Arctic circles: circuits of sociability, intimacy and imperial knowledge in Britain and North America, 1818-1828

• Main Author: Jacobs, A
• Other Authors: Edmonds, P, Nettlebeck, A
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Palgrave Macmillan 2018
• Subjects: exploration; women; indigenous peoples; collecting; trauma; Arctic; Great Bear Lake; Indian; North Pole; Parry
• Online Access: https://eprints.utas.edu.au/27388/; https://eprints.utas.edu.au/27388/1/ARCTIC%20CIRCLES,%20Final%20Draft.docx

In 1827, a thirty-six year old spinster named Jane Griffin was pulled aside by her brother-in-law in a London drawing room. As she noted in her diary, Mr. Simpkinson “asked if I had succeeded in meeting Captain F. [Franklin] in arctic circles, that being the report, & whether some cape or bay was not christened in our name.” The widowed polar explorer John Franklin hadjust returned from his third Arctic expedition, and had indeed named a‘Cape Griffin’ in Jane’s honour, and invited her to his house to find it onan oiled paper map. Together with Franklin’s sister, Mrs. Booth, and histhree-year-old daughter Eleanor, Jane looked at the map and ‘saw namesof a multitude of other friends—felt very nervous’. Franklin came bearingother gifts. He stopped by Jane’s house, ‘begging acceptance of reindeertongues and 3 prs shoes made by native Ind. [Indian] women’ for her andher sisters. For his daughter, Franklin brought a cornhusk doll made by aMohawk woman, dressed in a beaded black wool skirt with beaded blackleggings and a pink cotton dress. He gave a raccoon skin (prepared byDene women at Great Bear Lake) to his fellow Arctic explorer, WilliamEdward Parry, as a wedding gift. Parry had just celebrated his marriage toIsabella Stanley under a silken flag that she sewed for his upcoming expeditionto the North Pole, and they spent their honeymoon aboard Parry’sship HMS Hecla at Deptford. The raccoon skin ended up as a hearthrug.