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@amundsenxcook
oh my god my copy of cook and peary arrived and there's a picture of a baby fred
look him
ok work
"Though Cook is remembered todayāif he is remembered at allāas the charlatan who lied about reaching the North Pole, he may yet find redemption in the next phase of human exploration: manned missions to Mars....When we do reach Mars, we will, in some small part, have Cook to thank."
-Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton
Frederick Cook's observations from the Belgica expedition, of the psychological impact of wintering over trapped in the Antarctic ice pack and his attempts to keep the crew alive and mentally sound, are still used as a behavioral case study for extended space travel conditions.
the norge expedition would have been 10 minutes long if someone had given amundsen a gun
My Terror fandom Hot Take is that I think itās weird how little anyone into the real life history side cares about the Inuit who interacted with the FE. Lots of people dig in to the backgrounds of Tozerās siblings or Irvingās friends, but nobody seems to have heard of Kokleearngnun or Too-shoo-art-thariu. Iāve observed a real lack of curiosity.
Ok, maybe not that weird, seeing as how Iāve blocked multiple people over the years for saying things like āthe Inuit were/are liarsā. When youāre saying stuff that was considered racist by some Victorians, itās time to reconsider your views!
i think this is a fair take/critique that i myself can also learn from! for my part iām very interested in ada blackjack (though i know sheās not involved with the FE), and have also noticed how non-white figures in polar history (e.g., matthew henson) receive relatively so little attention despite how compelling their lives and the obstacles they overcame are. this is not to say everyone has to let go of their white boy blorbo/interest, but expanding your mind beyond them is both imperative and rewarding!
also yeah, absolutely fuck anyone who discounts the firsthand testimonies of the inuit. iād block their asses too šÆ
Yes!
In case anyone is interested, and you donāt fancy crawling through Charles Francis Hallās journals yourself, Iāll give a brief summary of these two menās most significant interactions.
Kokleearngnun told Hall about seeing a white manās ship that became overwhelmed with ice and sank. He met a man by the name of Aglooka and a āpee-e-tuā (commonly interpreted to be a steward or non-seaman) who was called āNar-tarā. Hall believed that that was a way of pronouncing ādoctorā. Kokleearngnun was given two spoons with the initials FRMC stamped on them.
He met qallunaat at least twice (IIRC). I think that the most interesting testimony he gave was set aboard a ship. Itās quite controversial account, but I strongly believe that it is of the FE rather than of a different expedition. Hall, April 1866:
The Pelly Bay men described the Esh-emut-ta as an old man with broad shoulders, thick and heavier set than Hall, with gray hair, full face, and bald head. He was always wearing something over his eyes (spectacles, as Too-koo-li-too interpreted it), was quite lame, and appeared sick when they last saw him. He was very kind to the Innuits;āalways wanting them to eat something. Ag-loo-ka (Crozier) and another man would go and do everything that Too-loo-ark told them, just like boys; he was a very cheerful man, always laughing; everybody liked himāall the kob-lu-nas and all the Innuits. Kok-lee-arng-nun showed how Too-loo-ark and Ag-loo-ka used to meet him. They would take hold of his hand, giving it a few warm and friendly shakes, and Too-loo-ark would say, āMa-my-too-mig-tey-ma.ā Ag-loo-kaās hand-shaking was short and jerky, and he would only say, āMan-nig-too-mĆ©.ā āAfter the first summer and first winter, they saw no more of Too-loo-ark; then Ag-loo-ka (Crozier) was the Esh-e-mut-ta.ā
Kokleearngnun's wife, Koo-narg, as well as several other women, also took tea aboard the ship with Toolooark, who gave them all ulus and, to Koo-narg, a silver pocket watch. Itās curious, because in the accounts from other expeditions, the British mostly gave the Inuit worthless (and sometimes insulting) gifts in exchange for information and items (e.g. pieces of old barrel).
