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Fishing an Extreme Environment: Science, Sovereignty and Hudson Bay

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The Romance of Science: Essays in Honour of Trevor H. Levere

Part of the book series: Archimedes ((ARIM,volume 52))

Abstract

Was a deep-sea commercial fishery possible in Hudson Bay? This question brought the Dominion Government of Canada, through the Department of Marine and Fisheries, to sponsor several mostly-forgotten expeditions beginning in the 1880s to gauge its fishery potential. Logically, fisheries should have been possible, given the importance of many fisheries in far northern waters–the groundfish fishery in Barents Sea north of Norway, for example, and the whale fishery in northern Hudson Bay. Sea fisheries had apparently not developed yet in Hudson Bay due to its inaccessibility, the use of only small craft for near-shore fishing, and the climate’s severity. Or did the lack of a fishery reflect a real absence of fish? The Canadian government’s queries were perplexing, however, given the challenges in fishing Hudson Bay’s ice-shrouded waters. Its interest in the region had been so scanty that parts of northern Hudson Bay had not yet been charted. Also, the prolific east-coast fishery already harvested too many fish for domestic markets, and faced depressed prices in international markets. Toronto and other inland markets were well-supplied by Great Lake fish. Simply put, Canada did not require more fish.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    D.B. Stewart and W.L. Lockhart, “An Overview of the Hudson Bay Marine Ecosystem’, Chapter 2 ‘Ecological Overview,” Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences No. 2586 (2005), 2, 7–8, http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/libraries-bibliotheques/toc-tdm/314704-eng.htm

  2. 2.

    Trevor H. Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic: A Century of Exploration 1818–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 12.

  3. 3.

    Ted Binnema, Enlightened Zeal: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Scientific Networks, 1670–1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 66.

  4. 4.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 100, 344–45.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., 345–55; Binnema, Enlightened Zeal, 238–75.

  6. 6.

    ‘Canadian Biodiversity: Hudson Plains’, http://canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/english/ ecozones/hudsonplains/hudsonplains.htm

  7. 7.

    D.B. Stewart and W.L. Lockhart, “Summary of the Hudson Bay Marine Ecosystem Overview: Prepared by Arctic Biological Consultants, Winnipeg, for Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Winnipeg, MB” (2004), Draft vi + 66,14-16, http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/280328.pdf

  8. 8.

    A.G. Huntsman, ‘Fishery prospects for Hudson and James Bay’, Canadian Fisherman 5:8 (1918): 896–8; Letter from W.A. Found to B.M. Stitt, 27 May 1932. Library and Archives Canada, RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-5 [3].

  9. 9.

    Stewart and Lockhart, “Summary of the Hudson Bay Marine Ecosystem Overview,” 26.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., 26, 17.

  11. 11.

    Randall R. Reeves and Susan E. Cosens, “Historical Population Characteristics of Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus) in Hudson Bay,” ARCTIC 56 (2003), 283–292; Shirley Tagalik, “The History of Whaling,” accessed March 8, 2016, http://www.inuitcontact.ca/index.php?/vignettes_en/history_whaling

  12. 12.

    Keith J. Crowe, “Whaling and Eskimos: Hudson Bay 1860–1951. By W. Gillies Ross,” ARCTIC 29 (1976), 124–25.

  13. 13.

    Lorraine Brandson, “Precious Cargo! Mail packets in the Hudson Bay region,” Parks Canada Wapusk News 5 (2012). Accessed at http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/mb/wapusk/ne/ne1/ne1_2012 /ne1_ 2012_6.aspx.

  14. 14.

    Janice Cavell and Jeff Noakes, Acts of Occupation: Canada and Arctic Sovereignty, 1918–25 (Toronto: University of British Columbia Press, 2010), 63.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 65–6.

  16. 16.

    Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2011), 46–47.

  17. 17.

    Jane Mt. Pleasant, “The Paradox of Plows and Productivity: An Agronomic Comparison of Cereal Grain Production under Iroquois Hoe Culture and European Plow Culture in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Agricultural History 85 (Fall, 2011), 460–92.

  18. 18.

    Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 64.

  19. 19.

    Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 65–6.

  20. 20.

