The Spectral Arctic
A History of dreams and ghosts in polar exploration
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Author(s)
McCorristine, Shane
Language
EnglishAbstract
Visitors to the Arctic enter places that have been traditionally imagined as otherworldly. This strangeness fascinated audiences in nineteenth-century Britain when the idea of the heroic explorer voyaging through unmapped zones reached its zenith. The Spectral Arctic re-thinks our understanding of Arctic exploration by paying attention to the importance of dreams and ghosts in the quest for the Northwest Passage. The narratives of Arctic exploration that we are all familiar with today are just the tip of the iceberg: they disguise a great mass of mysterious and dimly lit stories beneath the surface. In contrast to oft-told tales of heroism and disaster, this book reveals the hidden stories of dreaming and haunted explorers, of frozen mummies, of rescue balloons, visits to Inuit shamans, and of the entranced female clairvoyants who travelled to the Arctic in search of John Franklin’s lost expedition. Through new readings of archival documents, exploration narratives, and fictional texts, these spectral stories reflect the complex ways that men and women actually thought about the far North in the past. This revisionist historical account allows us to make sense of current cultural and political concerns in the Canadian Arctic about the location of Franklin’s ships.
Keywords
arctic exploration; spectral arctic; dreams; ghosts; Clairvoyance; Franklin's lost expedition; Inuit; Jane FranklinISBN
9781787352476, 9781787352469, 9781787352483, 9781787352490, 9781787352506Publisher
UCL PressPublication date and place
2018Classification
History
Social & cultural history
Oral history
Maritime history
Folklore, myths & legends
Anthropology
Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography
Regional & national history
History of the Americas
History of other lands
History: earliest times to present day
Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700
Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900
20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000
History: specific events & topics