NORTH Aberdeen’s Circumpolar Collections · intention of presenting the volume to the Prince. Gordon’s careful enumeration of all his royal titles is an affirmation of typically-Aberdonian

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NORTHAberdeen’s Circumpolar Collections

An Information Document

University of Aberdeen Development OfficeKing’s College

AberdeenScotland, UK

t. +44 (0)1224 272281 f. +44 (0)1224 272271www.abdn.ac.uk/giving

Rambles among the fields and fjords,from Thomas Forrester, Norway in1848 and 1849 (London: Longman,1850). Lib R 91(481) Fore

This view looking up to the Shagtols-Tind, the highest mountain in Norway,reaching the height of 7670 Englishfeet, beneath a bell-shaped snowyvalley penetrated into the mountains,and closed by a vast glacier…[the viewtaken from]… the most splendid fir-forest I have yet met with.

University of Aberdeen

Marischal Museum and Special Libraries & Archives

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

IDEAS OF THE NORTHMapsMarvelsMagiciansMonstersAn ‘imagined north’

ABERDEEN AND THE ARCTICTreasuresScientistsExplorersDrama in the ArcticCommerce and adventure

TRAVEL AND TOPOGRAPHYOrkney and ShetlandRussia and SiberiaIcelandScandinaviaNorthern JapanThe American Arctic

CONCLUSION

HOLDINGS AS INDICATED IN THE TEXT

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3 3 4 6 6

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10 11 12 13 14 15

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A significant number of alumni in the Universityof Aberdeen’s long history have found that thecompass needle drew them to the north. Asexplorers, settlers, missionaries, or employeesof the Hudson’s Bay Company, graduates ofthe two ancient colleges which make up themodern university have been conspicuous inmany circumpolar connections.

Many of them have left us books, papers andmaterial objects reflecting northern travel andArctic adventure. These form a rich collectionof unique diaries, letters and manuscriptaccounts from explorers, traders, savants andskippers. This is in addition to the rich northerntopographical collections, maps and travels,accumulated over the many centuries in whichthe colleges of Aberdeen formed thenorthernmost places of learning in theAnglophone world.

IDEAS OF ‘THE NORTH’

Maps

The University has an exceptional collectionof atlases and topographical material from1492 onwards, part of excellent cartographicholdings which are particularly strong for theRenaissance period. An atlas of the world asit was then understood, Ptolemy’sCosmographia, came to King’s College as partof the library of its first Principal (its Latininscription reads ‘belonging to the college ofAberdeen, a gift of Master Hector Boece, itsprincipal’). It shows how the idea of ‘the north’developed in the Renaissance: one of its mapsstill shows legendary northern kingdoms suchas ‘Thule’, the mythical northern land conjuredby the geographers of the ancient world.

A cartographic pioneer of the sixteenth century,Gerald Mercator, made a single map of TheLands under the Pole, complete with animaginary landmass at the North Pole, whilein the seventeenth century, Blaeu’s RegionsBeneath the North Pole tries to accommodatethe latest geographical knowledge withclassical myth by identifying the Faroe Islandswith the ‘Fortunate Islands’ of the Ancients.Blaeu’s atlas, which in its time marked asignificant step forward in scientificmapmaking, has a local connection in that themaps of Scotland were revised and suppliedwith commentary by Robert Gordon ofStraloch. One of the copies which we hold isincribed to Gordon by Blaeu and, in turn,Gordon has written an autograph dedicationto the future Charles II, perhaps indicating hisintention of presenting the volume to thePrince. Gordon’s careful enumeration of all hisroyal titles is an affirmation of typically-Aberdonian Stuart loyalism at a time of nationalcrisis.

Marvels

Many ideas about the north are reflected inour rare books collection. One of the mostengaging of early attempts to portray thewonders of the north is that of Olaus Magnus(1490–1558/9), the exiled Catholic Bishop ofUppsala in Sweden. During his many years inRome, he recreated on paper the northern

The North, Claudius Ptolomaeus, Cosmographia(Ulm: Leonardis Holle, 1482) Inc 56

Frontispiece with dedication, Willem and Jan Blaeu,Theatrum orbis terrarium;sive Atlas novus. Pars V: Scotia (Amsterdam, 1654).SB ff912(00) Bla

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lands which were forever lost to him, stressingthe features that, to a Mediterranean reader,were hard to credit:

The ice is only one of a range of phenomenaof the cold that he discusses:

The north of Olaus Magnus is a place ofwonders and often sinister marvels, inhabitedby witches, sorcerers, ghosts and a variety ofmythical fauna. The Antwerp edition of Historiade gentibus septentrionalibus of 1558, and thatproduced in Basle in 1567 (both of which weown) are enlivened by vigorous woodcuts offigures such as the sorcerer king Eric Wind-Hat, Lapland witches, and the Great SeaSerpent, reaching on board a three-master tosnatch a struggling mouthful of sailors.

Magicians

Olaus Magnus writes graphically about thenorth as a place of sorcerors and demons. Inparticular, the Finns had an extraordinaryexpertise in controlling the weather. Wizardssuch as Eric Wind-Hat would sell skippersimprisoned in port by contrary weather ‘wind-ropes’, tied with three magical knots, togetherwith instructions to untie only one at a time(Finns’ peculiar powers over the winds werewidely credited in seafaring communities untilthe end of the nineteenth century).

Another of the liveliest early modern accountsof the far north is Johannes Scheffer’s Historyof Lapland, published in Latin in 1673, andimmediately translated into English, German,French and Dutch. In his introduction, Schefferremarks of Finnmark:

His account of the nomadic circumpolarpeoples now known as the Sami are detailedand uncondescending. One aspect of Sami

A merchant bargains with a Finn for his wind-rope, whileabove them a wind observes the transaction. From OlausMagnus, Historia de gentium septentrionalium variisconditionibus (History of the Northern Peoples) (Basle:Henric Petri, 1567). Pi f91(48) Mag 3

In the beginning and middle of winter, theice is so strong and holds so well thatwith a compactness, or thickness, of twoinches it will support a man walking, ofthree inches an armoured horseman, ofone and a half spans military squadronsor detachments, of four spans a wholebattalion or thousands of people, as Imust record later where I discuss warsfought in winter

here it is indeed, rather than in America,we have a new World discovered, andthose extravagant falsehoods, whichhave so commonly past in the narrativesof these Northern Countries, are not soinescusable for their being lies, as thatthey were told without temptation, the realtruth being equally interesting andincredible.

Cold burns the eyes of animals andstiffens their hairs.Cold makes wild beasts seek out men’sdwellings, wanting to relieve theirhunger..Cold makes wolves fiercer than normalto all animals and also to each other…Cold causes the pelts of all animals tobe thicker and handsomer.Cold allows fish to be kept fresh for fiveor six months without salt.Cold causes fish to die of suffocationunder the ice if it is not broken.Cold always stimulates greater voracityin animals…Cold makes hares, foxes and ermineschange colour.Cold causes copper, glass, andearthenware vessels to break…Cold allows games and most delightfulshows to be held on the ice…Cold causes dry and leafy tree-trunks toproduce a huge noise when they crack.Cold causes clothes, when slightly damp,to stick to iron, if they touch it…Cold makes all seed sown in the groundcome up in greater abundance …

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life which was of immense interest to hisreaders was their paganism. Their worshipwas based on the sacrifice of reindeer, theirprincipal livelihood, to gods represented byimages set in sacred enclosures.

