Arctic Artist: The Journal and Paintings of George Back, Midshipman with Franklin, 1819-1822

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

In mid-summer 1819, a score of men under the leadership of Lieutenant
John Franklin set off up the Hayes River by canoe in search of the
Northwest Passage. In less than three years, 11 of these men would be
dead, and the survivors would be reduced to eating lichen, frozen deer
dung, and (in at least one case) each other.

This combined journal and water-color sketches of one of the
survivors, Midshipman George Back, is important in that it adds
important new clues as to why Franklin’s first Arctic expedition
failed so spectacularly. A sailor from the age of 12, Back had already
served nearly a decade in the Royal Navy before taking part in this
expedition. It is not surprising, then, that he sees his world through
the eyes of a typical early–19th-century military European. His views
concerning First Nations and French-Canadian members of the expedition
are often condescending and scornful, yet he also writes with compassion
and humor.

Houston (who also edited the journals of two others on this
expedition—Midshipman Hood and Doctor John Richardson) supplies
further background details drawn from the Hudson’s Bay Company records
and Back’s private correspondence. Throughout the text, Back’s
entries are compared with those recorded by his fellow officers.

Back’s drawings are excellent examples early pre-Romantic art.
Although virtually all 19th-century British military officers were
trained to sketch and paint, George Back proved to be a pupil of
exceptional ability. The book’s color plates do great credit to
Back’s original work.

The combination of raw material, fine editing, and intelligent
commentary makes Arctic Artist an outstanding work.