Most of you know already how I feel about serendipity. Now I have a lovely new multi-serendipitous report for you.
It began with a clipping I found among my ubiquitous files about a book that intrigued me, even more as I re-read a brief review. I ordered a copy right away, having in mind an immediate good use of it. I have just finished reading it, along with some other information that illustrates the serendipity of my discovery.
Letters from High Latitudes, by the Marquess of Dufferin (Lord) Dufferin, published 1857, is about the voyage he took to the North Atlantic: Iceland and points beyond; crossing the Arctic Circle in a search for Jan Mayen* Island east of Greenland; on to other ports thanks to a hitchhike—being towed by La Reine Hortense, thanks to the generous aid given by the Crown Prince of France. He even attends a ball in Reykjavik hosted by the Prince before they sail into unnavigable waters, horrendously dangerous because of ice.
*Jan Mayen is a Norwegian volcanic island partly covered by glaciers. Located in the Arctic Ocean at the border of the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea it is still uninhabitable with perhaps 18 inhabitants employed by the Norwegian Armed Forces and the Norwegian Institute of Meteorology. Wikipedia
There is so much unfamiliar geography that I had trouble following Dufferin and there is so much in what he reports, all of it really wonderful, that I am having trouble recapping it all. He is a young man, only 30 years old, and the letters are written to his wife, mostly but not all, about his adventures navigating the northern ice in too light a ship (the “Foam”). He is eager, fearless and untiring, awake and working for hours in the endless Arctic light, yet able to sleep because, he says, of the (gerntly?) rocking boat. He is also erudite, classically educated (there are a couple of pages written in Latin in one of the letters that I could not read. I took Latin and Greek at University, but only for two years). His writing dazzles. A sometime poet, lyrical about the beauty of the Arctic icescape, and an historian with a lively knowledge of Norse sagas, heroes and villains, the Lord also ha a sense of humour. The review that caught my eye called his Letters a comic travelogue! It is so much more than that, and is of particular interest to those of us who are kin to Icelandic immigrants.
Years later. this same Lord Dufferin, now an elder statesman and the third Governor-General (1872-1878) of the fledgling Dominion of Canada, intervened to help a group of Icelandic immigrants who had suffered severe hardships and tragic losses in their attempt to settle in Kinmount, Ontario. He recalled his voyage as a young man and his respect for the Icelandic people, especially a man called Sigurður, who had travelled with him. He gave the settlers a grant that made it possible for them to move to Manitoba where every year (except for Covid19 exceptions) their descendants celebrate Islendingadagurinn in Gimli with a family reunion numbering in the 50s. Talk about serendipity!
The book is available from a publisher specializing in rare and out-of-print titles: Aeterna, www.valdebooks.com