Another aspect of Sami life which fascinatedoutsiders, as it continues to do, wasshamanism. Scheffer presented his readerswith a society in which difficulties and decisionsof all kinds were resolved by recourse toshamans, who solved problems by entering astate of trance in which their spirits wouldjourney through the spiritual worlds until theyfound the information they sought.

Another service which shamans offered to theSami was divination by means of this drum,their most important tool. The head waspainted with symbols, and to question thegods, a bundle of metal rings (the arpa) waslaid upon it. As the sorcerer beat the drum,the vibrating drumhead moved the arpa untilthey lay upon one particular symbol, whichcould then be interpreted. The reindeer, whowere the economic basis of the Sami way oflife, are also well represented in Sheffer’sillustrations.

Lapp worshipping Storjunhare, from Johannes Scheffer,The History of Lapland, (Oxford, 1674) pi f9(471) Sch.p.41

Shaman in trance, from Johannes Scheffer, The Historyof Lapland (Oxford, 1674), pi f9(471) Sch. p.58

When he comes near the sacred Stone,he reverently uncovers his head, andbows his body, paying all the ceremoniesof respect and honour. Then he anointsthe Stone with all the fat and blood, andplaces the horns behind it … The hornsare found placed one above another, inthe fashion of a fence to the God, whichis therefore by the Laplanders called TiorSuigardi, that is a Court fenced withhorns, which are sometimes above athousand in number. (p.43)

Next as to the casting themselves on theground, there are various relations,something them not really, but only inappearance, dead; others are apt tobelieve that the soul departs from thebody, and after its travell abroad, returnsagain…Now after the drummer falls down,he laies his drum as nears as possiblyon his head, in this posture. (p. 58)

Shaman’s drum with explanation of symbols, fromJohannes Scheffer, The History of Lapland (London,1674) pi f9 (471) Sch

The Rein-deer is not harnessed likean Horse, but hath a strong cloth abouthis neck, to which is fastned a ropethat goes between his fore and hindfeet, to the hole in the prou of thesledge. … When they thus travel inthe Winter, the Rein-deers are bravelyadorned with needlework of tin-thredupon diverse colour’d cloth, about theirnecks and back, and a bell, with whichthey are mightily pleased. (p. 105).

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Monsters

The wonders of the north included not onlyshamans and wind-masters, but also a varietyof creatures existing in the shadowed marginsof the knowable world. The great whales ofthe Arctic seas were a significant spur to theexploration and economic exploitation of thecircumpolar region. But other, more exoticcreatures were thought to lurk at the top ofthe map. A Norwegian writer whose workfollows in the steps of Olaus Magnus, ErikPontoppidan, professor extraordinary oftheology in the University of Copenhagen andBishop of Bergen in the mid-eighteenthcentury, is the source of classic stories aboutwonders and marvels of the northern seas.

Having made exhaustive enquiry on thesubject, he was a firm believer in the GreatSea Serpent. He writes in his Natural Historyof Norway:

An ‘imagined north’

A nineteenth-century visionary with whom theUniversity has a particular connection isGeorge MacDonald. Many of his celebratedworks are set in imaginary realms ofmountains, forests and castles,transformations of the northern Scotland of hisyouth. As well as MacDonald’s portrait, theUniversity has part of an autographed draft ofhis much-loved children’s book, At the Backof the North Wind, chapters 26–28, (MS 2231).This is all that remains of MacDonald’s originalautograph, which was rescued by his son from‘a mass of mostly waste papers’, and is greatlyaugmented and expanded in the printedversion, so our draft text allows the reader tosee how the author’s thought developed asthe work reached its final form.

Our text includes MacDonald’s early versionof one of the book’s most memorablemoments, the dream-journey of the dying childDiamond, floating over the sleepingcountryside in the arms of the North Wind.

Lapp riding in reindeer sledge, from Johannes Scheffer,The History of Lapland (London, 1674) pi f9 (471) Sch

The Great Sea Serpent, from Erik Pontoppidan, NaturalHistory of Norway, vol II, (London: Linde,1755) SBf5(481) Pon. plate opp. p.196.

Child Diamond depicted in the arms of the wind, fromGeorge MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind,(London: Daldy, Isbister, 1898). J Macd G a

The Soe Ormen, the Sea-Snake,Serpens Marinus Maximus … is awonderful and terrible sea-monster,which extremely deserves to be takennotice of … I have questioned itsexistence myself, till that suspicion wasremoved by full and sufficient evidencefrom credible and experienced fishermen.

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ABERDEEN AND THE ARCTIC

Treasures

The University’s collections contain a richvariety of objects brought back from northernvoyages, representing the things that tookpeople to the north, such as preciousmaterials, skins and ivory. The importance ofamber in the history of northern exploration,and its extraordinary antiquity as a tradingcommodity, is suggested by prehistoric amberbeads from Aberdeenshire, including one fromthe slopes of Tap o’ Noth beneath the walls ofa great vitrified fort that was destroyed in aconflagration some 2,000 years ago.

Another important treasure of the north iswalrus ivory, represented in our collections byInuit carvings of caribou, seal, walrus and,significantly, narwhal.

The talsimanic treasure of the north is thespiral tusk of the narwhal, long identified withthe powerful and magical horn of the mythicalunicorn. One of the earlier acquisitions by theMarischal College Museum, which is still inthe collection, is an example of this northerntreasure, a ‘Horn of the Sea Unicorn fromDavis Straits, ten feet long’.

Scientists

A variety of library and museum holdingsdemonstrate Scottish participation in northernscientific investigations, such as J. RandCampion’s Aurora and their Spectra (London,1879), and James D Forbes’s Norway and itsGlaciers visited in 1851 (Edinburgh: Adam andCharles Black, 1853). This last is a record ofa general and scientific tour, but includes an

evocative description of a June night atTromsø:

Among other testimonies to scientific collectionin the far north, the museum collectionscontain that great rarity, an egg of the greatauk, and a fine model of a bowhead whalemade by the ship’s captain David Gray, whowas also a pioneering scholar of the Arctic.The search for the north-west passage, thatmost dangerous of Arctic explorations, liesbehind one of our more unexpected holdings,a hortus siccus (MSU 1332/9); an indexedvolume of pressed plant specimens collectedby Dr Walker, ship’s surgeon and naturaliston board the yacht Fox during one of the manynineteenth-century searches for Sir JohnFranklin’s lost expedition.

