Sverdrup Otto Neumann - Ships of wood and men of iron: a Norwegian-Canadian saga of exploration in the high Arctic

SHIPS OF WOOD
AND MEN OF IRON

A Norwegian-Canadian Saga of
Exploration in the High Arctic

Gerard Kenney

Copyright 2004 by Gerard Kenney
Second edition 2005

All rights reserved. No portion of this book, with the exception of brief extracts for the purpose of literary or scholarly review, may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher.

Published by Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc.
P.O. Box 95, Station O, Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8
www.naturalheritagebooks.com

Design by Brian Danchuk Design, Regina
Edited for 2nd printing by Jane Gibson
Production for 2nd printing by Norton Hamill Design
Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Book Printing

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Kenney, Gerard I., 1931

Ships of wood and men of iron : a Norwegian-Canadian saga of exploration in the high Arctic / Gerard Kenney.2nd ed.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-897045-06-9

1. Sverdrup, Otto Neumann, 1854-1930. 2. Fram (Ship). 3. Canada, NorthernDiscovery and explorationNorwegian. 4. Canada, NorthernDiscovery and explorationCanadian. 5. Arctic regionsDiscovery and explorationNorwegian. 6. Arctic regionsDiscovery and explorationCanadian. 7. CanadaBoundariesArctic regions. I. Title.

Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc. acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Association for the Export of Canadian Books.

For my daughters, Amanda and Jessica

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The maps included here represent that area of the Arctic visited by Sverdrup and his crew. This first map (base) shows the entire region; the remaining maps correspond to the inserts on the base map. Maps are based on material provided by Rafael Valenzuela of Ottawa.

Map 1

Map 2

Map 3

Map 4

GERARD KENNEYS BOOK IS A SUPERB ACCOUNT of courage and enterprise by a Norwegian expedition under Otto Sverdrup from 1898 to 1902. It reads like a novel in which it is difficult to know which is the more admirable: the courage and endurance of the crew of the Fram or the skill with which they did what the British navy had never doneadopted and applied the techniques for clothing, hunting and food of the Inuit, without which they could not have survived for so many months. It is a remarkable talethe more important now because global climate change is affecting our polar regions more than any other areas of the earth.

Passages in the Archipelago, hitherto frozen and barred by nature to merchant vessels, may become in reality the northwest passage that was sought by the British navy for so long. If so, our claim to the Archipelago under international law may become subject to more challenge than during the years when the region has been of little economic interest to Canada and to any other country.

The United States has never accepted our claim that the waters within the Archipelago are internal waters of Canada within the outer limits of the Archipelago. That claim will become increasingly difficult to maintain if a still warmer global climate makes the right of transit passage attractive for merchant shipping between the far east and Europe. The Arctic route would be much shorter than any other.

While the claim of Norway that Kenney deals with was settled in an agreement in 1930 recognizing Canadian sovereignty over the Sverdrup Islands, the Norwegian government specified that its recognition in no way implied approval of the so-called sector principle. It was a warning then, and the principle has no status in international law now. This book is a reminder that Canada today must not fall into complacency with respect to sovereignty in her Arctic lands.

Kenneys account of actions taken by Canada after the shock of 1902 caused by the Norwegian discoveries and claims, will be new to almost every reader. It is hoped that Ships of Wood and Men of Iron will be read by many Canadians. Virtually all the information will be new to them.

Gordon Robertson

Former Deputy Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources and Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, 195363

OVER 100 YEARS AGO, IN JUNE 1898, Captain Otto Sverdrup and 15 crewmen put out to sea aboard the schooner Fram from the Norwegian city today known as Oslo. When they returned to Norway four years later, they came back with a record of geographic and scientific discovery, the richness of which is unparalleled in the annals of Arctic exploration. This book is the story of those four heroic years spent in the High Arctic and their impact on Canadas subsequent efforts to ensure Canadian sovereignty in the area of the Norwegian discoveries.

Maps have been included in Ships of Wood and Men of Iron to help the reader follow closely the exploration sorties made by Captain Otto Sverdrup and his men during the four years his ship Fram spent in what is now the Canadian High Arctic at the turn of the last century An attempt has been made to include on these maps significant place names in the Canadian High Arctic mentioned in the text on Sverdrups expedition. All quotations that are not referenced to another source are from Sverdrups book in two volumes entitled New Land.

I wish to thank all those who helped one way or another in the making of this book. I am especially grateful to northern experts Graham and Diana Rowley whose help was invaluable in ensuring the accuracy of this book. Special thanks are due the Norwegian Embassy in Ottawa which, through the good offices of Their Excellencies, Ambassadors Jan E. Nyheim and Johan Lovald, provided financial assistance that enabled me to travel to Oslo and visit the