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GLST 653: Women's Narratives from the Circumpolar North (Rev. 1) Report a Broken Link

Women's Narratives from the Circumpolar North is the study of narratives including letters, memoirs, autobiographies, and journals written by women from the mid-1800s to the present. These women went to, or lived over an extended period of time in, the circumpolar north, that is, in any one or more of the eight countries touched by the Arctic Circle: the United States, Canada, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.

Current theories from anthropology, history, geography, gender studies, literary studies of life writings, and indigenous and northern studies provide critical frameworks for studying relevant narratives, rendering the study interdisciplinary. Meanings of "north" to indigenous women and to white women over time are explored.

Supplementary Readings

Week 1

 A definition of the Circumpolar North.  You may find this site helpful to increase your overall knowledge of the Arctic. It has been linked to information maintained by the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge at http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/library/overview.html#arctic. 
 The best site for maps and an overview of the circumpolar Arctic.  This site has been linked to information maintained by the Arctic Circle group at the University of Connecticut at http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/.
 Barents euro-arctic region.  The site has been linked to the databases maintained by the Information Service of the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland at http://www.arcticcentre.org/.
 Polar regions.  This site has been linked to information maintained by the University of Texas Library, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/.
Greenland.  This site has been linked to information maintained by the University of Texas Library, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/.
 Arctic.

 This site has been linked to the maps maintained by the United Nations Environmental Programme at http://www.grida.no/. 
It shows limits of Arctic permafrost, protected areas, etc.
 Complete circumpolar view.  Excellent for place names. 
This site has been linked to information maintained by the University of Texas Library, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/.
 A list of  websites for maps.

 This site has been linked to information maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/maps.html.
 Arctic map.  Excellent map with clickable sites for current weather. This site has been linked to information maintained by the Anthropolis project at http://www.athropolis.com/index.htm.
 North Pole.  Images of current conditions and activity at the North Pole. 
This site has been linked to information maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/maps.html.
Backhouse, Frances. (2000). Women of the Klondike. Vancouver: Whitecap Books.
 
Becker, Ethel Anderson. (1967). Klondike '98: E. A. Hegg's gold rush album. Portland: Binford & Mort.
 
Berton, Laura Beatrice. (1961). I Married the Klondike. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Preface by Robert Service.
Berton, Pierre. (1960). Klondike: the life and death of the last great gold rush. London: Allen.
 
Birkett, Dea. (1991). Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers. London: Victor Gollancz.
 
Black, Martha Louise. (1976). My Ninety Years. Anchorage, Alaska: Alaska Northwest Pub. Co.
Edited and Updated by Flo Whyard.
Cohen, Stan. (1980). The White Pass and Yukon Route: A Pictorial History. Missoula: Pictorial Histories Publishing.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please consult your local library.
Craig, Lulu. (1900). Glimpses of Sunshine and Shade in the Far North, or My Travels in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Cincinnati, OH: The Editor Publishing Co.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please condult your local library.
Cruikshank, Julie, in collaboration with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith, & Annie Ned. (1990). Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
 
Eakin, Paul John. (1999). Storied Selves: Identity through Self–Narration. In How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999, pp. 99-141.
 
Foster, Shirley. (1990). Across New Worlds: Nineteenth–Century Women Travellers and Their Writings. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
 
Freeman, Minnie Aodla. (1978). Life among the Qallunaat. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers.
 
French, Alice. (1976). My Name Is Masak. Winnipeg, MB: Peguis Publishers Limited.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please consult your local library.
French, Hugh M. (1999). The Arctic: An Ocean Surrounded by Land. In Antoni G. Lewkowicz (Ed.), Poles Apart: A Study in Contrasts. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, pp. 11-29.
 
Garner, Stanton. (Ed.). (1966). The Captain’s Best Mate: The Journal of Mary Chipman Lawrence on the Whaler “Addison,” 1856–1860. Hanover: Brown University Press.
 
Goudie, Elizabeth. (1973). Woman of Labrador. Toronto: Peter Martin Associates Limited.
Edited by David Zimmerly.
Hamalian, Leo. (Ed.). (1981). Ladies on the Loose: Women Travellers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.
 
Herbert, Belle. (1982). Shandaa: In My Lifetime. Recorded and edited by Bill Pfisterer; transcribed and translated by Katherine Peter. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska.
 
Hirsch, Marianne. (1997). Past Lives. In Family Frames: Photography Narrative and Postmemory, 41–68. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
 
LaFramboise, Lisa. (2001, spring). “Just a Little Like an Explorer": Mina Hubbard and the Making of A Woman’s Way. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada / Cahiers de la Société bibliographique du Canada, 39, 1, 7–44.
 
Mayer, Melanie J. (1989). Klondike Women: True Tales of the 1897–1898 Gold Rush. Athens, OH: Swallow Press.
 
McCall, Sophie. (2002, spring). A Life Has Only One Author: Twice–Told Aboriginal Life Narratives. Canadian Literature, 172, 70–90.
 
McGrath, Robin. (1984). Canadian Inuit Literature: The Development of a Tradition. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada.
 
McGrath, Robin. (1997). Circumventing the Taboos: Inuit Women’s Autobiographies. In Pauline Greenhill and Diane Tye, (Eds.), Undisciplined Women: Tradition and Culture in Canada. Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, pp. 223-233.
 
