Hearne, Samuel | Kathleen Venema (essay date 1998)
Kathleen Venema (essay date 1998)
SOURCE: Venema, Kathleen. “Mapping Culture onto Geography: ‘Distance from the Fort’ in Samuel Hearne's Journal.” Studies in Canadian Literature 23, no. 1 (1998): 9-31.
[In the following essay, Venema argues that Hearne's Eurocentric worldview can be found in his narrative accounts of space and his own geographical distance from the Hudson's Bay Company forts.]
On 12 August 1770, likely on the plain west of Dubawnt Lake (Hearne [A Journey …] 95n), a gust of wind smashed Samuel Hearne's quadrant onto stony ground and damaged it beyond repair. Hearne was forced, as a result, to give up his second attempt to reach the mouth of the Coppermine River and to return, reluctantly, for a second time, to the Prince of Wales's Fort. Four days before, on 8 August 1770, Hearne foreshadowed the accident in a journal entry memorable for its vitriolic criticism of his aboriginal companions, its...
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