    United Nations, ‘Articles concerning the Law of the Sea with commentaries’, Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1956, Vol. II., 268. Accessed at http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/8_1_8_2_1956.pdf.

  21. 21.

    “The Value of Hudson Bay,” The Globe, Toronto, 23 October 1930.

  22. 22.

    S.L. Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole: An Early History of Arctic Expeditions, 1871–1912 (Toronto: Dundurn, 2013), 32.

  23. 23.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 32–33.

  24. 24.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 35.

  25. 25.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 263; Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 35, 41–2, 37.

  26. 26.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 263.

  27. 27.

    See Margaret Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 1650–1900 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1971, 1997), 306–365; Helen Razwadowski, Introduction to “Focus: Knowing the Ocean: A Role for the History of Science,” Isis 105 (2014), 335–337; and Michael S. Reidy and Helen M. Rozwadowski, “The Spaces In Between: Science, Ocean, Empire,” Isis 105 (2014), 338–351.

  28. 28.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 266–71, 273, 278.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 303–4.

  30. 30.

    During the Cold War the Canadian forces established Alert, a permanent scientific and military station, near location where HMS Alert overwintered.

  31. 31.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 41–2.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 47.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 77, 53–4.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 55; Binnema, Enlightened Zeal, 358; and Report of the Committee of the House of Commons to Enquire into the Question of the Navigation of Hudson’s Bay, 1884, quoted in Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 55.

  35. 35.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 8.

  36. 36.

    Jennifer Hubbard, “Johan Hjort: The Canadian Fisheries Expedition, International Scientific Networks, and the Challenge of Modernization” ICES Journal of Marine Science 71 (2014), 2000–2007.

  37. 37.

    This expedition, like many that followed, also was required to make ethnographic observations and collect Inuit artifacts, but this dimension of their work is not discussed here.

  38. 38.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 81.

  39. 39.

    N.B. McLean, Report of the Hudson Strait Expedition 1927–28 (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1929), 7–9. Port De Boucherville became the location of a Canadian tide station; Port Burwell in the 1920s became the site of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment, and the settlement of Killiniq grew around it, but the residents were resettled in 1978.

  40. 40.

    Halifax was the closest port to Hudson Strait prior to Newfoundland confederating with Canada in 1949.

  41. 41.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 57–62, 70–1, 75–7. The Company got its first ‘fully steam-powered ship for travel to Hudson Bay built to specification–the two-masted Nascopie’ in 1912. See N. Hall, “Constructed Contexts: Ships as Workplaces,” doingcanadianhistory N.0: Northern Arc: the Significance of Seafaring to Western Canadian History. Accessed at https://hallnjean.wordpress.com/ships/constructed-contexts-ships-as-workplaces/.

  42. 42.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 62–72, 86–89; Eric L. Mills, The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet: How the Study of Ocean Currents became a Science (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 240.

  43. 43.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 94–95,103–4.

  44. 44.

    Ibid.,103.

  45. 45.

    Joseph Gough, Managing Canada’s Fisheries: From Early Days to the Year 2000 (Sillery, Québec: Septentrion, 2006), 101–02. Rathbun was Curator of Marine Invertebrates for the Smithsonian Institution, but had earlier worked for the US Fish Commission. See Amy Ballard, “Richard Rathbun: The Smithsonian’s Renaissance Man,” http://nmnh.typepad.com/100years/2011/06/richard-rathbun-the-smithsonians-renaissance-man-part-1.html#sthash.wg1o9jSJ.dpuf.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., 113–4.

  47. 47.

    E.E. Prince, “Description of specimens of Sea-trout, Caplin, and Sturgeon from Hudson Bay,” Report of the Sixty Seventh Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Toronto in August 1897 (London: John Murray, 1898), 687–88; manuscript in Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 2.

  48. 48.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 114–15.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 116–19, 103–4, 120–1.

  50. 50.

    Michael F. Robinson, “Reconsidering the Theory of the Open Polar Sea,” in Extremes: Oceanography’s Adventures at the Poles, eds., Keith R. Benson and Helen Rozwadowski (Sagamore Beach, Mass.: Science History Publications, 2007), 16–17, 22, 9–20.

  51. 51.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 365–7.

  52. 52.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 132.

  53. 53.

