“Exceedingly Good Friends:” The Representation of Indigenous People during the Franklin Search Expeditions to the Arctic, 1847–59

This essay investigates the textual and visual representation of indigenous people during the Franklin search expeditions to the Arctic in the mid-nineteenth century. The representations derive from two distinct maritime “contact zones,” to use Mary Louise Pratt’s term, and show differences that can be attributed to the temporal nature of the contact (4). I explore the ways in which the prolonged immobility of a ship over-wintering in the ice near indigenous communities led to the development of genuine interpersonal relationships, a phenomenon reflected in the graphic and textual material from the expeditions. By contrasting these encounters with a third type of contact zone—that of an isolated ship in the Arctic ice where seamen and officers lived in close proximity—this essay throws their respect for indigenous individuals into sharp relief.