An Exploration of Canadian Identity in Recent Literary Narratives of the Franklin Expeditions

Sir John Franklin’s three expeditions to the high Arctic in 1819, 1825, and 1845 have become the stuff of Canadian legend, enshrined in history books, songs, short stories, novels, and web sites. Franklin set out in 1845 to discover the Northwest Passage with the most advanced technology the British...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries
Main Author: Victor Kennedy
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani) 2006
Subjects:
Canadian literature and culture
Franklin Expedition
Stan Rogers (“Northwest Passage”)
Margaret Atwood (“The Age of Lead”)
Rudy Wiebe (Discovery of Strangers)
John Wilson (North with Franklin)
English language
PE1-3729
English literature
PR1-9680
Arctic
Atwood
Canada
Northwest Passage
Northwest passage
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.3.1-2.193-200
https://doaj.org/article/b02047cdb4124abe9a500f56ce860ce0
Description
Summary:Sir John Franklin’s three expeditions to the high Arctic in 1819, 1825, and 1845 have become the stuff of Canadian legend, enshrined in history books, songs, short stories, novels, and web sites. Franklin set out in 1845 to discover the Northwest Passage with the most advanced technology the British Empire could muster, and disappeared forever. Many rescue explorations found only scant evidence of the Expedition, and the mystery was finally solved only recently. This paper will explore four recent fictional works on Franklin’s expeditions, Stan Rogers’ song “Northwest Passage”, Margaret Atwood’s short story “The Age of Lead”, Rudy Wiebe’s A Discovery of Strangers, and John Wilson’s North with Franklin: the Lost Journals of James Fitzjames, to see how Franklin’s ghost has haunted the hopes and values of nineteenth-century, as well as modern, Canada.

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