    On 11 November 1930, Norway recognized Canadian sovereignty over the Sverdrup Islands. Pierre Berton, The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole. (Toronto: Random House of Canada Ltd., 1988), 629.

  54. 54.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 376.

  55. 55.

    Osborne, In the Shadow of the Pole, 143.

  56. 56.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 372.

  57. 57.

    Levere, Science and the Canadian Arctic, 374–5.

  58. 58.

    Jennifer Hubbard, A Science on the Scales: Canadian Fisheries Biology 1898–1939 (Toronto. University of Toronto Press, 2006), Chapter 2; Vera Schwach and Jennifer M. Hubbard, “Johan Hjort and the Birth of Fisheries Biology: The construction and transfer of knowledge, approaches and attitudes, Norway and Canada, 1890–1920,” Studia Atlantica 13 (2010), 20–39; and Jennifer Hubbard, “Johan Hjort: The Canadian Fisheries Expedition, International Scientific Networks, and the Challenge of Modernization” International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, Journal of Marine Science 71(2014), 2000–2007.

  59. 59.

    “Sketch of Hydrographic Field Service – Mr. R.J. Fraser – 1907–1926,” Accessed at http://www.canfoh.org/Vignettes/Fraser/mr__rj_fraser.htm.

  60. 60.

    The Dominion government made the mistake of choosing Port Nelson near York Factor as the terminus, despite Gordon’s earlier–and correct–advice about the near-impossible challenges of dredging this river for this location. The need to correct this mistake would delay the completion of the project until 1929.

  61. 61.

    Memo from J.D. Hazen to His Royal Highness, the Governor General in Council, 17 March 1914, Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1205 File 726-4-2 [1].

  62. 62.

    Kings College moved to Halifax in 1922.

  63. 63.

    Letter from J.B. McCarthy to the Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 1 November 1913, Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [2].

  64. 64.

    W. A. Found, “Memorandum Re Fisheries Survey of Hudson Bay,” 2 March 1914, Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [2].

  65. 65.

    W. Wakeham, memorandum “RE Sending an Expedition to Hudson Bay to enquire into the fishing possibilities of the Bay and its tributary rivers,” 16 March 1914, Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1205 File 726-4-2 [1].

  66. 66.

    W.A. Found wrote ‘halfbreed’ rather than Métis. Letters from W.A. Found to A.R.M. Lower, 2 June 1914; and from W.A. Found to C.D. Melville, 2 June 1914, Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [3].

  67. 67.

    A.R.M. Lower, “A Report on the Fish and Fisheries of the West Coast of James Bay,” Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [5].

  68. 68.

    W. Wakeham, “Sending an Expedition to Hudson Bay.”

  69. 69.

    Letter from W.A. Found, Superintendant of Fisheries, to Napoleon Comeau, 30 March 1914. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [1]. For a history of the Fisheries Museum, see William Knight’s recent dissertation “Modeling Authority at the Canadian Fisheries Museum, 1884–1918”(Carleton University, 2014), which can be accessed at: https://curve.carleton.ca/system/files/theses/31615.pdf.

  70. 70.

    Letter from A.B. Macallum to A. Johnston, 22 June 1914. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [3].

  71. 71.

    Letter from Napoleon Comeau to W.A. Found, 7 September 1914 at Port Nelson. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [4].

  72. 72.

    There is no hint in the records as to this captain’s first name. He is certainly not to be confused with the famous and competent Captain Bob Bartlett, captain of the Karluk.

  73. 73.

    Letter from Nap. Comeau to W.A. Found, 26 September 1914 at Port Nelson. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [4].

  74. 74.

    Letter from Nap. Comeau to W.A. Found, 7 September 1914 at Port Nelson.

  75. 75.

    David Malaher, “Port Nelson and the Hudson Bay Railway,” Manitoba History 8 (1984). Accessed at http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/08/hudsonbayrailway.shtml.

  76. 76.

    Letter from G.J. Desbarats to the Chief Engineer, Department of Railways and Canals, 14 September 1914. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [4].

  77. 77.

