Explorations in the Icy North by Nanna Katrine Luders Kaalund

Author:Nanna Katrine Luders Kaalund [Kaalund, Nanna Katrine Lüders]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822988052
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

FIGURE 3.4. Illustration of an observatory constructed and used by the expedition under the command of Francis Leopold McClintock. Source: Francis Leopold McClintock, The Voyage of the “Fox” in the Arctic Seas, 1859, 206.

However, McClintock still relied fully on the assistance of Inuit to ascertain the fate of the Franklin expedition. How was this any different from what Rae had done? It is suggestive that McClintock put a lot of effort into making extensive scientific experiments and observations and the collection of specimens. The Fox voyage was a small expedition compared to other British expeditions, but it was still larger than Rae’s overland expeditions. They were able to bring with them several scientific instruments, and he received training in their use and in preparing specimens by Sabine and Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911). During the winter the expedition built magnetic observatories to record hourly observations. McClintock included these and other results in his narrative; a few tables appeared in Petersen’s as well. This performance of scientific research was a central way in which explorers like McClintock could portray their broader observations and claims as trustworthy.

McClintock used Petersen’s expertise to establish his argument that their interpretation of Inuit testimony was trustworthy. Dickens had harshly criticized Rae’s interpreter during his 1854 expedition, considering him to not have been able to fully comprehend or convey important details. Interestingly, there is currently some debate on whether Petersen properly understood the dialect used in the central Arctic, yet this was not emphasized at the time.85 In a letter to Jane Franklin, McClintock described his interactions with a group of Inuit who visited him on the Fox with information about the Erebus and Terror. He convinced them to draw a chart of Navy Board Inlet and noted that “according to their charts their usual route in winter lies partly over land.” This had, McClintock wrote, “of course interested us greatly & this intercourse is very beneficial to Petersen” and the two men he employed in Greenland (their names were given as Anton and Samuel), as “their dialect differs slightly from this western one.”86 However, this problem and the extent to which they relied on Inuit knowledge were glossed over in both Petersen’s and McClintock’s narratives.

At the time of the Fox expedition, Petersen was an experienced Arctic explorer, and he was well known for his language skills and knowledge of Indigenous Arctic cultures. Petersen did not have the same need to differentiate himself from Rae. His wife Ida-Berthe was part Inuit, and he had adopted many of the Greenlandic traditions and ways of life. He introduced travel by dogsled to the British search expeditions, a skill he had acquired during his time in Greenland.87 Whenever McClintock described subjects of ethnographic and linguistic interest throughout his narrative, he referred to Petersen in terms of excellence, experience, and intimate knowledge. In particular, he emphasized that it took skill to separate truth from falsehood in Inuit testimony, and that Petersen had the proper abilities. This praise was also repeated in the

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