was the wife he’d [Crozier] had never had, certainly the enduring love of his life.” (pg. 161)

“The survivors dragged the boats in harness, like Egyptian slaves harnessed to pyramid blocks.” (pg. 167)

“In fact, that [the Inuit group who encountered the survivors of the expedition] shared what little seal meat they had was noble; that they stole away at the first opportunity is understandable. Imagine yourself on a family camping trip when, suddenly, a gang of fifty hairy, incoherent Hell’s Angels appear out of nowhere. They’re plainly starving, heavily armed with guns, knives, and hatchets – and openly carrying human body parts.” (pg. 181)

This has been Ice Blink by Scott Cookman. Next up, hopefully: Lady Franklin’s Revenge by Ken McGoogan!