    In 1915 Acadia was loaned for the Canadian Fisheries Expedition, and shortly thereafter was seconded to the navy; she was only restored to the Hydrographic Survey in 1921. Acadia also saw military service during the Second World War. Today the restored CSS Acadia is moored in Halifax at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. CSS replaced CGS as the prefix and stands for Canadian scientific ship or Canadian survey ship. See Kelly Shiers, “CSS Acadia, survivor of the seas, turns 100,” Chronicle Herald, 26 October 2013, http://thechronicleherald.ca/thenovascotian/1162703-css-acadia-survivor-of-the-seas-turns-100; and O.H. Meehan, “The Canadian Hydrographic Service From the time of its inception in 1883 to the end of the Second World War: Chapter 2: The Hydrographic Survey of Canada from its Formation to the First World War 1904–1914,” in The Northern Mariner 14 (2004),92, http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol14/tnm_14_1_43-103.pdf.

  78. 78.

    Napoleon Comeau, “Protection of the fisheries,” Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [5].

  79. 79.

    Ibid.

  80. 80.

    Letter from G.J. Desbarats to Wallace Russell, 21 January 1915. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [5].

  81. 81.

    Letter from G.J. Desbarats to A.K. Maclean, 11 March 1915. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-2 [5].

  82. 82.

    Richard Duibaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1978), 49–54.

  83. 83.

    Stuart E. Jenness, Stefansson, Dr. Anderson and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913–1918: A Story of Exploration, Science and Sovereignty (Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2011), 6–9.

  84. 84.

    Jenness, Stefansson, 18–31; Duibaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic, 70–72; 76–82.

  85. 85.

    Duibaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic, 2.

  86. 86.

    G.J. Desbarats, Memorandum for E.E. Prince Re Stefansson Expedition, 14 April 1913. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 404 File 4232 Reel T 3392.

  87. 87.

    Stuart E. Jenness, The Making of an Explorer: George Hubert Wilkins and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913–1916 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), 273, 274, 288.

  88. 88.

    For a discussion of Stefansson’s embracing of the north and northern identity, see Tom Henighan, Vilhjalmar Stefansson, Arctic Adventurer (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2009), 139–158. Jenness comments that Johansen was the only member of the Southern Party who liked and even admired Stafansson, perhaps because he, too, hoped one day to be famous. See Jenness, The Making of an Explorer, 326.

  89. 89.

    Eric L. Mills, Biological Oceanography: An Early History 1870–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 77.

  90. 90.

    See Mills, Biological Oceanography, 75; Vera Schwach, “Faded Glory: The Norwegian Vøringen Expedition, 1876–1878′, in Extremes: Oceanography’s Adventures at the Poles, eds. Keith R. Benson and Helen Rozwadowski (Sagamore Beach, Mass.: Science History Publications, 2007), 35, 36–7, 31, 34; Jennifer Hubbard “In the Wake of Politics: The Political and Economic Construction of Fisheries Science 1860–1970,“Isis 105 (2014), 364–78; and Jennifer Hubbard, “Changing Regimes: Governments, Scientists and Fishermen and the Construction of Fisheries Policies in the North Atlantic 1850–2010,” in A History of the North Atlantic Fisheries: Volume 2, From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present, eds. David J. Starkey, Jon Th. Thór, and Ingo Heidbrink (Bremerhaven: Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, 2012), 129–176.

  91. 91.

    Schwach, “Faded Glory”, 56.

  92. 92.

    R. Spärck, “Frits Johansen 17 Juli 1882–24 April 1957,” Videnskabelige Meddelelser Dansk Naturhistorisk Forening 119 (1957), ix–xii. I am grateful to Dr. Torben Wolff of the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen, for supplying me with Frits Johansen’s scientific obituary and images reproduced in this article, and to Dr. Vera Schwach for her translation.

  93. 93.

    Spärck, “Frits Johansen.”

  94. 94.

    A single Colias specimen was collected by Johansen ‘in 1916 on a small hill near Bernard Harbour. He identified it as Colias meadii, a species known only from the Rocky Mountains between Alberta and Colorado. Many years of further collecting in northern Canada failed to turn up any additional examples of this species, so the specimen was assumed to be mislabelled or misidentified. In 1988, Jim Troubridge and Kenelm Philip used Frits Johansen’s diary to relocate the hill and rediscover a thriving colony of this butterfly, which was described as a new species and named Colias johanseni after its original discoverer’. See Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility, “The History of Butterfly Study in Canada,” accessed March 8, 2016, http://www.cbif.gc.ca/eng/species-bank/butterflies-of-canada/history-of-butterfly-study-in-canada/?id=1370403265516.

