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Abstract

This chapter begins the three part exploration of the emergence and evolution of the predominant ideas about the Canadian Arctic within Canadian society by detailing the formation and evolution of the romantic ideas. Drawing upon over 150 years of British and Canadian history, this chapter explores the Canadian fascination with the idea of the Arctic and how this fascination has been constructed, promoted and maintained within Canada since its time as a British colony.

The original version of this chapter was revised. An erratum to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61917-0_8

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  1. 1.

    Oxford Dictionaries 2015.

  2. 2.

    Jervis 2006, p. 642.

  3. 3.

    e.g. Grace 2001, p. 33.

  4. 4.

    Braun 2002, p. 13.

  5. 5.

    Interviews with a Dew Lines Clean-Up Expert, 6 November 2012; Interview with a Former Deputy Minister – 1970s and 1980s, 6 November 2012.

  6. 6.

    Grant 1998, p. 30.

  7. 7.

    Grant 1998, p. 29.

  8. 8.

    Grant 1989, p. 16.

  9. 9.

    Canada 2010, p. 2.

  10. 10.

    Munk School 2011, p. iii.

  11. 11.

    Sharp 2016.

  12. 12.

    e.g. Kaplan 1994.

  13. 13.

    Rowley 1987, p. 35.

  14. 14.

    e.g. Williams 2013, p. 118.

  15. 15.

    e.g. Sale and Potapov 2010, pp. 28–29; Sandler 2006, pp. 65, 147; For centuries, it was believed that there was an open Polar Sea in the Arctic and that explorers simply had to get through the ice pack that covered the outer portion of the sea in order to enter the open water. One idea about the Polar Sea was that once the Polar Sea was entered, it was anticipated that vessels could travel across the North Pole unhindered by ice, thus making voyage from Europe to Asia shorter.

  16. 16.

    Mahan 1890, p. 6.

  17. 17.

    e.g. Kellner 1995, p. 66.

  18. 18.

    Cartier n.d.

  19. 19.

    Grant 1989, p. 23.

  20. 20.

    Grant 1989, p. 19.

  21. 21.

    Grant 1989, p. 22.

  22. 22.

    Cameron 2009, p. 165.

  23. 23.

    The North Georgia Gazette, and Winter Chronicle 1819.

  24. 24.

    The North Georgia Gazette, and Winter Chronicle 1819.

  25. 25.

    Sale and Potapov 2010, p. 84.

  26. 26.

    Sandler 2006, p. 73–4.

  27. 27.

    Smith 1970, p. 157.

  28. 28.

    Sandler 2006, p. 68, 70.

  29. 29.

    Cavell 1997, p. 202 as quoted by Grant 1998, p. 30.

  30. 30.

    Glicklich 2010.

  31. 31.

    Sandler 2006, pp. 66, 68–70.

  32. 32.

    Sandler 2006, pp. 71–3.

  33. 33.

    Rowley 1987, p. 27.

  34. 34.

    Rowley 1987, p. 27.

  35. 35.

    Woodman 2015, p. 6.

  36. 36.

    E.g. Sandler 2006, pp. 78–9.

  37. 37.

    e.g. Parks Canada 2011; Canada 2013, p. 19.

  38. 38.

    Sugg 2008.

  39. 39.

    Keenleyside et al. 1997, pp. 40–42; Modern-day science and archaeological evidence support Rae’s findings. There is a strong indication that the many of the men likely suffered from lead poisoning from the canned food which the Franklin expedition took as their main food supply. Effects of lead poisoning include decreased vision and blindness, poor attention span, convulsion, delirium, hallucinations, paralysis, coma and death. Additionally, in 1869, an American Arctic explorer, Charles Francis Hall, heard similar stories from Inuit who claimed to have witnessed the cannibalistic acts of Franklin’s crew. Other Arctic explorers such as Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka also reported Inuit accounts of cannibalism amongst Franklin’s crew.

  40. 40.

    Keenleyside et al. 1997, p. 41.

  41. 41.

    Keenleyside et al. 1997, pp. 41–44; Sandler 2006, pp. 140–143.

  42. 42.

    Sale and Potapov 2010, p. 84.

  43. 43.

    Sale and Potapov 2010, p. 84.

  44. 44.

    Braun 2002, p. 61.

  45. 45.

    Italics added to quote from The Dollar Monthly Magazine 1863, p. 16 in Sandler 2006, p. 78.

  46. 46.

    Ellemers et al. 2002, 177.

  47. 47.

    Ellemers et al. 2002, 177.

  48. 48.

    Ellemers et al. 2002, p. 177.

  49. 49.

    e.g. Braun 2002, p. 169; Berger 1988, p. 2.

  50. 50.

