Lobsticks and Stone Cairns: Human Landmarks in the Arctic

Over one hundred tales of Arctic adventure. Discover the lives of traders, military officers, authors, cultural heroes, police, guides, and even the occasional charlatan and bring the North just a little closer to home.

In Lobsticks and Stone Cairns, over one hundred Arctic stories are told about adventurers, military officers, authors, guides, cultural heroes, police, traders, and even the occasional charlatan. While some of the biographies in the book are of people still active in the North, others tell stories from as far back as the sixteenth century.

The subjects of the sketches are Inuit, European, American, Indian, and Canadian men and women. The exploits discussed in this generously illustrated book bring northern history and geography to life. Each profile is accompanied by a short bibliography.

Lobsticks are trees that are used as markers. Above the tree-line, stone cairns are used in their place. It is hoped that these biographies of “human” landmarks will help you find your way around in the North and bring the Arctic just a little closer to home.

With Contributions By:  L.H. Neatby, Trevor H. Levere, Ann Parry, Richard S. Finnie, Edvard Omholt-Jensen, Peter Schledermann, Walter Kenyon, William Barr, Richard Glover, Milton M.R. Freeman, Janis Essner, Jay Ruby, Geraldine Ruszala, Richard A. Pierce, Chauncey Loomis, Richard C. Davis, C. Stuart Houston, Ian R. Stone, James Helmer, John R. Sperry, James G.E. Smith, Gordon Speck, Hugh N. Wallace, Hugh Stewart, Barbara Belyea, Walter O. Kupsch, R.H. Cockburn, June Helm, Beryl C. Gillespie, C. Stuart Mackinnon, Donat Savoie, Robert Easton, Mackenzie Brown, John W. Chalmers, Margaret Mason Shaw, Dick Turner, Angeline Bevington, Ken Coates, William R Morrison, Julie Cruikshank, James R. Gibson, Barry M. Gough, H.F. Pullen, W. Gillies Ross, Susan Rowley, Margaret Deacon, Peter R. Dawes, Robert L. Christie, C.R. Harrington, Constance Martin, Alden Todd, John Edward Weems, Russell W. Gibbons, Bradley Robinson, Miriam MacMillian, Hugh Stewart, Guy Mary-Rousselière, Ludger Müller-Wille, Kenn Harper, Gavin White, R.S. Pilot, Patrick O’Flaherty, Stephen Loring, Stephanie Hunt, James West Davidson, John Rugge, Tom Stamp, and Cordelia Stamp

Richard C. Davis is professor emeritus of English at the University of Calgary. He has edited Rupert’s Land: A Cultural Tapestry and Sir John Franklin’s Journals and Correspondence: The First Arctic Land Expedition, 1819-22.

Foreward
Acknowledgments
Index

Unit 1
John Ross
Edward Sabine
William Edward Parry
James Clark Ross
Joseph-Elizar Bernier
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Henry Larsen

Unit 2
Jens Munk
Thomas James
Christopher Middleton
Moses Norton
George Weetaltuk
Robert Flaherty

Unit 3
Jane Franklin
Francis Crozier
Edward Belcher
Charles Francis Hall
Ebierbing
Frederick Shwatka

Unit 4
Henry Kellett
Robert J.L. McClure
Johann August Miertsching
Francis Leopold McClintock
Samuel Gurney Cresswell
William Robert Hobson

Unit 5
John Richardson
Thomas Simpson
Charles Codrington Forsyth
John Rae
Dimaond Jenness
Ikey Angotisiak Bolt

Unit 6
Thanadelther
Matonabbee
Sameul Hearne
Geroge Back
Richard King
Josph Burr Tyrell
Ernest Thompson Seton
John Hornby

Unit 7
David Thompson
Alexander Kennedy Isbister
R.M. Ballantyne
Ernest C. Oberholtzer
Prentic G. Downes

Unit 8
John Franklin
Akaitcho
Pierre St. Germain
James Anderson
Emile Petitot
Charles Jesse Jones
Guy Blanchet

Unit 9
Alexander Mackenzie
George Simpson
Walbruton Pike
Georgle Mellis Douglas
Charles Camsell
Albert Gaille
Frank Conibear

Unit 10
John Bell
Robert Campbell
James Green Stewart
F.J. Fitzgerald
W.J.D. Dempster
Catharine McClellan

Unit 11
Vitus Bering
Frederick William Beechey
W.J.S Pullen

Unit 12
William Penny
Eenoolooapik
George Strong Nares
Otto Sverdrup
Per Schei
A.H. Joh
H.W. Stallworthy

Unit 13
Elisha Kent Kane
A.W. Greely
Robert Edwin Peary
Frederick A Cook
Matthew Henson
Donald B. BacMillan
Robert Bartlett

Unit 14
Merqusaq
Fraz Boas
George Comer
William Duval
Henry Toke Munn
Hector PItcforth
Lazaroosie Kyak

Unit 15
John McLean
William Brooks Cabot
A.P. Low Leonidas Hubbard, Jr.
Mina Benson Hubbard
George Elson

Unit 16
Martin Frobisher
John Davis
William Scoresby, Sr.
William Scoresby, Jr.
Edward Augustus Inglefield

Index

This is a well-produced, entertaining, informative, and worthwhile book, of interest to all concerned with northeern studies, to those who live or work or travel in the North, and to readers or armchair explorers who want to know more about the Canadian North.

—Ann Savours, Arctic

There will be few who do not gain from a perusal of this work . . . The quality of the profiles are uniformly high.

—Ian R. Stone, Cambridge