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North with Franklin: The Lost Journals of James Fitzjames

by John Wilson

Although the ill-fated Franklin Arctic expedition of 150 years ago was popularly believed to be a voyage in search of the elusive Northwest Passage, it was actually a scientific probe for accurate magnetic readings. Expedition officer James Fitzjames was third-in-command on the trip, which included two ships provisioned for three years with, among other things, four tons of chocolate and a library of 1,700 books. Fitzjames dispatched a journal of letters from Greenland before crossing into what are now Canadian waters.

John Wilson, a Vancouver Island writer, picks up the story from there in this, his latest foray into historical fiction. He writes a version of what might have been Fitzjames’s last journal, one running four years.

Fitzjames had a remarkable naval career, beginning as a ship’s boy and rising through the ranks to serve with distinction in the Middle East and the Chinese Opium War.

Wilson’s research took him to archival sources in England and in Canada. Wilson threads small fragments of Fitzjames’s known last journal into the one he recreates, giving it the form of an extended letter to Fitzjames’s sister-in-law. As well as exploring the collective and individual characters of the 129 men, Wilson provides insights into the class barriers that divide them. Fitzjames repeatedly apologizes for gossiping and recalling earlier adventures – convenient vehicles for Wilson’s research. Wilson imagines a production of Macbeth in mid-January, and has Fitzjames reading Hawthorne and Fenimore Cooper. There is the early rigour and romance of hazardous enterprise in unchartered waters, exotic terrain, and a forbidding climate. In Wilson’s narrative, Fitzjames breaks a leg, buries his journal, and blacks out with fever at the end.

What happened to Fitzjames’s papers? Wilson hypothesizes that Inuit children (known then as Esquimaux) may have found, played with, and destroyed them. Easy-to-read, Wilson’s imaginative effort cannot sate the frustration of not knowing what really happened.

 

Reviewer: Nelson Wiseman

Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside

DETAILS

Price: $27.95

Page Count: 250 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 1-55041-406-2

Released: Nov.

Issue Date: 1999-12

Categories: Fiction: Novels

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