Explorers

One of the most resonant names in the historyof northern exploration is that of John Franklin,tragic hero of the Arctic. We hold a copy of hisNarrative of a Second expedition to the Shoresof the Polar sea in the years 1825, 1826, and1827 (London: Murray, 1828), which beginsin Canada, at the Great Bear Lake. Therefollows a strange litany of improvised andinvented names including Barter Island andFoggy Island. ‘Return Reef’ is the name of thepoint which marks the limit of the outwardvoyage, making a passing moment apermanent fixture on the map. The appendix,containing Franklin’s minute observations ofthe aurora borealis, anticipates theobservations of celestial phenomena recordedin delicate pastels by Nansen in his bookFarthest North, an account of later and morefortunate Arctic explorations.

Franklin disappeared in 1845, on a doomedquest for the fabled north-west passage, a

Prehistoric amber bead found on Tap o’Noth,Aberdeenshire (1000BC-500AD), ABDUA 15535

It was a glorious evening - the sun shiningwarm and ruddy across the calm sound.It was more like a sunset at Naples thanwhat I had imagined of midnight in thearctic circle. The town and shores ofTromsø were in comparative shadow; andas we rowed across to our steamer, weheard in the distance the not unmelodiouschant of the Russian sailors, who amusedthemselves in boating and singing mostof the night. (p.74)

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search which claimed many lives before thegreat Norwegian adventurer Roald Amundsenfinally demonstrated that it did exist - but thatin order to use it, a captain must expect hisvessel to be frozen into the ice and to takethree years over the trip. Lady Franklin refusedto believe that her husband was not still alive,lost somewhere in the Arctic. Hisdisappearance, and her resolution, capturedthe public imagination, and expedition afterexpedition was mounted to search for him.

Elisha Kane MD USN, in Arctic Explorations(Philadelphia, 1856), reports on ‘The secondGrinnell expedition in search of Sir JohnFranklin’, with a splendid engraving ofFiskaernes in South Greenland, the first Arcticport of call for the expedition. Anotherengraving, ‘The lookout from Cape George’,is evocative of the conditions of expedition life:sledges, dogs and pack ice, seen in low sun.

Other relics of exploration are now conservedin our museum, collected from abandonedcamps of the 1875 Arctic expedition. A chinatea-cup from HMS Alert, and a tin opener fromHMS Discovery, symbolise the attempt byexplorers to maintain civilised standards ofeating and drinking in the face of the Arctic.By contrast, a pair of snow goggles made fromdriftwood and animal sinew exemplifies theuse of available Arctic resources by the Inuit.Without the protection of items such as thesegoggles, hunting - and thus life - in the Arcticwould have been impossible. One of the majorlessons of Arctic exploration is that explorersfrom the Orcadian John Rae to the NorwegianAmundsen, who were prepared to learn fromthe Inuit, survived; those such as Franklin andScott who refused to adapt were less likely toreturn.

Drama in the Arctic

One of the oddities of exploration literature isa record of the entertainments of one suchexpedition. Edward Sabine (ed.), The NorthGeorgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle(London: Murray, 1821), prints extracts fromthe ships’ newspapers of the Fury and Hecla,employed in the discovery of a north-westpassage in 1819–20, written to “relieve thetaedium of our hundred days of darkness andcold”:

From ‘Winter Harbour, Oct 20th 1819’, acorrespondent jokes:

‘

The Theatre Royal, North Georgia’ opened onFriday 5 Nov 1918, with Garrick’s farce, Missin her Teens, a curious choice. Even if therewas a round-faced midshipman to play MissBetty, this group of bearded heroes in theirthick clothes must have revelled at theincongruity. Poor Mr Fribble will certainly haveraised a laugh with his response to beingpushed into a store-room with an earthen floorat the approach of Betty’s aunt; ‘I shall certainlycatch my Death! Where’s my CambrickHandkerchief, and my Salts?’

The play was evidently a success, since inDecember The Theatre Royal offered a newmusical entertainment, The North-WestPassage, or The Voyage Finish’d:

Commerce and adventure

The sheer breadth and diversity of theAberdeen collection is well demonstrated bythe richness of our holdings of nineteenth-century voyages and travels to the Arctic.

The design of this paper is solely topromote good humour and amusement– original contributions on any subject willbe acceptable … A box will be kept onthe capstan of the Hecla to receive themthe key of which will be kept by the Editor.

After the frost shall have exhausted allits usual effects of freezing the brandy-bottle to the lips, freezing the water in thetea-kettle on the fire, congealing sounds,converting sighs into showers of snowand turning tears into icicles, is it notprobable that it may reduce thetemperature of the human body so low,as to interfere with the internal economy,compelling the blood to roll through theveins and arteries in the form of peas,dropping one by one into the propercavities of the heart, and beingdischarged again from thence like smallshot?

The day that’s appointed is nextWednesday weekShould it not be too cold for the actorsto speak.

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The sense of wonder and romance whichattended northern voyages is conveyed byJohn Laing’s A Voyage to Spitzbergencontaining an account of that country(Edinburgh, for the author, 1822) which beginsexactly like a tale of adventure:

The intrepid Laing signed up for theResolution, and embarked on a voyage ofwonders and adventures among vast shoalsof herring as thick and glittering as ‘a spaciousfield of variegated gems’ and in the floatingice and tempestuous seas off Bear or CherryIsland, ‘Lat 74, degrees 30 north’, hearing thepolar bears roaring from the shore. He alsoreports that the captain had commissioned forhimself a wonderful bed, made, like the ancientthrone of the kings of Denmark, from narwhalhorns: ‘It is reckoned a great curiosity and isextremely handsome.’

Another Scottish traveller who crossed theAtlantic to explore the cold waters betweenGreenland and Canada, as a skipper ratherthan ship’s surgeon, was David Duncan, whosubsequently wrote Arctic Regions, voyage toDavis’s Strait by David Duncan, master of theship Dundee (London, sold by the author at 9Baltic Place, Lower Road Deptford, 1827).

Among the more notable adventuresdescribed by Duncan was ‘The periloussituation of the Dundee and the loss of theHarlingen’. The Dundee was, up to that time,the only fishing ship which had ever passed awhole winter in the Arctic with her crew aboard,and lived to tell the tale. Captain Duncanrescued the crew of the wrecked Harlingen,and the two companies shared their meagreprovisions until the Dutch set off overlandacross the ice toward the remotest Danishsettlement, far to the south. There are similarlyevocative illustrations of ships frozen into icein Thomas McKeevor’s A Voyage to Hudson’sBay (London: Richard Phillips, 1819). One ofthe physical artefacts we hold which ispowerfully evocative of these adventurers is along coat with bone or ivory toggles made forSir Will iam MacGregor (governor ofNewfoundland from 1904–09) by the half-InuitMrs Lane at Port Burwell, Labrador. (Readmore about Sir William MacGregor in thesection on The American Arctic.)

Also in our collections is a manuscriptnotebook of a northbound passenger, PatrickBuchan, recording a voyage from Peterheadto Greenland in the brig Union in 1832 (MS2303/7). Its contents include verses abouttravel, exile and longing for home, workadayas poetry, but with thrilling datelines: ‘OffAmsterdam Island, West Spitzbergen, 18June, 1832’ or ‘off the West Ice, Greenland,June 1832’.

