Abstract
Today the term “Arctic expedition” conjures up images of heroic men chasing knowledge, but also personal and national glory. Geographical goals such as the North Pole, the Northwest and Northeast Passages and the discovery of new lands became major cultural touchstones during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Individuals such as Sir John Franklin, Fridtjof Nansen, and Robert E. Peary became household names. Many smaller expeditions also ventured to the Arctic from Eurasia and North America. This chapter is about how large, publicity-friendly expeditions related to smaller, more prosaic ventures, and how the term expedition is used in the present to denote everything from seasonal fieldwork conducted by scientists to one-off feats of travel. We conclude with some reflections on how Arctic expeditions may look in the future – and how the term expedition continues to carry meaning in terms of culture and memory.
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Notes
- 1.
Pang (1993).
- 2.
The British Government approved the scheme in 1839.
- 3.
Levere (1993).
- 4.
- 5.
See for instance Long (2014).
- 6.
Riffenburgh (1993).
- 7.
Friedman (2002), pp 107–173.
- 8.
See for instance McCannon (1999).
- 9.
Pálsson (2004).
- 10.
Wråkberg (1999).
- 11.
See the report in KVA protokolls-bilagor, 13 February 1901. Held at the KVA Center for the History of Science Archives.
- 12.
Avango et al. (2014).
- 13.
See Roberts (2011).
- 14.
Copy printed in Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, 1928.
- 15.
Teichert (1991).
- 16.
Roberts (2011).
- 17.
- 18.
Ahlmann (1932).
- 19.
On Arctic science and the early Cold War, see for instance the work of Matt Farish and of the recent BOREAS project.
- 20.
Farish (2010).
- 21.
Goksøyr (2002).
- 22.
Wheeler (2013).
- 23.
Wheeler (2013).
- 24.
For a nice example see Long (2014).
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Roberts, P., van der Watt, LM. (2015). On Past, Present and Future Arctic Expeditions. In: Evengård, B., Nymand Larsen, J., Paasche, Ø. (eds) The New Arctic. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17602-4_5
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