  95. 95.

    Margaret S. Rigby and A.G. Huntsman, “Materials Relating to the History of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada (Formerly the Biological Board of Canada) for the Period 1898–1924,” Fisheries Research Board of Canada Manuscript Report Series (Biological) 660 (1958), 151, 153.

  96. 96.

    See William Knight’s doctoral dissertation, “Modeling Authority at the Canadian Fisheries Museum, 1884–1918.” (Carleton University, 2014). Available at https://curve.carleton.ca/system/files/theses/31615.pdf.

  97. 97.

    See correspondence between Huntsman and Andrew Halkett, and Huntsman and W.G. Walton, 1919, and Huntsman’s handwritten manuscript, “The Fauna of James and Hudson Bays” in Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010, Box 150 File 2.

  98. 98.

    “Marine Mollusca collected in James and Hudson Bays 1920, F. Johansen (Identified by Dr. W.H. Dall),” Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 3.

  99. 99.

    The Biological Board of Canada and all federal fisheries services remained under the Department of Naval Services until 1922. A.P. Knight discussed Johansen’s expenses in a letter to J.P. McMurrich, 24 June 1922. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1928-0010 Box 15 File 8.

  100. 100.

    Biological Board of Canada, ‘Minutes of the Annual Meeting Held in the Library of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, Hunter Building, Ottawa, at 2:30 P.M., Monday, May 21st, 1923’, Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 12, File 6.

  101. 101.

    Letter from A.P. Knight to J.P. McMurrich, 29 June 1922; Letter from F. Johansen to J.P. McMurrich, 15 June 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-010 B1978-010 Box 15 File 8; and Box 12 File 13; Spärck, “Frits Johansen.”

  102. 102.

    Letter from F. Johansen to J.P. McMurrich, 15 June 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-010 Box 12 File 13.

  103. 103.

    Letter from J.P. McMurrich to F. Johansen, 21 June 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-010 Box 12 File 13.

  104. 104.

    “Expedition will Sail on Saturday Next,” Halifax Herald, 14 July 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 File 150 Box 8.

  105. 105.

    “Aviators to leave Ottawa this week upon new, risky kind of exploration work,” Ottawa Citizen, Wednesday July 6, 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 File 150 Box 8.

  106. 106.

    Letter from F. Johansen to A.G. Huntsman 28 August 1927, sent from Wakeham Bay. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 File 150 Box 8.

  107. 107.

    Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, “CSS Acadia”, accessed March 8, 2016, https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/what-see-do/exhibits/css-acadia

  108. 108.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to A. Johnston, 21 June 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 4.

  109. 109.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to J.P. McMurrich, 13 June 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 4.

  110. 110.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to J.P. McMurrich, 28 June 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 12 File 13.

  111. 111.

    Ibid.

  112. 112.

    Letter from J.P. McMurrich to A.G. Huntsman, 7 June 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 12 File 13.

  113. 113.

    To determine the direction of currents. ‘Drift Bottles’, Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 4.

  114. 114.

    Letter from F. Johansen to A.G. Huntsman, 27 July 1927, sent from Port Burwell. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 4.

  115. 115.

    Letter from F. Johansen to A.G. Huntsman 28 August 1927, sent from Wakeham Bay. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 File 150 Box 8.

  116. 116.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to H.B. Hachey, 1 November 1927. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 4.

  117. 117.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to F. Johansen, 25 April 1929. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 153 File 9; and letter from B.W. Taylor, 22 October 1928, Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 6.

  118. 118.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to J.J. Cowie, 3 July 1929. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 153 File 9.

  119. 119.

    Huntsman’s ambitions, as revealed by this equipment were to be largely disappointed by Johansen. ‘Articles shipped to Fort Churchill to be used by Mr. Johansen. Shipped by C.P. Exp. Jul6/29’. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 10.

  120. 120.

    Letter from F. Johansen to A.G. Huntsman, 10 August 1929. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 153 File 9.