In the year 1806, being at the Universityof Edinburgh, an advertisment was put onthe College Gate, by Messrs. P.and C.Wood, merchants, Leith, intimating that asurgeon was wanted for the shipResolution of Whitby, Yorkshire, engagedin the North Sea whale-fishery. Impelledby curiosity and by a still more powerfulmotive, to visit the snow-clad coast ofSpitzbergen …

Lithographed frontispiece of Dutch and Scottish shipfrozen into ice, from David Duncan, Arctic Regions,Voyage to Davis’s Strait, (London: the author, 1827).Lib R 91(98) Dun

Sir William MacGregor’sfur coat ABDUA 5720,Marischal CollegeMuseum.

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Ferdinand von Wrangel’s, Narrative of anExpedition to the Polar Sea (London: JamesMadden, 1840) is another unusually strangeand atmospheric journey along the north coastof the polar sea. It tells of ice-journeys,shamans, reindeer, early snow, ‘conjurations,drummings and jumpings’, and a descriptionof a Sami fair: ‘Men and women clothed withfurs and covered with rime, were moving aboutas gaily as if it were summer, in a cold of -41degrees.’

TRAVEL AND TOPOGRAPHY

Orkney and Shetland

In geography, culture and history, the NorthernIsles are the pivot between Scotland andScandinavia. Gordon of Straloch’s contributionto the great Amsterdam atlas of the 1640sgives the Orkneys and Shetland a sectionapart from Scotland, in the course of whichhe describes fierce winters, treeless slopes,and the absence of venomous reptiles. Hefollows also a general Renaissance trend inidentifying Shetland with Thule, the distantnorthern land of ancient legend.

His account is amplified in James Wallace’s ADescription of the Isles of Orkney, publishedat Edinburgh in 1693, which contains aconsideration of the summer midnight,concluding that:

Otherwise, his account does not lackdescriptions of the wonders of these northernislands: stones generated spontaneously inthe air and falling into the sea, mysterious firesburning at Evie and St. Nicholas’s church litup ‘as if torches or candles were burning allnight’. He also reports contacts with occasionalInuit visitors to the Orkneys, such as the‘Finnman’ of Greenland, seen in 1682 rowing‘in his little boat at the south end of the Isle ofEda’.

A Voyage to Shetland and the Orkneys,published in the mid-eighteenth century, calmlyrecords recollections of the legendary northof the monsters and the enchanters. Not onlyare there ‘uncommon fish resembling theshape of human creatures’, but the inhabitantsof Orkney…

A True and Exact description of the Island ofShetland, published at London in 1753, isconcerned mostly with the economic potentialof the islands lying forty leagues north of‘Johnny Groat’s house, commonly called theWorld’s End’, but the anonymous author findsroom to record that the world’s finest hawksare bred in Shetland. and that the otters inShetland are so tame that…

The eighteenth century also saw the firstscholarly publication of the most ancientwritten account of the early-mediaeval historyof the Orkneys, the Orkneyinga Saga. Thiswas published in Copenhagen with acommentary and parallel Latin translation bythe Icelandic scholar Jon Jonsson. Thus hemade the histories of the Earls in the eleventhand twelfth centuries, including St. Magnus,internationally available in the internationalscholarly language. His volume includes alsothe saga which preserves the legends ofMagnus, his battles with his kinsmen, his deathat their hands, and the posthumousmanifestations of his sanctity in supernaturallights about his tomb and the ‘bare stones’where his blood had fallen flourishing as greenas any garden.

Orkney is also the setting for Walter Scott’slate novel The Pirate, of which the Universityholds a pristine copy of the three-volume firstedition, a part of the magnificent Bernard LloydScott collection, which also contains a rarechapbook version of the novel. This littleshilling edition of The Pirates, a tale foundedon facts ‘from a celebrated novel of that nameby a Favourite author’, with its brightly-coloured

…it cannot be the true body of the Sunthat is seen, but only the Image of itrefracted though the Sea, or some waterycloud about the Horizon

…deal much in Charms, with greatSuccess, particularly for excessivebleeding, which is stopped by sending thename of the afflicted person to theCharmer who repeats certain words, andnever fails of curing.

…in cold winter nights they will come intoPeople’s Houses, and lie down by the firelike a dog.

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naïve frontispiece, is in itself a considerablerarity, a surviving example of an ephemeralpublication.

Russia and Siberia

A variety of explorers with more or lessethnographic concerns visited the countriesof the far north. At the turn of the seventeenthcentury, the intrepid Dutch traveller Corneliusde Bruyn set forth on a gigantic journey withhis sketch-book, the results of which werepublished in 1737 as Travels into Muscovy,Persia, and part of the East-Indies. His travelstook him up to the territories of the Samoyednomads of northern Siberia.

He made careful drawings and observationsof a Samoyed couple:

Another northern traveller of the same period,Robert Ker Porter, ventured eastward toRussia and recorded his impressions inTravelling Sketches in Russia and Sweden(London, 1813). His notes indicate hisambivalence; while he is a fascinated andobservant witness of the Russian scene, heis also eager for news. He records the intenseemotion with which he heard of Trafalgar andthe death of Nelson, brought to him in theremote wilderness of the Russian steppes. ToKer Porter, the arrival of winter in St Petersburgwas the authentic experience for which he hadbeen waiting: (p. 107)

Interior of Samoyed tent with De Bruyn dressed as agentleman of 1701 and smoking a pipe, from Corneliusde Bruyn, Travels into Muscovy, Persia and part of theEast Indies (London: Bettesworth et al., 1737) SB f 91(5)Bru.

In our way, we landed at a wood, wherewe saw some of the people calledSamoëds, which in the Russian tongue,signifies man eaters, or people thatdevour one another. They are almostall wild, and stretch along the coast quiteto Siberia.(p. 6)

They are drest in skins of the rein-deer,adorn’d with streaks of white, grey, andblack. This woman was dress’d out as abride, and was very neat from head to foot,according to their fashion. [her husband’s]winter dress was what I thought mostproper for me to draw, and I thereforedesired him to appear in that. His uppergarment was one piece of skin, to whichthe cap he wore on his head was joined.He put it on and off like a shirt, so thatnothing appeared of him but his face, hisgloves being also of-a-piece with the restof his habit: and indeed, he had lookedmore like a bear than a man, had it notbeen for the sight of his face. His bootswere fastned below the knee: but thisdress was so hot, as well as the stove inmy room, that he was obliged to put it offseveral times, and to go out and refreshhimself with a little air. (p. 8).

Samoyed man and woman, from Cornelius de Bruyn,Travels into Muscovy, Persia and part of the East Indies(London: Bettesworth et al., 1737) Pl. 8

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His lively sketches include a view of a post-house, the way-stations for all travellers in theinterior, which he describes as follows:

Ker Porter ventured as far north as Archangel,of which he says little, except that ‘It is in theseiron regions that we hear of travellers, naywhole families, being frozen to death’.

