Abstract
Newly liberated after World War II, with its infrastructure destroyed, bread rationing still in effect, its scientific establishment in tatters, and facing colonial crises in Indochina and Algeria, France was hardly in a position to mount an expensive mission to the Arctic. But as polar science came back to life after the disruptions of the war, French anthropologist and explorer Paul-Emile Victor set his sights on Eismitte. For Victor, who had spent nearly two years living and trekking in Greenland in the interwar era, the very center of that island represented at once one of the last great Arctic challenges, the ideal culmination of his prewar adventures, and a focal point for broader polar ambitions, which included securing France’s Antarctic claim.
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Notes
Bernard Saladin d’Anglure, “Mauss et l’Anthropologie des Inuit,” Sociologie et Sociétés 36, no. 2 (2004).
Paul-Emile Victor, Boréal: La Joie dans la Nuit (Paris: Grasset, 1938);
Paul-Emile Victor, Banquise: Le Jour Sans Ombre ( Paris: Grasset, 1939 ).
Robert Gessain, Un Homme Marche Devant: La Dernière Travers ée du Groenland en Traineaux à Chiens (Paris: Arthaud, 1989 ); Eigil
Knuth, Fire Mand og Solen: En Tur over Grønlands Indlandsis, 1936 ( Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1937 ).
Paul-Emile Victor, “Je suis un Esquimau” (Paris Soir, 29 December 1937 )
Paul-Emile Victor, “Impressions du Bout du Monde,” Marianne, 2 February 1938.
Also see Paul-Emile Victor, “Les Jeux de Ficelle Chez les Eskimos d’Angmagssalik,” Journal de la Sociétédes Américanistes 29 (1937)
Paul-Emile Victor, My Eskimo Life (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1939);.
Paul-Emile Victor, “Expé ditions Polaires Francaises,” Atomes 4 (1949).
Paul-Emile Victor, “The French Expedition to Greenland, 1948,” Arctic 2 (1949): 135.
Nicolas Skrotzky, Terres Extrémes: La Grande Aventure des Pôles (Paris: Editions Denoël, 1986), 35ff.
Jules Sébastian César Dumont d’Urville, Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l’Océanie sur les Corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée, 1837–1840 (Paris: Gide et J. Baudry, 1854)
Nicolas Skrotzky, Terres Extrémes: La Grande Aventure des Pôles (Paris: Editions Denoël, 1986), 35ff.
Xavier Reppe, Aurore sur l’Antarctique (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1957 ). As well as Terre Adélie, these interests also included the Kerguelen, Saint Paul, Amsterdam and Crozet Islands in the southern Indian Ocean and the Iles Eparses (Scattered Islands) near Madagascar.
Michel Bouché, Gro ënland: Station Centrale ( Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1952 ), 14–15.
Robert Pommier, Au-del à de Thule: Sur la Route des Glaces ( Paris: Amiot Dumont, 1953 ), 111.
Quoted in David Lampe, Pyke, The Unknown Genius ( London: Evans Bros, 1959 ), 156.
D.J. Kinney, “Engineering Greenland: Icecap-1 and the Militarization of Arctic Technologies” (Paper presented at the SHOT Annual Meeting, Copenhagen, October 2012 ).
Jean-Jacques Holtzscherer and Albert Bauer, “Expéditions Polaires Francaises, Missions Paul-Emile Victor, Expéditions Arctiques, Résultats Scientifiques: Contribution à la Connaissance de l’Inlandsis du Groënland, Mesures Seismiques et Synthèse Glaciologique (Communications Prùsentées à la Dixième Assemblé e Générale de l’Union Géodesique et Géophysique Internationale Tenue à Rome en Septembre 1954)” (Paris: Expéditions Polaires Francaises, 1954), 11.
Janet Martin-Nielsen, “‘The Deepest and Most Rewarding Hole Ever Drilled’: Ice Cores and the Cold War in Greenland,” Annals of Science 70 (2013)
Maiken Lolck, Klima, Kold Krig og Iskerner ( Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetforlag, 2006 )
Aant Elzinga, “Some Aspects in the History of Ice Core Drilling and Science from IGY to EPICA” (3rd Scar Antarctic History Action Group Workshop, Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University, October 2007 ).
André Cailleux, “Premiers Enseignements Glaciologiques des Expéditions Polaires Francaises, 1948–1951” (Expéditions Polaires Francaises, 1951)
Jean-Charles Heuberger, Expéditions Polaires Francaises, Missions Paul-Emile Victor, V: Glaciologie Groënland, Volume 1, Forages sur l’Inlandsis (Paris: Hermann et Cie, 1954); Holtzscherer and Bauer, “Expéditions Polaires Francaises, Missions Paul-Emile Victor, Expéditions Arctiques, Résultats Scientifiques: Contribution à la Connaissance de l’Inlandsis du Groënland, Mesures Seismiques et Synthèse Glaciologique.”
Hans W. Ahlmann, “The Contribution of Polar Expeditions to the Science of Glaciology (A Lecture Delivered to the Scott Polar Research Institute on 1 May 1948),” Polar Record 5 (1949).
Georges Dubois, “Donné es Num é riques Relatives aux Glaciations Quaternaires,” Bulletin de l’Association de l’Institut des Sciences G éologiques de Strasbourg (1931); Richard F. Flint, Glacial Geology and the Pleistocene Epoch ( New York: John Wiley, 1948 ).
Hans W. Ahlmann, “Letter to Paul-Emile Victor, 12 June 1954” (Organisation des EPF 1945–1964 Folder, Exp é ditions Polaires Francaises 1914–2001 Collection (20110210–001), Archives Nationales de France, Fontainebleau).
See Peder Roberts, “Nordic or National? Postwar Visions of Polar Conflict and Cooperation,” in Science, Geopolitics and Culture in the Polar Regions: Norden Beyond Borders, ed. Sverker Sörlin (Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2013). Danish scientific nationalism is discussed further in the epilogue.
Marcel Ichac and Jean-Jacques Languepin, “Groënland, 20,000 Lieues sur les Glaces” (Film: Shot 1949, Released 1952).
Børge Fristrup, The Greenland Ice Cap, trans. David Stoner (Copenhagen: Rhodos, 1966), 130–31.
Leonard A. LeSchack, “The French Polar Effort and the Exp é ditions Polaires Francaises,” Arctic 17 (1964): 13.
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© 2013 Janet Martin-Nielsen
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Martin-Nielsen, J. (2013). Taming the Ice Sheet. In: Eismitte in the Scientific Imagination. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137375988_3
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