Meanwhile, Too-shoo-art-thar-u definitely met the men after they abandoned ship. His group hadnāt heard that there were qallunaat on the island, so they sent their two bravest hunters (Ow-wer and Too-shoo-art-thar-u) (to use Hallās renderings of their names) to go and investigate. They meet them at an ice crack, putting distance between them; one of the white men had a gun pointing at the hunters, but the man who was in front told him to put it down. He showed them an ulu and used it to make a line in the snow. He then pantomimed asking for something to eat. Too-shoo-art-thar-u called this first man āAglookaā. Aglooka couldnāt speak much Inuktitut, but Too-shoo-art-thar-u eventually understood that he had come from two ships up north that had been crushed in ice. Quoting Hall again:
After this first interview the two men went ashore with the Innuits. While Aglooka was trying to talk with the Innuits (Ow-wer [my note: probably a shortening of Ukuararssuk] & Too-shoo-art-thar-u), the party with the boat and one other sledge passed by going a little lower down to a point or cape of the little bay where they then were. On getting ashore Aglooka wanted everything - every pack opened & opened them himself, the dogs' saddle bag packs, the women's packs and the men's packs, for everything was ready for making a journey across the land. Aglooka wanted meat & for this he wanted every pack opened. The Innuits were all willing he should do as he did.
After each man Innuit had given him some seal meat, it was all put on a (one) dog's back & then by the request of Aglooka all 4 Innuit men with the dog laden with meat went down with Aglooka and the man with him to where the men and the boat where, the men erecting a tent. As they approached the tent, one man came out to meet them. Aglooka spoke to the men when he and the Innuits were near the tent. The men along side the tent and the men alongside of the boat stood in line holding up their arms and open hands above their heads, showing they had nothing (that is no weapons) about them.
The men stayed for a bit. One of them caught a fish and one shot down a bird. In exchange for helping them, Aglooka handed out gifts.
The strange thing is that, several years earlier, in 1864, Hall heard a different story from the one above. That one was given by Too-shoo-art-thariu's cousins, and in it the white men stay for one night. The 1864 testimony was given by Too-shoo-art-thariu's mother and son. In that one, the white men stay all winter. They travel with Too-shoo-art-thariu and his family. They hunted and travelled in an inflatable boat. One of them died of illness, and the others left so that they could go back to their country. In thanks, Aglooka offered Too-shoo-art-thariu his rifle - Too-shoo-art-thariu turned it down because he didnāt know how to use it, so Aglooka gave him a ālong knifeā instead.
Ten years later, Schwatka met Ahlangyah, his wife, who claimed that the family had met ten qallunaat who stayed for five days. Just like in the previous accounts, two of the men were called Aglooka and Toolooah, but their physical descriptions donāt match Kokleearngnun's descriptions of the men he had dinner with. Furthermore, Rasmussen collected the testimony of a man whose father (Mangaq) had been with the group. It has similar features - the hunters meet the white men at a crack in the ice, the qallunaat (three this time) stay in their own tent (which is peculiar because it is not made of animal skins), they say their ships were crushed by the ice, they exchanged a knife for seal meat, and the white men leave because they want to go home. Rasmussen, as quoted in Unravelling the Franklin Mystery by Dave Woodman:
Father and his people would willingly have helped the white men, but could not understand them; they tried to explain themselves by signs, and in fact learned to know a lot by this means. They had once been many they said; now they were only few, and they had left their ship out in the pack-ice. They pointed to the south, and it was understood that they wanted to go home overland. They were not met again, and no one knows where they went to.
However, there was not a caribou hunt like in the first account, and this time they share a tent with Mangaq and the white men stay at least three days.
Iāll admit, I chose Too-shoo-art-thar-u at sort of random, because heās a candidate for the man who was given the sword of a great officer , but when I checked my books and notes the story turned out to be more complicated than I remembered! But I decided to relay it to show everyone how difficult it can be to interpret Inuit testimony.
If you want to learn more, the best secondary sources with free pdfs of them floating around tumblr are Unravelling the Franklin Mystery by David Woodman and Encounters on the Passage: Inuit Meet the Explorers by Dorothy Harley Eber (slightly problematic in that it uses peopleās Christian names instead of their proper names, so please ignore them). For an Inuit perspective, and what a lot of people say is the best book, there is The Land Was Always Used: An Inuit Oral History of the Franklin Expedition (if you have Ā£40 to spare).
there's something so hrnng about calling someone my captain. your wish is my command. i would follow you anywhere. i trust you to guide me home but you trust me to take us there. my captain. the devotion, the loyalty, the pride in calling someone my captain
Obsessed with Alfred Lansing's first description of Shackleton. This man should have written gay romance novels.