Another Russian travel-book of outstandingquality from the same period is A Picture ofSt. Peterburgh (London, 1815), which givesviews of each month of the year, and alsoillustrations of different sledges. Its author,unlike Ker Porter, is interested in the summerface of Russia:

Summer bridge of boats across the Neva, from A Pictureof St Petersburgh (London: Orme,1815). SB f91(474)Len

Iceland

A considerable impetus was given to northerntourism when the Napoleonic wars closedwestern continental Europe to travellers.William Jackson Hooker’s Journal of a Tourin Iceland in the summer of 1809 (London,1811) was a naturalist’s expedition undertakenwith the help of the great botanist Sir JosephBanks of Kew. The tour illustrates some of theoddities of contemporary politics. Denmarkand Britain were at that time at war, activelyso, since the British navy had shelled

Now indeed this is Russia! Every sensation,every perception, confirms the conviction.The natives have suddenly changed theirwoollen kaftans for the greasy andunseemly skins of sheep. The freezingpower which has turned every inanimateobject into ice seems to have thawed theirhearts and their faculties; they sing, theylaugh, they wrestle, tumbling about likegreat bears amongst the furrows of thesurrounding snow.

One room is the habitation of all theinmates. Here they eat, sleep, and performall the functions of life. One quarter of it isoccupied by a large stove or peech, flat atthe top; on which many of them take theirnocturnal rest; and during the day loll overits baking warmth for hours, by threes andfours together in a huddle, not more decentthan disgusting. Beneath, is an excavationlike an oven, used for the double duty ofcooking their victuals and heating thedwelling to the desired temperature …when we entered, the top of the stove wasoccupied by the three women and child,almost all in a state of nature … in one spotwas placed a lamp, which during certainholy-days is kept continually burning.

Interior of a Russian Post-house, from Robert Ker Porter,Travelling Sketches in Russia and Sweden, vol 1, 2nd

edition (London: Stockdale, 1813). Lib R f91(47) Por

Snow … does not disappear until the monthof April, but then two or three days aresufficient to eradicate the melancholyprospect. At this period everythingassumes a new face; the men lay asidetheir fur clothing which envelops andconceals their fine forms: and the womenappear more beautiful and amiable. Thewinter nevertheless has its pleasures,which are even preferred by the natives ofthe country to those of the finer seasons.In winter coaches are laid aside and areagreeably succeeded by sledges: and theinside of the palaces of the great causeone to forget the rigours of the season.

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Copenhagen in 1801. However, for all that,British ships in harbour in Reykjavik werehappy to help to suppress an Icelandic risingagainst the Danes, and to take the leader toBritain as a prisoner. The only one of hisdrawings to survive the rising is the depictionof an Icelandic bride, reproduced as thefrontispiece.

An urbane Scottish visitor to Iceland in theNapoleonic era was Sir George SteuartMackenzie. In Travels in the Island of Icelandduring the summer of the year 1810(Edinburgh, 1811), he, like Hooker, showshimself to be on surprisingly good terms withthe Danish authorities. It is interesting to notethat language was not a problem for him,because he found that official functionaries,clergy and schoolmasters were all able toconverse with him in Latin.

Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, Travels in the Island ofIceland during the summer of the year 1810 (Edinburgh:Constable et al., 1811). Lib R 91(491) McKe.

The literary and political heritage of the Vikingage in Iceland attracted a stream of informedvisitors as the nineteenth century progressed.Iceland was originally settled by sturdilyindependent Norwegians who weredetermined to resist the encroachments ofKing Harald Fairhair, and thus evolved the firstparliamentary democracy.

The liberal and educated tradition of pilgrimageto the site of this first democracy is revealedby William Morris’s saga translations andrecord of his travels in Iceland. We hold anexcellent late Victorian photograph album oftravels in his footsteps. These photographs areequally concerned to portray scenes ofdramatic episodes from the sagas, andThingvellir, site of the world’s first parliament.

Scandinavia

Another Scandinavian traveller of thenineteenth century went to the north of Finland,where he was astonished by a local customthen totally unfamiliar – the sauna. Joseph(Giuseppe) Acerbi in his Travels ThroughSweden, Finland and Lapland (London, 1802),reports:

An Icelandic lady inher bridal dress, fromWill iam JacksonHooker, Journal of aTour in Iceland in thesummer of 1809(London: Vernor,Hood& Sharpe, 1811). Lib R91(491) Hoo.

Almost all the Finlandish peasants havea small house built on purpose for a bath.It consists of only one small chamber, inthe innermost part of which are placed anumber of stones, which are heated byfire till they become red. On these stones,thus heated, water is thrown, until thecompany within be involved in a thickcloud of vapour … men and women usethe bath promiscuously, without anyconcealment of dress, or being in theleast influenced by any emotion ofattachment. … The Finlanders, all thewhile they are in this hot bath, continueto rub themselves, and lash every partof their bodies with switches formed oftwigs of the birch tree … in the winterseason, they frequently go out of thebath, naked as they are, to rollthemselves in the snow.

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Adventurous tourists continued to visit, andreport on, the various countries of the norththroughout the nineteenth century. Twogentlemen went on a summer walking holidayin Norway, Mr Forrester and Lieut. Biddulph,which Forrester subsequently wrote up as abook, Norway in 1848 and 1849 containingrambles among the fields and fjords (London,1850). The friends were interested in theremoteness of Norway, its lack of previousvisitors, and, rather unusually for tourists, bythe peculiarities of the nation’s political life.1848 was a year of revolutions, and they feltthat the manner in which Norway wasapparently completely untouched by this wasa fact requiring explanation. The answer theycome up with is a simple one: they ascribethe apparent Norwegian absence ofoppression or the formation of an oppressiveclass to the absence of easily-worked building-stone to build castles.

The book includes an atmospheric plate ofresting in the forest under the peaks andglaciers (see front cover illustration).

Northern Japan

Inevitably, Aberdeen’s connections with thecircumpolar world reflect our own geographicalposition. A rich and various collection of books,manuscripts and artefacts attest to interest in,and connections with, Arctic Canada andGreenland. Other travellers recorded journeysin Scandinavia, Finnmark, and Russia. Butone of the most tantalisingly enigmatictreasures at the University’s MarischalMuseum, recently rediscovered and as yetunstudied, closes the circle by suggesting theinterest of an Aberdeen alumnus in a northernpeople from completely the other side of theworld, the Ainu of Hokkaido.

This is a lavishly and beautifully illustratedJapanese ethnographic account of Ainu lifeand folkways, in the form of a scroll called ‘NewYear ’s Ceremonies of the Ezo people[observed] at Matsumae Castle’, producedprobably some time in the 1850s. Matsumaeis a region in the southern tip of the island ofHokkaido. In 1807, late into the rule of theTokugawa Shogunate, the regionaladministration for Hokkaido and Sakhalin wasmoved there from Hakodate. Since it wasmoved back to Hakodate in 1856, the scrollwas made before that date, and after 1807.The term ‘Ezo’ was generally applied to thepeoples living in the north-eastern part of theisland of Honshu, as well as on Hokkaido, whodid not submit to the central Japanesegovernment (at the time, the imperial court),but the term came gradually to be appliedsolely to the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido.‘Ezo’ thus included the Ainu, who areundoubtedly depicted here, identifiablebecause of their peculiar hairiness, and evenmore peculiar customs.

