Historical Atlas of the Arctic (review)

Before Derek Hayes turned his attention to the Arctic regions, he had created historical atlases of Canada, British Columbia, and the North Pacific. His accumulated experience is apparent in this striking publication. Hayes has compiled over 300 illustrations of maps and details from maps, described them with extended captions, linked them with a text that summarizes the history of the circumpolar world, and created a book design that moulds these elements into a package that is both visually appealing and useful to scholars of Arctic history.

Throughout history, maps have been more than conveyances of geographical information. Cartographers have traditionally been artists as well as scholars, and few early maps are unembellished, while many are splendid works of art. Most of the examples in this atlas have been chosen for their fortunate combination of content and visual appeal. As a historical atlas, the important content is not geographical knowledge but information illustrating the development and persistence of concepts related to the geography of the Arctic regions. While documenting an increasingly accurate portrayal of the Arctic world, this collection demonstrates the appearance, evolution, and eventual decline of odd geographical concepts related to polar continents, lost islands, ice-free polar seas, and navigable passages to the north of both America and Asia.

A historical atlas naturally focuses on exploration, rather than on the prior and subsequent histories of a region. The relative emphasis assigned in this book to various historical periods is partially reflected by this fact, yet the focus is very similar to that encountered in most Arctic histories that have much less justification for concentrating on a 'heroic age' to the exclusion of other periods and other peoples. Thus, less than a single page is devoted to the 10,000-year period between the first human adaptation to the Arctic and the disappearance of the medieval Norse. The European explorations that began with the sixteenth-century search for northeast and northwest passages to Asia and culminated in the British expeditions of the mid-nineteenth century, encompass thirty-six pages. Almost a hundred pages - well over half the book - are devoted to the search for Sir John Franklin and the various races to the North Pole. Finally, a brief section is devoted to maps derived from the scientific and military investigations that began during and after the Second World War, leading to the replacement of cartography by satellite photography and computer-generated imagery.

The text inserted between maps and captions provides a useful and comprehensive history of Arctic exploration. A few minor errors can be discovered: for example, on page 13 the account of Frobisher's 1576 expedition mistakenly conflates events that happened in three different places over two summers; on page 34 Novgorod is described as east of Moscow rather than south of St Petersburg. Such slips could have been avoided by a more conscientious review of the text, which is obviously secondary to the maps that form the core of the volume's content and interest. As a reviewer with a general curiosity about Arctic history, rather than an expert on Arctic cartography, I found no obvious omissions in the collection of maps included in this volume. Those that are most necessary to an understanding of early concepts of Arctic geography are all here: the fraudulent but influential Zeno chart of 1558 that scattered imaginary populated lands across the Arctic regions; Mercator's 1569 plan of a polar continent centred on an immense mountain surrounded by a whirlpool; Ortelius' 1570 map showing clear northwest and northeast passages leading to the Pacific Ocean; and Dutch maps associated with Willem Barents's voyages, delightfully illustrating whales and seals inhabiting an ice-free polar ocean.

Many lesser-known maps will be new to most readers. Examples that stood out include bizarre eighteenth-century maps showing a variety of navigable passages leading from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean; Frederick Mecham's hand-drawn and illustrated chart of his 1853 sledge journey around Melville Island; a plan of Hudson Bay and adjacent...