The Coldest Coast: The 1873 Leigh Smith Expedition to Svalbard in the Diaries and Photographs of Herbert Chermside

ISBN-13: 9783030678791 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 250 str.

P. J. Capelotti;Grenna Museum

Spis treści

Foreword by Charlotte Moore, author and descendent of Benjamin Leigh Smith

Foreword by Håkan Jorikson, Director of Grenna Museum (Swedish)

Introduction: Herbert C. Chermside and his chronicle of Benjamin Leigh Smith’s 1873 exploration of Spitzbergen by P.J. Capelotti

One: The 19th century exploration of Spitzbergen by Susan Barr

Two: Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and the Swedish expedition of 1872-73 by Urban Wråkberg

Three: Axel W. Engvall and Leigh Smith’s rescue of Nordenskiöld by Anders Larsson

Four: Alfred Eaton and the biological collections of Leigh Smith’s 1873 expedition by C.L. Devlin

Five: Chermside's observations of marine mammals during a Spitzbergen hunt by C.L. Devlin

Six: Chermside’s Arctic birds by Magnus Forsberg

Seven: The discovery of Chermside’s Spitzbergen photographs by Håkan Jorikson and Anders Larsson

Eight: Chermside’s Spitzbergen imagery, then and now by Tyrone Martinsson and Andreas Umbreit

Nine: Chermside’s diary of Leigh Smith’s 1873 expedition edited by P.J. Capelotti

Appendix 1: Spitzbergen/Svalbard Place Names, 1873 and current

Acknowledgements

O autorze

Dr. P.J. Capelotti is Professor of Anthropology and Research Associate at the Polar Center at Penn State University, in Abington, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. He is author or editor of over two dozen publications on history historical archaeology, including "By Airship to the North Pole: an archaeology of human exploration" (1999), "Sea Drift: Rafting Adventures in the Wake of Kon-Tiki" (2001), "Life and Death on the Greenland Patrol" (2005), "The Whaling Expedition of the Ulysses" (2010), "Shipwreck at Cape Flora: The expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England's forgotten Arctic explorer" (2013) and "The Greatest Show in the Arctic: the American exploration of Franz Josef Land, 1898-1905" (2016). 

Blurb

This book describes the 1873 voyage of the British explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith, based on the diaries and photographs of Lieutenant Herbert C. Chermside, who joined the expedition of the seas around Svalbard. Chermside’s photographs, long believed lost, have recently been uncovered in Sweden and are being curated there by the Grenna Museum. The three unpublished diaries of Herbert Chermside were lent to the Scott Polar Research Institute in 1939 by Mrs. Benjamin Leigh Smith. For the first time, Chermside’s diaries are published in their entirety, with the original photographs shown alongside modern images of the same locations. This includes the first photographic record of the north coast of Svalbard, images that are today being used as comparative data for the study of climate change in the archipelago. 

The diaries have been fully transcribed and edited. Introductory chapters are included, written by specialists in the history of exploration, history of science, and the history of photography from Penn State University, the University of Gothenburg, and UiT, the Arctic University of Norway, as well as contributors from the UK and Germany. 

This volume is published in association with Grenna Museum, which will present Chermside’s photographs in a 2022 exhibit on Leigh Smith and A.E. Nordenskiold