We know of only one other such scroll inBritain, which is now in the British Library. Inwords and pictures, it shows Ainu fishingtechniques, an Ainu hut, commercial trade indried fish with merchants from mainlandJapan, and above all, details of the Ainu bearcult: a cub, lovingly hand-reared, which istreated as the god of the tribe, and sacrificedwhen it reaches maturity. This scroll is a uniquewitness to Aberdonian interest in the furthestreaches of the northern world.

A Finlandish bath, from Joseph Acerbi in his Travelsthrough Sweden, Finland and Lapland Vol 1, (London:Mawman, 1802). Lib R 91 (48:471) Ace. opp. p.297.

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Ainu boy embracing a bear-cub, from New Year’sCeremonies of the Ezo people at Matsumae Castle.Scroll, 1850s, Marischal College Museum.

The American ArcticThough our material on the social history ofsouthern Canada is rich, throughout theUniversity’s history a very important area ofour interaction with North America has beencontact with its Arctic north. Northern Canadawas the home of the beaver, which was forlong Canada’s most economically significantresource (beaver hats were virtually mandatoryfor anyone with pretensions to gentility fromthe late sixteenth century until the earlynineteenth.)

However, the mirage which glittered beforeinvestor’s eyes was the fabled sea-route, thenorth-west passage. One of the earliesttravellers represented in our collections isSamuel Hearne. Hearne’s Journey from Princeof Wales’s Fort in Hudson Bay to the NorthernOcean (1795) records a journey made in thecompany of a group of native Americans tomap and survey the interior. The neatengraving of the Prince of Wales’s Fort, withits Union Jack, and a British officer gesturingwith his cane to impress a native Americanwoman, suggests an obtuse attempt to imposeEuropean perspectives on a profoundly alienenvironment, and gives a completelyinaccurate impression of this man.

Unlike many later explorers, Hearne made noattempt to maintain European standards, butlived as his guides did, which required a strongstomach:

Observant and nonjudgmental, his accountbrings the country and its people to life. Whilehe is sometimes sickened by his guides’conduct (as when they massacre aninoffensive group of Inuit), he perceives themas fully adult and human, never as children or‘noble savages’.

The work-life of Northern Canada, and inparticular its exploitation of the endless forests,is reflected by Joseph Bouchette’s, The BritishDominions in North America or a topographicaldescription of Lower and Upper Canada(London, 1832). On page 137 there is adescription of the life of ‘the lumberer’, cuttingand dragging timber all through the wintersnows and then at the melt when the riversswell or, according to the lumberer’s phrase,‘the freshets come down’, then the timber isfloated down and made into rafts when itreaches the deeper water.

The solitudes of Arctic Canada dominate theillustrations of an account of an 1831 whalingexpedition, MS 673, which includes vignettesof icebergs and seabirds, Arctic animals seenagainst the wastes of ice. The text is a richlyfactual diary of a voyage (March-October1831) from Aberdeen via Lerwick in Shetlandto the Davis Straits, and back to Hoy andBressey in the Orkney islands. It is full offascinating and detailed descriptions of marineand bird life, weather conditions, whalingprocedures, shipboard customs andsuperstitions, hunting expeditions andencounters with the Inuit. (We also haveanother account, dating from 1853, of theArctic voyage of a Peterhead vessel in MS2719.)

The most remarkable dish among them …is blood mixed with the half digested foodwhich is found in the deer’s stomach orpaunch, and boiled up with a sufficientquantity of water, to make it of theconsistency of pease pottage … [I] alwaysthought it exceedingly good.

A North West View of Prince of Wales’s Fort, fromSamuel Hearne, Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort inHudson Bay to the Northern Ocean (London, 1795), SB91 (98) Hea

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Men from northern Scotland, already inuredto a difficult climate, were attracted to theHudson’s Bay Company. One of Hearne’sdistinguished successors as an explorerfinanced by the Company was John Rae, fromOrphir in Orkney, who surveyed the as-yet-unexplored northern coastline of Canada inthe 1840s. Rae’s outstanding success wasalso grounded on attending carefully to whatthe Inuit had to tell him about Arctic survivaland living off the land, in stark contrast to mostBritish explorers of the period. The linksbetween Aberdeen and Rae are evoked by atag attached to a small comb donated to theMarischal Museum in 1929: ‘Esquimaux combfrom Dr. Rae, Hudson’s Bay Co’.

Another Hudson’s Bay book, ThomasMcKeevor’s A Voyage to Hudson’s Bay duringthe summer of 1817 (London, 1819) is thework of a man with a gift for description, whoevokes the real strangeness of the Arcticworld:

He is above all, interested in ice phenomena,and the engraving made from one of hisdrawings of three ships frozen into the ice ishaunting and evocative.

A Moonlight Scene on the Ice, facing p. 37, from ThomasMcKeevor, A Voyage to Hudson’s Bay (London: RichardPhillips, 1819), LibR 91(712)Mac

The story of Aberdeen and the Hudson’s BayCompany is a long and complex one, and wehave benefited from our connections with theCompany in a variety of ways. One remarkablenorthern Scot who became one of its mostdistinguished servants was Donald AlexanderSmith, later Baron Strathcona and MountRoyal (1820-1914), who was born inMorayshire, and joined the service of theHudson’s Bay Company in 1838. By 1869, hewas head of the Company’s Montrealdepartment. His diplomatic success inachieving a peaceful solution to the Red Riveruprising (1869-70) seems to have whetted anappetite for politics, a career which culminatedin becoming High Commissioner in London.However, the most significant thing about himis that by the time of his death, he had becomeeasily the wealthiest Canadian of his time anda noted philanthropist, particularly generousto McGill and Aberdeen Universities.

The world of early twentieth-century scientificinvestigation of Arctic Canada is vividly evokedin a set of stereoscopic images of anexpedition of 1902. These pictures showscenes of whaling – ‘On the lookout for whales,Baffin Bay’ is an image of ship’s boatsmomentarily at rest amid the reflections ofgranite rocks in motionless water. There arealso evocative records of ‘Fort Magnesia, thewinter quarters of the Stein Arctic expeditionto Cape Sabine, Ellesmere Land, 79 degreesnorth’. The substantial wooden hut is shownin winter completely buried in snow, with a shaftcut at chimney level to the open air. There isalso an interior of the hut, ‘Dr Leopold Kahn,the Arctic Explorer, in his winter quarters.’Interestingly these arctic images come fromthe collection of William Clark Souter (1880–1959), better known for his record inmanuscript and photographs of the Antarcticvoyage of the Terra Nova in 1903–1904, ourMS 3755/2.

