Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Vanessa Heggie and comedian Stu Goldsmith to learn all about the perilous history of Arctic exploration.From the 15th to 20th Centuries, Europeans searched for the Northwest Passage, a supposed seaway between the Atlantic and Pacific through the Arctic Ocean. Indigenous groups had been traversing the passage for centuries, using small skin boats and dog sleds, but from 1497, European expeditions were launched to find and claim it. Most of these ended in failure, with explorers either returning home empty-handed or not returning at all. Some even got completely lost, arriving in Hawaii or North Carolina rather than Canada!In 1845, the most famous Arctic expedition, led by Sir John Franklin, was launched. Within a few months, his two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, with their crew of 129 souls, had vanished. It was not until 1906 that a Norwegian team, led by Roald Amundsen, finally navigated the passage. This episode explores the often fatal quest for the Northwest Passage, charting the various expeditions that tried and failed to find and traverse it, uncovering the men who lost their lives looking for it, and asking why Europeans were so keen to explore such a hostile region of the world. And we unravel the mystery of just what happened to John Franklin and his men out there on the ice. If you’re a fan of intrepid explorers, mysterious historical disappearances and the history of scientific advancement, you’ll love our episode on Arctic Exploration.If you want more from Dr Vanessa Heggie, check out our episode on Victorian Bodybuilding. And for more Stu Goldsmith, listen to our episodes on the History of Fandom and Ancient Medicine.You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Matt Ryan Written by: Matt Ryan, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook
Chapter 1: What is the perilous history of Arctic exploration?
Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are packing our tins of preserved beef, donning our thermal undies and sailing off in search of the Northwest Passage. And joining me on the good ship, You're Dead to Me, are two very special shipmates.
In History Corner, she's Associate Professor in the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Birmingham's Department of Applied Health Science. What a title. You may have read her long-running science column in The Guardian newspaper or her recent book, Higher and Colder, on the history of extreme exploration.
And you will definitely remember her from our episode on Victorian bodybuilding. It's Dr Vanessa Heggie. Welcome back, Vanessa.
It's great to be back. Thanks for having me.
And in Comedy Corner, he's a sensational stand-up and the host of the brilliant The Comedian's Comedian podcast, which I love. You may have seen him on BBC Live at the Apollo recently or on Conan O'Brien's show, but you will definitely remember him from our back catalogue, including episodes on the history of fandom and Blackbeard the Pirate. It's Stu Goldsmith. Welcome back, Stu.
Aye, aye, Captain, he said, clinging on to the thing that you set up some three minutes ago about how we were on the good ship, you're dead to me. Captain. Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be back. I'm very excited to be here.
Lovely to have you back, Stu. Thank you. I'm clearly giddy with glee today. I know you're interested in climate change as an area of policy and discourse, but also comedy, right? Yes, for sure.
Yes, I absolutely love trying to make jokes about ocean acidification fly in a comedy club on a Friday night. It is weirdly addictive and I'm pretty hooked. So what does the Northwest Passage mean to you? Or the Arctic, at least? Oh, very little. And when I found out this was going to be the subject, it did occur to me to do revision and I didn't because I've got principles. Good.
So I shall be looking forward to all of this information being new. So, what do you know?
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Chapter 2: Who were the early explorers of the Northwest Passage?
And then under Russia, so that whole kind of...
Well, it's sort of between Russia and America.
Gotcha. OK. So you're sort of rounding off. Once you go past Alaska, you're clear. You're out.
We're cribbing here for the benefit of the listener. We're cribbing from quite a confusing map, which is it's one of those maps you look at and go, well, that doesn't look like a regular map. And you realise it's because it's on one of the top bits that's curved. So Russia is at the top pointing down towards Alaska.
Yeah, and thanks to the climate catastrophe, which you've been trying to mine for jokes. Yes, in a responsible way. And in fairness, it's a very good show. What's quite interesting and perhaps depressing now is you can now comfortably cruise through this Northwest Passage on a lovely luxury liner. Do you know when that was first possible? Which year that became possible?
1977.
That's a good guess. Vanessa?
Well, it's mostly in the 21st century that it's regularly passage. There's some early stuff in the 1960s, but it's not until about 2008 that cargo ships can go through regularly. And the first proper luxury liner is 2016. It's probably going to be easier in the future as the amount of ice reduces quite significantly with climate change.
But you'll need breathing apparatus because of all the methane from the melting permafrost.
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Chapter 3: Why did explorers risk everything for the Northwest Passage?
And this is like Trump demanding to forcibly purchase Greenland, because at the moment, if it becomes more viable, then all of that kind of I believe China and Russia and America already have kind of they're encroaching militarily on it because it's exactly the same problem playing out again.
But you're right, money and power and war and the insatiable desire for Chinese porcelain were driving this. And porn as well, that drives everything. Was there any sex in the Arctic? I don't know if there was any sex. Well, maybe.
Intricately carved, yeah, walrus artefacts and things.
Intricately carved walrus artefacts.
We should say, I mean, it wasn't just Europeans who were exploring Northwest Passage. As always on this show, we have to sort of say it's not just European explorers. I mean, indigenous peoples were already sort of exploring this. They'd already discovered it by being born there. They were living there. Yeah, definitely.
And they were moving around extensively in the area as well. So there's evidence of some migrations prior to the 12th century. And I think for this space, it's important to remember that it's quite resource scarce. So there'll be populations who'd be following food sources like walruses or like fish stocks.