  121. 121.

    Ibid.

  122. 122.

    Letter from J.B. Skaptason to W.A. Found, 19 October 1929. Library and Archives Canada, RG 23 Vol. 1504 File 769-29-2 [1].

  123. 123.

    Ibid.

  124. 124.

    Letter from F. Johansen to the Biological Board of Canada, 5 July 1929; and letter from A.G. Huntsman to F. Johansen, 21 October 1929. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 7; and Box 153 File 11.

  125. 125.

    Letter from F. Johansen to J.J. Cowie, 30 June 1930. Library and Archives Canada, RG 23 Vol. 1504 File 769-29-2 [1]. In defence of the Board, it had been paying rent for Johansen’s office since 1927.

  126. 126.

    R.H. M‘Gonicle, “Report of the Frits Johansen Collections,” 17 December 1930. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 3; Letter from F. Johansen to J.J. Cowie, 30 June 1923. Library and Archives Canada, RG 23 Vol. 1504 File 769-29-2 [1].

  127. 127.

    Spärck, “Frits Johansen.”

  128. 128.

    Letter from J.B. Skaptason to W.A. Found, 19 October 1929.

  129. 129.

    As it does to this day. The current population around all of Hudson Bay is about 32,000. See Environmental Management of Enclosed Coastal Seas (EMECS), ‘Hudson Bay’. Accessed at http://www.emecs.or.jp/guidebook/eng/pdf/13hudson.pdf.

  130. 130.

    Huntsman, for example, promoted the possibilities of a Hudson Bay fishery in the popular press in 1918. See A.G. Huntsman, “Fishery prospects for Hudson and James Bay,” Canadian Fisherman 5 (1918), 896–8.

  131. 131.

    Mills, The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet, 240.

  132. 132.

    Letter from J.J. Cowie to A.G. Huntsman, 10 July 1930. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  133. 133.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to J.J. Cowie, 4 July 1930. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11; Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-5 [2].

  134. 134.

    “Loubyrne’s Expedition to Investigate Commercial Fishery in Hudson Bay: Beam Trawler to Sail from here Today to End Old Controversy,” The Halifax Herald, 19 July 1930. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  135. 135.

    Preliminary Report [of H.B. Hachey] on the Hudson Bay and Strait Fisheries Expedition of 1930. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-7 [1].

  136. 136.

    Preliminary Report [of H.B. Hachey].

  137. 137.

    W. A. Found, “Memorandum re Hudson Bay Fishery Expedition,” 5 September 1930. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-5 [2].

  138. 138.

    Walker and his colleagues took ‘only 352 edible fish...in netting operations which were carried on almost daily from July 16 to September 9.’ Letter from H.B. Hachey to A.G. Huntsman, 9 August 1930; and “Fishing Prospects Poor in Hudson Bay,” The Fundy Fisherman 26 December 1930. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  139. 139.

    Letter from H.B. Hachey to A.G. Huntsman, 9 August 1930. Huntsman Collection University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  140. 140.

    Letter from W.A. Found to A.G. Huntsman, 21 August 1930. Huntsman Collection University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  141. 141.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to H.B. Hachey, 18 August 1930. Huntsman Collection University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  142. 142.

    Ibid.

  143. 143.

    Preliminary Report [of H.B. Hachey].

  144. 144.

    Ibid.

  145. 145.

    To be profitable, Hachey noted, a commercial trawler like Loubryne had to catch in the vicinity of 1000 pounds of fish per week. See ibid.

  146. 146.

    Letter from H.B. Hachey to A.G. Huntsman, 26 August 1930. Huntsman Collection University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  147. 147.

    “The Value of Hudson Bay,” The Globe, Toronto, 23 October 1930. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1207 File 726-4-7 [1].

  148. 148.

    “Hudson Bay of no use to Fishermen,” The Gazette, Montreal, 23 October 1930. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1207 File 726-4-7 [1].

  149. 149.

    “Fish in the Bay,” Manitoba Free Press, 11 December 1930. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 8.

  150. 150.

    National Resources Committee, Industrial Development Board, Manitoba, ‘Analysis of Dominion Government Report on Hudson Bay and Strait Fisheries Expedition of 1930’, 1 February, 1932. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 152 File 15.