In 2000, the University hosted a majorconference on Inuit Studies. Though this wasprimarily focused on the increasingly complexand problematic relationship between peoples,resources, environment, and global processesin the Arctic today, it also had a significanthistorical dimension, since some of the Inuitwho attended the conference had personal tieswith the north-east of Scotland, andconsequently the additional motive of tracingtheir heritage or ancestry. Many Inuit workedon Scottish whaling vessels, visiting and livingin towns such as Aberdeen and Peterhead.

The first thing that engages the attentionof the passing mariner is the majestic, aswell as singular form which the iceassumes in these chilling regions. I haveseen many of these immense massesbear a very close resemblance to anancient abbey with arched doors andwindows …while others assume theappearance of a Grecian temple,supported by massive columns of anazure hue, which at a distance looked likethe purest mountain granite (p.9).

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One of the most remarkable pieces ofevidence for Aberdeen’s interaction with thecircumpolar world dates from around 1700,and, astonishingly, represents an epic voyagefrom the Americas to Europe – perhapsexploration, perhaps misadventure. TheUniversity preserves an ‘Eskimaux canoe inwhich a native of that country was drivenashore near Belhelvie, about the beginning ofthe eighteenth century, and died soon afterlanding’. The first record of this kayak is in adiary written by the Rev. Francis Gastrell ofStratford-upon-Avon who visited Aberdeen in1760. He says that,

At the time of Gastrell’s visit, the UniversityChapel was used as the library, and also asthe museum, hence the ‘Canoo’ being ‘in theChurch’. This enigmatic visitor has since beenidentified as a Greenlander, on the groundsof the style of his kayak. His arrival in Aberdeenseems almost miraculous, but he may havehad an experience resembling that of anotherInuit visitor to Scotland, who turned up in 1818(the story is told in another of the books in ourlibrary, Thomas McKeevor’s A Voyage toHudson’s Bay (London, 1819), p. 31):

This second story ended more happily, withthe unnamed adventurer returning home ladenwith possessions which he shared with hisfamily.

One remarkable Aberdeen skipper who madea significant impact on North Canada wasCaptain William Penny. In 1839, Pennyencountered a young Inuk man, Inuluapik, whotold him he knew where to find a huge,sheltered fjord on the east of Baffin Island.Whalers had long been searching for this,since it was known to exist (provisionally

named Cumberland Sound) and was thefavoured territory of the bowhead whaleswhich were their preferred target. Pennyinvited the young man to accompany him toAberdeen for the winter, which he was happyto do, and the Neptune reached Aberdeen onNovember 8, where Inuluapik’s arrival createda sensation. He gave a demonstration of hiskayaking ability on the River Dee. Rashly, hewore full Arctic dress, far too warm for theclimate, which sadly put him in bed with a lunginfection from which he never entirelyrecovered. The kayak he used is probably theone now housed in the University’s MedicalSchool. Inuluapik and Penny left Aberdeenaboard another ship, the Bon Accord, on 1 April1840, and on 27 July, guided by Inuluapik,Penny triumphantly entered CumberlandSound. In the following years CumberlandSound became the most important whalingground in the Canadian Arctic. Penny’s ownreputation is suggested by the fact that he wasselected to lead a British Admiralty expeditionin search of Sir John Franklin, an exceptionalhonour for a whaling master. Concerned aboutthe growing number of American whalerswintering in Cumberland Sound, Pennyapplied for a Royal Charter in 1853 to establisha permanent commercial colony. Although hisinitiative was rejected by the Britishgovernment, an Aberdeen Arctic Companywas formed to purchase the Lady Franklin andthe Sophia (the two ships he had commandedon the Admiralty Expedition), allowing him tomaintain a land base in the Sound whichbecame the chief British station on BaffinIsland. In 1857- 8, he returned to Baffin Island,accompanied, unusually, by his wife Margaret,and mapped the Cumberland Sound region.

Probably the most significant of theUniversity’s legacies from our Hudson’s Bayconnection is held in the Marischal Museum.The Museum contains the third-largestethnographic collection in Scotland, with aparticular strength in Arctic America (almost2,000 items). At the core of this collection is adonation by Sir William MacGregor (1846–1919), which includes archaeological materialfrom Labrador of ancient date, as well asnineteenth-century ethnographic items.MacGregor, who studied medicine at theUniversity of Glasgow and the University ofAberdeen, joined the colonial service in 1872and gradually made his way up the ranks,becoming governor of Newfoundland in 1904.He was one of the few governors who took an

This poor fellow had been drifted out to seain his canoe near a hundred miles, whenhe fortunately met with one of thehomeward-bound Greenland ships, whichtook him up …

In the Church . . . was a Canoo aboutseven yards long by two feet widewhich about thirty two years since wasdriven into the Don with a man in itwho was all over hairy and spoke alanguage which no person there couldinterpret. He lived but three days, tho’all possible care was taken to recoverhim.

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active interest in native peoples, visiting bothInuit and Mi’kmaq settlements, and drew onhis medical training to help stop the spread oftuberculosis on the island. His term ended in1909, and after a period in Queensland,Australia, he retired home to Aberdeen, wherehe died. Most of his collection consisted ofquotidian artefacts such as scrapers, asoapstone kettle, and other tools of the Inuitway of life. His fur coat is mentioned in thisbooklet in the section on Explorers. But hisdonations to Marischal also include an objectparticularly rich in associations with the greatenterprises of the nineteenth century - an Inuitknife. This knife was found by Captain Bartlettduring Peary’s attempt on the North Pole in1906, on the site of the English camp at NorthGrant Land (82° 30' N), and had belonged toa member of the crew of the Discovery duringthe Arctic expedition of 1875.

One of our most important donors in this fieldwas Captain William Mitchell (1802–76), anAberdonian master mariner employed by theHudson’s Bay Company. Like many Hudson’sBay employees, ‘Willie’ Mitchell was both sailorand trader. He was responsible for fourvessels, Cadboro, Una, Recovery and Beaver,and later for the Company’s base, Fort Rupert(Mitchell Bay in the Queen Charlotte Islandsbears his name). From the many beautifulobjects which Mitchell bequeathed toMarischal Museum, one has particular interest.Among a collection of decoratively-carvedpanel pipes, mostly of argillite, is a charminglyhumorous representation of Mitchell’s ownside-paddlewheel steamer, the Beaver (notethe beaver figurehead), carved by a native ofthe Queen Charlotte Islands in BritishColumbia.

The Beaver was the first steamship on thewest coast of the American continent, andunderstandably an object of interest. These

panel pipes, which combine European andHaida motifs, are a particularly evocativereminder of the complex relationships betweennative people and European traders andsettlers.

Other highlights of Mitchell’s collection includea remarkable pair of wooden figures, sombre,thoughtful and dignified, also from the QueenCharlotte Islands and an exquisite Chilkatblanket in the Tsimshian style. These blanketswere worn by Tlingit people of rank, both menand women, and were placed as funeraryrobes on the graves of dead chiefs. Mitchellalso collected five unusually beautiful masks,one of which conveys such a strong sense ofindividuality that it may be a portrait.

