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7 - Arctic Adventure Tales

Science and Imperialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2023

Robert W. Rix
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
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Summary

Critical studies of nineteenth- and twentieth-century popular adventure fiction often focus on novels about forays into Africa. It is the aim of this chapter to show that the Arctic provided an alternative arena for such stories. In the first half of the chapter, the notion that the European settlers migrated from Greenland to other locations is discussed. Based on geophysical and geoclimatic theories that a navigable sea with habitable islands existed near the North Pole, it was hypothesised that the vanished settlers could have found a new home furhther north in the Arctic. The second half of the chapter examines how fiction writers drew on contemporary science to create what can be classified as the ‘lost colony’ story. In this type of popular fiction, it is imagined that descendants of the old Greenland settlers or other Norse explorers had survived in a hidden land. In some of the tales, the ideas of imperialism and exploitation of the Arctic become pronounced, thereby returning us to the fantasies discussed in the early chapters of the present book.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Vanished Settlers of Greenland
In Search of a Legend and Its Legacy
, pp. 239 - 275
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Arctic Adventure Tales
  • Robert W. Rix, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: The Vanished Settlers of Greenland
  • Online publication: 01 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009359450.009
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  • Arctic Adventure Tales
  • Robert W. Rix, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: The Vanished Settlers of Greenland
  • Online publication: 01 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009359450.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Arctic Adventure Tales
  • Robert W. Rix, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: The Vanished Settlers of Greenland
  • Online publication: 01 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009359450.009
Available formats
×