    Barber 1958, pp. 171–2 in Elliot-Meisel 1998, p. 77.

  51. 51.

    Wells 2013.

  52. 52.

    e.g. L’Etang 2015, p. 78.

  53. 53.

    Schledermann 2003, p. 101.

  54. 54.

    Elliot-Meisel 1998, p. 33.

  55. 55.

    Grant 2010, p. 95; also see Wells 2013; According to Wells (2013), similar opinions have been expressed about the Australian relationship with the outback; the “mythology was connected with the metaphor of the desert lands being seen as the empty or ‘dead heart’ of Australia … It was seen as a frontier on the edge of expanding colonies. Its inherent arid nature had to be contended with.”

  56. 56.

    Cory 1936, pp. 4–5, 8–9, 22; Elliot-Meisel 2009, p. 207.

  57. 57.

    Prime Minister, Canada 1917, pp. 5, 19.

  58. 58.

    Prime Minister, Canada 1917, p. 5.

  59. 59.

    Prime Minister, Canada 1917, p. 5; It should be noted, though, that Great Britain had control of Canada’s foreign policy during this time. Canada did not gain independent foreign policy control until 1931 with the Statute of Westminster.

  60. 60.

    Library and Archives of Canada 2009; CBC Learning 2001; Hiller 1997; Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly 2014.

  61. 61.

    Williams 2013, p. 116.

  62. 62.

    Jervis 2006, p. 643.

  63. 63.

    Killaby 2005–2006, p. 34; Though Senator Pascal Poirier was the first Canadian politician to openly endorse sector theory , sector theory first appeared to encase the Arctic Archipelago on the 1904 Canadian government issued national map.

  64. 64.

    Cory 1936, p. 31; also see Caldwell 1990, pp. 7–8.

  65. 65.

    For an example of a map that shows borders in the Arctic drawn using sector theory , see Canada 2009, p. 7.

  66. 66.

    Rundstrom 1990, p. 156.

  67. 67.

    Grace 2001, p. xv.

  68. 68.

    Monmonier 1982, p. 99.

  69. 69.

    Williams 2013, p. 118.

  70. 70.

    Caldwell 1990, p. 2.

  71. 71.

    Tim Harper quoted in Woolf 2014.

  72. 72.

    Kaplan 1994, p. 585.

  73. 73.

    Head and Trudeau 1995, p. 50–1; Kindred et al. 2006, p. 460.

  74. 74.

    Pharand 1988, p. 64.

  75. 75.

    Pharand 1988, p. 64; Timtchenko 1997, p. 29–30; Byers 2009, p. 44.

  76. 76.

    Pharand 1988, p. 78, 109–110; Elliot-Meisel 1998, p. 122, 133.

  77. 77.

    In fact, today it is not uncommon to observe official Canadian maps of the Arctic region, which include sector lines, in government offices, international forums and in the universities of other Arctic states as their maps to represent the Arctic region, as observed by the author during interviews throughout the Arctic region in 2016.

  78. 78.

    Caldwell 1990, p. 7.

  79. 79.

    Rothwell 1996, p. 171.

  80. 80.

    Elliot-Meisel 1998, p. 90.

  81. 81.

    Cory 1936, p. 31.

  82. 82.

    Steinberg et al. 2015, p. 24.

  83. 83.

    Jervis 2006, p. 644.

  84. 84.

    Bamford 2015.

  85. 85.

    Bouzane 2011.

  86. 86.

    Bouzane 2011.

  87. 87.

    Canada Post 2014.

  88. 88.

    Canada Post 2014.

  89. 89.

    Head and Trudeau 1995, pp. 50–51.

  90. 90.

    Stuebing 1969.

  91. 91.

    Pharand 1988, p. 76.

  92. 92.

    Jervis 2006, p. 643.

  93. 93.

    Elliot-Meisel 1998, p. 142.

  94. 94.

    Cavell and Noakes 2010, p. 245.

  95. 95.

    Kindred et al. 2006, p. 460; Tynan 1979, p. 405.

  96. 96.

    Killaby 2005–2006, p. 34.

  97. 97.

    Pharand 1988, pp. 61–3.

  98. 98.

    Byers 2009, p. 44.

  99. 99.

    Canada 2009, p. 7.

  100. 100.

    Grace 2001, pp. 4, 104–5.

  101. 101.

    Grace 2001, p. 175.

  102. 102.

    Jervis 2006, p. 650.

  103. 103.

    O’Brian, for example, states that “[t]he defining of Canada by way of northerness has had remarkable longevity. It dates from the earliest days of colonial contact. In the twentieth century it was advanced by the visual representations of Thomson, the Group of Seven , Emily Carr, and other artists, and then extended well beyond the lives of these artists and, in diluted form, on to the present. The trope of nordicity began to lose some of its dominance only in the 1960s and 1970s, when economic and demographic diversification contributed new metaphors to the construction of identity in Canada, notably that of multiculturalism” (O’Brian 2007, p. 22).

