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Frobisher's 1578 voyage: early eyewitness accounts of English ships in Arctic seas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

James McDermott
James McDermott
Affiliation:
43 Furze Platt Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 7NE
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Abstract

The three voyages to Baffin Island under the command of Martin Frobisher (1576, 1577, and 1578) constituted the first recorded European expeditions to the area. Their original aim—the discovery of a northwest route to ‘Cathay,’ the ill-understood far east—was one manifestation of a broader English attempt to challenge the commercial ascendancy of Spain and Portugal whilst avoiding political confrontation with those powers. This latter imperative made it necessary for the search to be conducted in relatively high latitudes, corollaries of which were the growth of English experience of Arctic and sub-Arctic conditions, and the development of a body of literature, both technical and popular, to record the lessons of these endeavours. Utilising the relative abundance of contemporary evidence on the events of Frobisher's 1578 voyage—the largest expedition to Baffin Island prior to the present century—this paper notes and examines the responses of English mariners to these climatic conditions.

Type
Articles
Information
Polar Record , Volume 32 , Issue 183 , October 1996 , pp. 325 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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