There's also evidence of trading between North American populations and sort of Norse populations as well. And there may also have been moving for other resources like iron deposits and stuff like that. So there's quite a lot of movement going on in the Arctic early on.
Yeah, well, we've done an episode on the Vikings getting to Newfoundland, you know, a thousand years ago. So I guess those interactions continued.
Yeah, and they're using much smaller vessels than the ones we're going to talk about later. So they're using sort of the skin and bark boats and also using sleds. They're doing a combination of water and land traverse to get across these spaces.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did explorers face in the Arctic?
Any old name in a port, as they don't say. But what a lovely thing to have a basic name and then turn up and just do regional variations on it. It's good, isn't it? Yes, when I perform in Paris, I'm Stuart Goulsny.
Very lovely.
Yeah, that's good. So 1497, Vanessa, he sets off from Bristol. Why? And in what ship? Because he's a Venetian. What's he doing in Bristol?
Well, I'm not sure we really know why he moved to England. There are little bits of his life that are mysterious. But he was there by the late 1400s. And the chances are that this is something to do with what Christopher Columbus is doing for Spain. So there's some interest in sending people out on voyages. And he gets permission, basically, from the king to set off for an Arctic voyage.
Has a fail in 1496. has a second go in a boat called the Matthew in 1497. He gets as far, we think, as the coast of Newfoundland, but he's mostly along sort of the coastline of Quebec around the coast of Canada. He names some things, unfurls a flag, gets very excited about it, comes back home thinking that he's discovered China.
Much colder than we were expecting, am I to say? Yeah. So John Cabot, or Zwan Cabot, was sent off by Henry VII, Henry Tudor, father of Henry VIII, from Bristol, returns to Bristol and says, I found China, job done. There are more expeditions and they're not, they don't go that well, do they, Vanessa?
No, he's definitely not alone in getting quite confused about where he is. There's also the Italian explorer Giovanni di Verrazzano. He sails a huge part of the North American coast all the way from Florida, again, pretty much up to Newfoundland. And he's looking specifically for the Northwest Passage. And he thinks he finds it, but he finds it much further south than anyone expected it to be.
And it turns out what he thought was the open Pacific Ocean, he'd actually landed about 3,000 kilometers south in North Carolina.
When Cabot, or Cabotiza, or whatever we're calling him. Ciabatta. Ciabatta, thank you. When he landed and thought it was China, did he really think it was China, or did he think, well, we've got to say something? We can't prove this is China, but if we say China, I might get two years of a sedan chair before anyone works it out.
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Chapter 5: How did Indigenous people navigate the Arctic?
Gotcha.
So we got a journal from the ship's navigator who's called Abacut Prickett. And apparently... Such a great name.
Sorry. Abacut Prickett.
I, Henry Hudson, forgive the mutiny. Lots of love, Henry. Written in someone's left hand.
It's pretty much exactly that. He basically said that there was some rumour that Hudson was hoarding food and the men didn't like that. And then apparently there was some sort of dispute over a stolen...
and fundamentally the outcome was allegedly alive and well, Hudson, his teenage son, 700 crew members were put in a small boat with supplies and kind of sent off into Hudson's Bay to fend for themselves and the Discovery sailed home with everybody else.
Listen, as the owner of a really nice coat, I get it. And the upshot is that Henry Hudson is left to die.
And it's never seen again.
And they're never seen again. No, I mean, fair play to him for trying. But in fairness, Stu, it's quite embarrassing that the kind of moment of your death is encapsulated in they name it after you. Like there's a sort of awkwardness there.
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Chapter 6: What were the notable failed expeditions?
Please don't trek across that.
Gotcha. Yes. OK, good. Tomorrow we strike out for Death Valley.
Can we not? Yeah, I mean, we should also mention James Knight in 1715. I mean, do you want to talk us through his... Well, he was an ex-Hudson's Bay Company employee.
So he's one of those people who got their experience in the Arctic and at the grand old age of 60 decided to try for the Northwest Passage and... sailed out and again disappeared. We found his boat in the Hudson's Bay in the 1990s.
Oh, really? Wow. They proper sunk. They sunk. Yeah, that's a proper failed mission, isn't it? When your boat is underwater, you're like, OK, we might have to call this one, lads. And we found them in the 90s.
Were they like an important archaeological discovery or was it just nice that we found them?
I think it's more nice that we found them. I mean, there's some lovely artefacts and things being brought up, but as we'll discover, it's often the case that when you bring up a shipwreck, it poses more questions than it answers. Like, why on earth were they here? What were they doing?
Yes. Were they lost or was this the pan all along?
But at least you can bury them and stop all the hauntings in the Hudson's Bay.
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Chapter 7: What was the impact of European exploration on Arctic Indigenous communities?
Yes. Really, this episode is all about failure to traverse the North West Passage in many ways. So far.
I failed to pronounce the North West Passage there, so I can't really... OK, so we've got naval officers sitting around, naval gazing, but they can't get through the ice. Naval gazing!
I felt that didn't get what it deserved.
How would you entertain a ship full of sailors who are sort of hunkered over in the ice? Drag sea shanty. I'm up for that.
Drag sea shanty competition. Nice. And in stages, knockout tournament. That'll keep us going for a month, surely.
32 drag artists. Whittle them down.
Yes, lovely. Okay. I mean, that's pretty good. I mean, I just went straight off the top of my head there, but I think that would work. Yeah.
You may be surprised later on to find out what they really did.
Oh my God, please let it be a drag sea satty competition.
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