He had a wide, sensuous but expressive mouth that could curl into a laugh or tighten into a fixed line with equal facility. His jaw was like iron. His gray-blue eyes, like his mouth, could come alight with fun or darken into a steely and frightening gaze. His face was handsome, though he often wore a brooding expression--as if his thoughts were somewhere else--which gave him at times a kind of darkling look. He had small hands, but his grip was strong and confident.
From Endurance, p. 14 in my edition.
lowkey contemplating writing another cookmundsen au.
what do the people want
medium/ghost au
antarctic vampires au
medium au is fred cook as a scamming but charismatic medium, making money off other peopleās grief and superstitions. at the point where he gets stuck with a real ghost (amundsen) he has been largely discredited and no one believes him
antarctic vampires au is amundsen and cook being members of two vampire clans that live in antarctica, one that hunts during daylight and one that hunts only at night. somehow, still, they meet
lowkey contemplating writing another cookmundsen au.
what do the people want
medium/ghost au
antarctic vampires au
medium au is fred cook as a scamming but charismatic medium, making money off other peopleās grief and superstitions. at the point where he gets stuck with a real ghost (amundsen) he has been largely discredited and no one believes him
antarctic vampires au is amundsen and cook being members of two vampire clans that live in antarctica, one that hunts during daylight and one that hunts only at night. somehow, still, they meet
he was such a ray of sunshine
half of him is legs this is ridiculous
his radiant smile
the reason the franklin expedition failed wasnāt the scurvy or the lead or the path taken or starvation. it was the collective unconsciousās love of poetic tragedy. the universe just could not resist incurring the demise of such a grand romantic failure. if they wanted to survive they shouldnāt have represented the folly of colonial enterprise, simple as
Oughhh... Imagine having a whirlwind gay romance in your mid 40s and it's a wonderful four years but then your boyfriend just disappears so you have to get straight married as soon as possible and your new bestie/sugar baby/coworker is noted ladies man Hubert Wilkins so you can't even bring home any good news to your fujo wife... Happened to my good friend Lincoln Ellsworth
Studies from Frederick Cook's photos of Antarctica during the 1897 Belgica expedition
It just came to my mind that all those newspaper clippings indeed show that hanging out with Ellsworth made Amundsen more boyish. Somehow breakfast with Linky became a significant life priority for him for a bit there š
breakfast with linky... there's also the several stories that ellsworth shares about amundsen and him eating. amundsen taking him to copenhagen on a whim for shitty coffee, amundsen telling a committee that had an official breakfast planned that oh him and ellsworth already had plans so they could go eat breakfast together somewhere else. ellsworth even claimed that amundsen picked up skipping lunch from him. other things he apparently picked up from ellsworth were smoking a pipe in bed and using a french-canadian tobacco brand. what they had is just so interesting to me!
polar exploration dash simulator
Mutual 1: *blurry black and white image of a weird looking guy* I need to suck him off. Mutual 2: FOUR MORE FRANKLIN BODIES IDENTIFIED!!!!! *link*
Mutual 3: *magic lantern slides*
Mutual 4: awww belgrave ninnis fell into a crevasseā¤ļø
Mutual 1: I wish I was there when he was fucking other men.
Mutual 5: *beautifully resorted old film turned into gif set*
Mutual 1: I need to suck him off.
roald slipping notes under de gerlacheās door calling him a fucking dweeb in norwegian de gerlache getting gassed by cook developing roaldās poisonous nudes in cyanide the next room over heās dying of scurvy staring down a treasonous raw penguin steak lecointe is shoving sticks of dynamite up his ass a member of the crew just dipped to go run around with penguins and become one with the pack nobody cares theyāre all too busy TOUCHING each other ! the belgica voted most ājust out there doing whatever the fuckā expedition of all time but dr. cook couldnāt accept the award because his ass is in the CLANK!!!!!!!