  104. 104.

    Leigh 2008.

  105. 105.

    Grace 2009, pp. 18–9.

  106. 106.

    Grace 2001, p. 128; for a copy of the painting see Grace 2001, p. xxii.

  107. 107.

    Grace 2001, p. 17.

  108. 108.

    Grace 2009, pp. 18–9.

  109. 109.

    O’Brian 2007, p. 22.

  110. 110.

    O’Brian 2007, p. 22.

  111. 111.

    Grace 2009, p. 39.

  112. 112.

    Davies 1969; Belyea, 1987, p. 346.

  113. 113.

    Bird 2013.

  114. 114.

    Belbin 2013.

  115. 115.

    Royal Canadian Mint 2015.

  116. 116.

    Belbin 2013.

  117. 117.

    e.g. The Life of Mammals 2003; Planet Earth 2006.

  118. 118.

    Shaw 2012.

  119. 119.

    Shaw 2012.

  120. 120.

    Shaw 2012.

  121. 121.

    Williams 2013, p. 116.

  122. 122.

    MacLennan 1949, pp. 420–421.

  123. 123.

    MacLennan 1949, p. 422; Dawson 2004, pp. 1, 3–5.

  124. 124.

    Sharp 1988a, p. 1.

  125. 125.

    e.g. Wood et al. 1982, p. 947; Dawson 2004, p. 2.

  126. 126.

    Southbound: The Due South Reunion 2006.

  127. 127.

    Ride Forever 2006.

  128. 128.

    Southbound: The Due South Reunion 2006.

  129. 129.

    Southbound: The Due South Reunion 2006.

  130. 130.

    Ride Forever 2006.

  131. 131.

    Berman 1984 as paraphrased in Kellner 1995, p. 66.

  132. 132.

    e.g. Kelly 2012, p. 730.

  133. 133.

    e.g. Caldwell 1990, pp. 8–17.

  134. 134.

    Bhattacharya and Sen 2003; Dutton et al. 1994 in He et al. 2012, p. 649

  135. 135.

    e.g. MacLennan 1949, p. 416; Sharp 1988b; The Strategic Counsel 2012, p. 301.

  136. 136.

    CBC Media Centre 2012.

  137. 137.

    CBC Media Centre 2012.

  138. 138.

    CBC.ca 2013.

  139. 139.

    The Inuit are the most frequently mentioned group in the literature on the Canadian Arctic, but one thing to bear in mind is that due to the subjectivity of where the boundary between the Arctic and the rest of Canada begins, it is difficult to gauge what indigenous group is part of the Arctic versus the sub-Arctic. In other parts of the Arctic, however, groups such as the Saami in Finland also inhibit the Arctic.

  140. 140.

    Byers 2010, pp. 910–911.

  141. 141.

    Berger 1988, p. 2.

  142. 142.

    Jervis 2008, p. 578–9.

  143. 143.

    Braun 2002, p. 12.

  144. 144.

    Alia 2007, p. 123.

  145. 145.

    TVarchive.ca 2013.

  146. 146.

    Dene Nation 2014.

  147. 147.

    Miller 2008, p. 245.

  148. 148.

    Sjoloader 2014, p. 159.

  149. 149.

    e.g. The White House Historical Association n.d.

  150. 150.

    CBC News 2005; Interview with Arctic Politics expert, 30 October 2012; Interview with a Former Deputy Minister – 1970s and 1980s, 6 November 2012.

  151. 151.

    CBC News 2005.

  152. 152.

    CBC News 2005.

  153. 153.

    Childress 1992, p. 168.

  154. 154.

    National Museum Australia n.d.

  155. 155.

    Antons 2009, p. 27.

  156. 156.

    The Strategic Counsel 2012, p. 302.

  157. 157.

    Statistics Canada 2008b.

  158. 158.

    Statistics Canada 2008b.

  159. 159.

    Statistics Canada 2008b.

  160. 160.

    Department of Citizenship and Immigration 2006.

  161. 161.

    Griffiths 2009, p. 6.

  162. 162.

    The Strategic Counsel 2012, p. 302.

  163. 163.

    Statistics Canada 2008a.

  164. 164.

    Statistics Canada 2008a.

  165. 165.

    Parliament of Canada 2011.

  166. 166.

    Jervis 2006 p. 652.

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Burke, D.C. (2018). Chapter 1: No Canada Without the Arctic. In: International Disputes and Cultural Ideas in the Canadian Arctic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61917-0_2

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