Mesher, Dorothy, & Woollam, Ray. (1995). Kuujjuaq: Memories and Musings. Duncan, BC: Unica Publishing Company Limited.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please consult your local library.
Mills, Sara. (1993). Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism. London; New York: Routledge.
 
Morgan, Lael. (1999). Good Time Girls of the Alaska–Yukon Gold Rush. Vancouver: Whitecap Books.
 
Morris, Mary. (Ed.). (1993). Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travelers. New York: Vintage Books.
 
Mullen Sands, Kathleen. (1997, winter). Collaboration or Colonialism: Text and Process in Native American Women’s Autobiographies. Melus, 22, 4.
 
Petrone, Penny. (Ed.). (1988). Northern Voices: Inuit Writing in English. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
 
Pfeiffer, Ida. A Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North. Abacci Ebooks.
Download the E-book for Microsoft Reader from this online resource.
Robinson, Jane. (2001). Unsuitable for Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 
Ross, W. Gillies. (1997). Introduction. In This Distant and Unsurveyed Country: A Woman’s Winter at Baffin Island, 1857–1858. Montreal and Kingston: McGill–Queen’s University Press, pp. xv-xxxiv.
 
Ryley, Bay. (1997). Gold Diggers of the Klondike: Prostitution in Dawson City, Yukon, 1898–1908. Winnipeg, MB: Watson & Dwyer Publishing Ltd.
 
(Ticasuk) Ivanoff Brown, Emily. (1981). The Roots of Ticasuk: An Eskimo Woman’s Family Story. Anchorage, AK: Alaska Northwest Publishing Company.
 
Washburne, Heluiz Chandler, & Anauta. (1940). Land of the Good Shadows: The Life Story of Anauta, an Eskimo Woman. New York: The John Day Company.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please consult your local library.
Wheeler, Sara
The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle
New York: North Point Press, A Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012

Week 3

 Maps and the Circumpolar North.  By far the best site for maps and an overview of the circumpolar north. 
This site has been linked to information maintained by the Arctic Circle group at the University of Connecticut at http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/.
 Place names and circumpolar view.  Excellent for place names with complete circumpolar view. 
This site has been linked to information maintained by the University of Texas Library, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/.

Week 4

 Basque Whaling. (Site 1).  This site shows artifacts. 
This site has been linked to information maintained by Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage at http://www.heritage.nf.ca/home.html.
 Basque Whaling. (Site 3).

 Additional site for information. This site has been linked to information maintained by Parks Canada at http://www.pc.gc.ca/progs/np-pn/index_E.asp.
 American Whaling: New Bedford Whaling Museum located in New Bedford, the centre of the American whaling enterprise throughout the nineteenth century.  This site has been linked to information maintained by The New Bedford Whaling Museum at http://www.whalingmuseum.org/.
Whaling in Alaska.   This site has been linked to information maintained by Explore North at http://www.explorenorth.com/index.html.
Beluga Whales.

 This site has been linked to information maintained by Sea World at http://www.seaworld.org/index.asp.

Week 5

Herbert, Kari  Polar Wives

 Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2012 
Kari Herbert describes her mother’s experiences as wife of an Arctic explorer and those of several other wives of polar explorers: Jo Peary, Eva Nansen, Eleanor Franklin, Jane Franklin, Kathleen Scott, and Emily Shackleton.
 Both Diebitsch-Peary and Macmillan archives are found in the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, Brunswick, Maine.  
 Josephine Diebitsch-Peary. (Site 1).  This site has been linked to information maintained by the Sacklunch Biography site at http://www.sacklunch.net/biography/P/index.html.
 Marie Herbert.  

Week 6

  Gold Rush.  Murray Lundberg’s excellent interpretation of the Gold Rush.

Provides an interesting classification of Canadian heroes of the Klondike by province. The only woman is Katherine Ryan who hailed from New Brunswick and is claimed as that province’s hero. She was the first female of the Northwest Mounted Police and one of the first women to use the Stikine Trail to reach the Klondike.

Excellent photos of 52 graves at Dyea, Alaska, many of victims claimed in the landslide on the Chilkoot, April 3, 1898 in which 65-73, but possibly as many as 100 lost their lives.

Also considerable information on Martha Black.

A good section on Women of the Klondike. 
This site has been linked to information maintained by Explore North at http://www.explorenorth.com/.

Week 7

 Pfeiffer, Ida  A journey to Iceland and travels in Sweden and Norway. 1852.
 Maps of relevant places.  This site has been linked to information maintained by the University of Texas Library, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/.
 Pfeiffer.  This site has been linked to information maintained by Distinguished Women of the Past and Present at http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/.

Week 10

 Arctic ecology.  This site is linked to information maintained by Taiga.net at http://www.taiga.net.
 Porcupine caribou routes.  Images of the Porcupine caribou routes, which pass through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 
This site is linked to information maintained by Taiga.net at http://www.taiga.net.

Week 11

 The Reindeer Queen.  A third perspective, after Marie Herbert’s and Ester Blenda Nordström’s, on reindeer herding.

The documentary film by Maria Brooks, The Reindeer Queen, is about the Alaskan Eskimo Sinrock Mary, who is reputed to have been the first to introduce reindeers to the territories and owned the largest herd in North America.

Produced by Documentary Educational Resources.

First Place, Gold Apple Award for Native American History from the National Educational Film and Video Festival, 2000. 
This site is linked to information maintained by Documentary Educational Resources at http://www.der.org/.

Week 12

 Rockwell Kent.  This site is linked to information maintained by the State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburgh, Russia at http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/index.html.