Frobisher's 1578 voyage: early eyewitness accounts of English ships in Arctic seas
ABSTRACT The three voyages to Baffin Island under the command of Martin Frobisher (1576, 1577, and 1578) constituted the first recorded European expeditions to the area. Their original aim—the discovery of a northwest route to ‘Cathay,’ the ill-understood far east—was one manifestation of a broader...
| Published in: | Polar Record |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1996
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400067541 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400067541 |
| Summary: | ABSTRACT The three voyages to Baffin Island under the command of Martin Frobisher (1576, 1577, and 1578) constituted the first recorded European expeditions to the area. Their original aim—the discovery of a northwest route to ‘Cathay,’ the ill-understood far east—was one manifestation of a broader English attempt to challenge the commercial ascendancy of Spain and Portugal whilst avoiding political confrontation with those powers. This latter imperative made it necessary for the search to be conducted in relatively high latitudes, corollaries of which were the growth of English experience of Arctic and sub-Arctic conditions, and the development of a body of literature, both technical and popular, to record the lessons of these endeavours. Utilising the relative abundance of contemporary evidence on the events of Frobisher's 1578 voyage—the largest expedition to Baffin Island prior to the present century—this paper notes and examines the responses of English mariners to these climatic conditions. |
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