A Discovery of Strangers (39 page)

For the specific version of the stolen woman story told in
chapter 8
I am indebted to William Ittza of Fort McPherson, NWT., as recorded (1947) and later published by Richard Slobodin in volume 1 of
Proceedings: Northern Athapaskan Conference
(Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1975).

The White texts of first encounter that I used most were John Franklin’s
Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819, 20, 21, 22
(London: John Murray, 1823), and Samuel Hearne’s
A Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson Bay to the Northern Ocean in the Years
1769, 1770, 1771 & 1772
(London: Strahan and Cadell, 1795). Informative also was Richard King’s
Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Ocean, in
1833, 1834
and
1835
(2 volumes, London: Richard Bentley, 1836). Critical for recreating John Hepburn’s memory was volume 1 of Joseph-René Bellot’s
Memoirs
(London: Hurst and Blackett, 1855). Most helpful of all were two first-expedition journals, excellently edited by C. Stuart Houston:
To the Arctic By Canoe, 1819—1921:
The Journal and Paintings of Robert Hood, Midshipman with Franklin
(Montreal: Arctic Institute of North America, 1974), and
Arctic Ordeal: the Journal of John Richardson, Surgeon-Naturalist with Franklin
,
1820—1822
(Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1984). My debt is obvious in the journal entries used throughout.

I would like to express particular thanks to Ian S. MacLaren for making his research on George Back available to me before publication. Some of his findings appear in the third volume of journals edited by Houston,
Arctic Artist: The Journal and
Paintings of George Back, Midshipman with Franklin
,
1819–1822
(Kingston: McGill-Queen’s, 1994). MacLaren’s impeccable scholarship, so generously and gladly shared, was a continuing pleasure.

The most insightful approach to northern animal personality (and a lovely book) is
Caribou and the Barren-lands
(Ottawa: Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, 1981) by scientist and photographer George Calef.

Scholarly research on the Dene is too voluminous to detail here. The best general study is
Drum Songs, Glimpses of Dene History by
Kerry Abel (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s, 1993), but of course the
Handbook of North American Indians
, volume 6,
Subarctic
, edited by June Helm (Washington: Smithsonian Institute, 1981), proved indispensable.
An’ Interdisciplinary Investigation of Fort Enterprise
, Northwest Territories, 1970, (Edmonton: Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 1973), edited by Timothy C. Losey, provided scientific analyses of the fort site.

It is a pleasure to thank the following persons who were helpful at particular times: Aritha van Herk, Michael Ondaatje, Robert Kroetsch, Margaret Atwood, Patricia Demers, Linda Woodbridge, Lynda Schultz, Marguerite Meyers, Maurice Legris, Tina Petersen, Erica Rothwell, Fred Wah, Katherine McLean, Helen Chen, Elizabeth Grieve, Lisa Wray, Astrid Blodgett. Also sincere thanks to The Alberta Foundation for the Literary Arts (Calgary) for a grant early in this project that gave me time to research and write; and to the Canada Council for travel assistance.

Last, I salute the intrepid members of The Land, Air and Water Expedition of 1988, Edmonton, Alberta, to Obstruction
Rapids, Northwest Territories. In established Arctic traveller fashion we raised a cairn on the highest point of Dogrib Rock, and in it placed the following narrow note to mark our passing:

Dan Dueck
Margaret MacLaren
I. S. MacLaren
Detmar Tschofen
Chris Wiebe
Rudy Wiebe
En route, tracing as canoe
will allow, Franklin’s
route of October 1821:
Starvation Lake to
Fort Enterprize
19 vii 1988
A University of Alberta
Canada Council
Research Project

And then, after contemplating again the endless round of the horizon vanishing into every distance around us, we added:

A Land Beyond Words

— Rudy Wiebe