Inuit knife, ABDUA 5819, Marischal College Museum

Panel pipe showing model boat, ABDUA 5559. MarischalCollege Museum.

Figure carving, Queen Charlotte Islands, ABDUA 9503,Marischal College Museum

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We also have a variety of Inuit representationalart, including a small group of gaming piecesshaped like waterfowl, which may be ofconsiderable age. They were excavated in1866 from a house on the south entrance toJones Sound, Banks Island, in the North-WestTerritories. Though diminutive, the pieces areexquisitely carved, and two are clearlyidentifiable as crested grebes.

A particularly fine statuette of a walking cariboufrom Baffin Island similarly shows shrewdlyaffectionate observation of the animal’sphysique and movement, this miniscule workof art constituting in itself a treasure of thenorth.

CONCLUSION

This is a long, rich history of the relations ofthe northernmost university in Britain with thewhole northern world lying below the pole.From the collecting of Renaissance maps, toexplorations in both directions across the coldseas, Aberdeen’s relations with the Arctic andwith northernmost Europe have been complexand fruitful. From 1800, there was an evermore serious and significant movement ofpeoples, goods, artefacts, art and ideas to andfro across the Atlantic. In this process, thecolleges of the University of Aberdeen had asignificant part to play. Alumni and professorsalike have travelled to Arctic America as wellas to Iceland and Scandinavia, and ourlibrarians have constantly collected the recordsof travels to the north and of northernexplorations, to the infinite enrichment of ourcollections as well as of our intellectual life.

Chilkat blanket, ABDUA 9503, Marischal CollegeMuseum

Mask, ABDUA 9497, Marischal College Museum

Gaming pieces, ABDUA 6199, Marischal CollegeMuseum

Walking caribou in walrus ivory, ABDUA 5735. MarischalCollege Museum.

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HOLDINGS AS INDICATED IN THE TEXT

Claudius Ptolomaeus, Cosmographia (Ulm: Holle,1482). Inc 56

Willem and Jan Blaeu, Theatrum orbis terrarum; sive Atlas novus. Pars V: Scotia(Amsterdam, 1654). SB ff912(00) Bla

Olaus Magnus, Historia de gentium septentrionalium variis conditionibus (Basle:Henric Petri, 1567). pi f91(48) Mag 3

Johannes Scheffer, The History of Lapland (Oxford, 1674) pi f9(471)Sch

Erik Pontoppidan, Natural History of Norway (London: Linde, 1755) SB f5(481) Pon

George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind (London: Daldy, Isbister, 1898).J Macd G a

Prehistoric Amber bead found on Tap o’Noth, Rhynie, Aberdeenshire (1000BC-500AD) , ABDUA 15535. Marischal College Museum.

James D. Forbes, Norway and its Glaciers Visited in 1851 (Edinburgh: Adam &Charles Black, 1858) LibR 91(481) For

Sir John Franklin, Narrative of A Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea(London: Murray, 1828) LibR 91(98) Fra 2

Elisha Kane, Arctic Explorations (Philadelphia, 1886), Lib R 91 (98) Kan a1

Edward Sabine (ed.), The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle (London:Murray, 1821)

John Laing, A Voyage to Spitzbergen (Edinburgh: for the author, 1822), SB5 (98)Lai

David Duncan, Arctic Regions, voyage to Davis’s Strait by David Duncan, master ofthe ship Dundee (London: the author, 1827). Lib R 91(98) Dun

Thomas MacKeevor, A Voyage to Hudson’s Bay (London: Richard Phillips, 1819)LibR 91(712)Mac

Sir William MacGregor’s fur coat ABDUA 5720. Marischal College Museum.

Patrick Buchan, ‘Notebook on Voyage from Peterhead to Greenland’, MS 230217

Ferdinand von Wrangel, Narrative of an Expedition to the Polar Sea (London:James Madden, 1940) Boyndlie 19.239

James Wallace, A Description of the Isles of Orkney (Edinburgh, 1693) BK Wal

Anon, A Voyage to Shetland and the Orkneys (London, 1751) SB 91(411) Sco v

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Anon, A True and Exact Description of the Island of Shetland (London, 1753), SB91 (471) Sco

Sir Walter Scott, The Pirate (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable & Co., 1822) WSW125

Anon, The Pirates, a Tale Founded on Facts (London, 1822) WS H7

Cornelius de Bruyn, Travels into Muscovy, Persia, and part of the East-Indies(London: Bettesworth et al., 1737) SB f 91(5) Bru

Robert Ker Porter, Travelling Sketches in Russia and Sweden, 2nd ed. (London:Stockdale, 1813). Lib R f91(47) Por

A Picture of St. Peterburgh (London: Orme, 1815) SB f91(474) Len

William Jackson Hooker, Journal of a Tour in Iceland in the summer of 1809(London: Vernor, Hood & Sharpe, 1811). Lib R 91(491) Hoo.

George Steuart Mackenzie, Travels in the Island of Iceland during the Summer ofthe year 1810 (Edinburgh: Constable et al., 1811). Lib R 91(491) McKe

Photographs from a Tour in Iceland: Album, 1899. Lib R f91(491) Ice p.

Giuseppi Acerbi, Travels Through Sweden, Finland and Lapland... 2 vols (London:Mawman, 1802) Lib R 91(48:471) Ace

Thomas Forester, Norway in 1848 and 1849 (London: Longman, 1850). Lib R91(481) Fore

Ainu boy cuddling a bear cub, from New Year’s Ceremonies of the Ezo People atMatsumae Castle. Scroll, 1850s, Marischal College Museum.

Samuel Hearne, Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to theNorthern Ocean (London, 1795), SB 91 (98) Hea

Joseph Bouchette, The British Dominions in North America (London, 1832), LibR 91(71) Bou

Anon, Journal of a whaling expedition from Aberdeen to the Davis Straits, 1831 (MS673)

Anon, Journal of a voyage from Peterhead to the Arctic, 1853, MS 2719

Comb, once the property of John Rae, ABDUA, Marischal College Museum

Kayak, navigated from Greenland to Aberdeen c. 1700, ABDUA 6013, MarischalCollege Museum

‘Arctic Series: Through the Stereoscope’ : series of stereoscopic photographs,distrib. by Underwood & Underwood, c.1902. Stereoscopic photograph of DrLeopold Kahn in his winter quarters, Ellesmere Land. MS 2407.

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Inuit knife, ABDUA 5819, Marischal College Museum

Panel pipe showing model boat, ABDUA 5559. Marischal College Museum.

Figure carving, Queen Charlotte Islands, ABDUA 9503, Marischal College Museum

Chilkat blanket, ABDUA 9503, Marischal College Museum

Mask, ABDUA 9497, Marischal College Museum

Gaming pieces, ABDUA 6199, Marischal College Museum,

Walking caribou in walrus ivory, ABDUA 5735. Marischal College Museum.