  151. 151.

    Letter from A.G. Huntsman to W.A. Found, 11 April 1932. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 152 File 15.

  152. 152.

    Letter from W.A. Found to B.M. Stitt, 27 May 1932. Library and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1206 File 726-4-5 [3].

  153. 153.

    Dr. Hugh P. Bell at Dalhousie University worked up the sea-weeds; Dr. C. McLean Fraser, Director of the Pacific Biological Station and a University of British Columbia professor, identified the hydroids; Dr. Philip Cox of the University of New Brunswick examined the sticklebacks and lumpfishes; and Vladimir Vladykov, a European expert on fish systematics, dealt with the rest of the fish. R.C. Osborn of Ohio State College examined the Bryozoa; and Dr. W.T. Calman of the British Museum of Natural History identified several specimens of Cumacea. Three scientists from the Smithsonian Institution Division of Marine Invertebrates in Washington DC were enlisted: Dr. C.R. Shoemaker identified amphipods and other invertibrates; echinoderms were examined by Dr. A.H. Clark; and decapods by Waldo L. Schmidt. See correspondence between A.G. Huntsman and H. P. Bell, A.H. Clark, P. Cox, C. McLean Fraser, R.C. Osborn, W. L Schmidt, C.R. Shoemaker, A. Willey. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 Files 11 and 13, and Box 152 File 14; and letters from A.G. Huntsman to J.J. Cowie, 18 October and 24 December 1930, Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11; and Libraries and Archives Canada RG 23 Vol. 1207 File 726-4-7 [1].

  154. 154.

    In 2010 the Canadian Coast Guard Specialty vessel CCGS Viola Davidson, named in Dr. Davidson’s honour, was launched to assist fisheries research in the Canadian Atlantic. Davidson is credited with being the first published female biologist at the Saint Andrews Biological Station. Huntsman repeatedly attempted to convince his Department of Biology colleagues at the University of Toronto to hire Dr. Davidson, who had been his graduate student. His representations were rejected by male colleagues saw no place for a woman within their faculty.

  155. 155.

    Letter from C. McLean Fraser to A.G. Huntsman. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 150 File 11.

  156. 156.

    William F. Thompson (1888–1965), the pre-eminent west coast fisheries biologist, was at that time the director of the International Fisheries Commission headquartered in Seattle.

  157. 157.

    Letter from W.L. Schmitt to A.G. Huntsman 25 February 1931. Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 152 File 14.

  158. 158.

    Preliminary Report [of H.B. Hachey].

  159. 159.

    H.B. Hachey, “The general hydrography and hydrodynamics of the waters of the Hudson Bay region,” Contributions to Canadian Biology and Fisheries 7(1931), 93–118.

  160. 160.

    Ibid., 111, 134–136.

  161. 161.

    Mills, Fluid Envelope of our Planet, 242.

  162. 162.

    Eric W. Danielson, Jr., “Hudson Bay Ice Conditions,” ARCTIC 24:(1971), 90, 94.

  163. 163.

    D.B. Stewart and W.L. Lockhart, “An Overview of the Hudson Bay Marine Ecosystem. Chapter 5. Oceanography,” Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences no. 2586 (2005), 29, 40. Accessed at http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/libraries-bibliotheques /toc-tdm /314704-eng.htm.

  164. 164.

    Stewart and Lockhart, “Overview...Chapter 5. Oceanography,” 29, 40.

  165. 165.

    Natural Resources Committee Industrial Development Board of Manitoba, “Analysis of Dominion Government Report on Hudson Bay and Strait Fisheries Expedition of 1932.” Huntsman Collection, University of Toronto Archives, B1978-0010 Box 152 File 15.

  166. 166.

    Stewart and Lockhart, “Overview...Chapter 5. Oceanography,” 29, 40–41.

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    Jennifer Hubbard

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    Jed Buchwald

  2. College of Arts & Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

    Larry Stewart

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Hubbard, J. (2017). Fishing an Extreme Environment: Science, Sovereignty and Hudson Bay. In: Buchwald, J., Stewart, L. (eds) The Romance of Science: Essays in Honour of Trevor H. Levere. Archimedes, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58436-2_13

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