Unknown Shore: The Lost History of England's Arctic Colony

by Robert Ruby

Here is the true story of how the first European colony in the New World was lost to history, then found again three hundred years later. England's first attempt at colonizing the New World was not at Roanoke or Jamestown but on a mostly frozen, pocket-sized island in the Canadian Arctic. Queen Elizabeth I called that place Meta Incognita -- the Unknown Shore. Backed by Elizabeth I and her key advisors, including the legendary spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham and the shadowy Dr. John Dee, the erstwhile pirate Sir Martin Frobisher set out three times across the North Atlantic, in the process leading what is still the largest Arctic expedition in history.

In this brilliantly conceived dual narrative, Ruby interweaves Frobisher's saga with that of the nineteenth-century American Charles Francis Hall, whose explorations of this same landscape enabled him to hear the oral history of the Inuit, passed down through generations. It was these stories that unlocked the mystery of Frobisher's lost colony.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Christopher Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Dual intermixed stories of Arctic exploration. The first is the ill-fated voyages of colonization, exploration & "mining" of Martin Frobisher in the 16th. The second is that of Charles Francis Hall's travels to the same region (in the 19thC) in an attempt to unravel the mystery of 5 vanished sailors from Frobisher's first voyage. It is a tale of greed, the northwest passage, ill-fated colonization and the difficulty of Arctic travel and life (unless, of course, you pay attention to the Inuit). The book is miticulously researched and very well written for the "common" reader. It is essential for anyone interested in "little told" history and for those w/ a wanderlust. One reviewer called it "Into the Wild" meets "Undaunted Courage"...I think that is a fair assessment. Essential for the history-buff - particularly the "age of exploration" buff as many have never heard of Frobisher and his ill-fated expedition. Be wary of the blinding power of greed and always pay attention to the locals. Read it if you come across it.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was certainly surprising. I never heard a whiff of this story before finding this book and Arctic/Antarctic exploration is my jam. Turns out there is good reason why. This was a goat rodeo from the beginning! (Editor’s note: “Goat rodeo” is a term generally used in the U.S. military to describe a mess of a situation.)

Martin Frosbisher, pirate and all-around bad guy went looking for the Northwest Passage. He found some Inuit and what he thought was tons of gold. He came back and sold the story to Elizabeth I who proceeded to take advantage of everyone. Hilarity ensues.

Ruby writes two different parallel stories. The first, on Frosbisher’s journey and the second on Charles Francis Hall’s expedition to find out what happened to the Franklin Expedition.

Ultimately, Ruby’s book is a bit too fragmented to be great but is still a good read. Ruby has a dry wit which I found personally hilarious. However, jumping between Hall and Frosbisher becomes a bit too distracting. Both stories are worthy of books devoted to them but not simultaneously.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an account of one of the lesser known explorer/adventurer/pirate Martin Frobisher attempted to find the Northwest Passage, and failing to do so attempted to establish the first English colony in the new world. The story is interesting for history buffs because of the remoteness of the era and the courage, cruelty and futility of the effort. How things got done during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I is fascinating, the author is clearly a master of the era and can tell a story as well. It makes one glad not to have lived back then.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, it took me a loooooooong time to get through this one. I found the facts pretty interesting, but the telling of those facts maybe a little uneven--there were parts that were really fascinating and other parts that had me nodding off in boredom. Martin Frobisher sure was an intriguing guy though!

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real mixed feelings on this one. While the story of Martin Frobisher was a good one and had a of potential, there were times where the book seemed to drag and leave me bored. Probably wouldn't read it again.

[Alexander Rolfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An incredible boondoggle. A cautionary tale of what can happen when the leading scientists control government policy.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story about the initial attempts to set up commercial mining operations in the far north of what would become Canada. Much of the narrative goes back and forth between the New World and investors in London. Tells an important story of the (failed) British attempt to establish a North American settlement in the years before Jamestown.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting piece of non-fiction history writing.

There are several levels to the story told here. Furthest back in time is the story of Martin Frobisher in Elizabethan England in the 1570s. He is persuaded that there is a way to reach China (then called Cathay) by sailing over the top of North America. England had been largely excluded from the exploitation of the New World through a series of papal directives which basically carved it up between Spain and Portugal. England was at the time a relatively minor power and at odds with the papacy because of Henry VIII's split with Rome a generation before. Frobisher manages to convince enough investors and gain the blessing of Queen Elizabeth to equip a few ships and set off.

The second level to the story is that of the American Charles Francis Hall in 1859. A journalist and publisher, Hall had long been fascinated by stories of the Arctic. In particular, he became obsessed by trying to find out what had happened to the Franklin Expedition, a much later attempt by Britain to find the mythical Northwest Passage. Franklin and his crew never returned and mystery surrounded what happened to them. Fourteen years later, Charles Hall believed that there was a chance that some at least of Franklin's men might have survived in the north and been taken in by the local natives of the area, then known as "Eskimos" though we now more properly call them Inuit. Hall managed to raise enough money and supplies to set off north, but he couldn't afford his own ship and took passage on a whaler.

The third level of the story is that of the author himself, Robert Ruby, who visited the areas of interest and spent considerable time with the Inuit to research this book.

It's a fascinating story, full of adventure and excitement, and very well written. Here for example is a passage by Ruby describing the environment:

Frobisher Bay and the hills were draped in the moonlight's white silk. The landscape was frozen into white curves and sensual whorls. The bay, in the moonlight in spring, was a plausible setting for a perpetual afterlife cool and spare, economically lit, everything so finely tuned that you heard, or thought you heard, the flapping of a bird's wings as it flew by, and heard the bird's breath.

Martin Frobisher failed (of course) to find a passage to China in the far north, but in his explorations he landed at several places. He treated the Inuit as savages and failed to learn anything from them about survival in the north. He kidnapped an Inuit man, a woman and her child and took them back to England, where they soon died. Still, it's quite remarkable to think of "Eskimos" being in England in the time of "Queen Bess".

However, during their initial voyage, one of Frobisher's men picked up a large black stone on one of the shores they visited. The collection of this stone triggered off a series of further expeditions and disasters because a dubious assay of its material back in England suggested that it was rich in gold. Spoiler, it wasn't! But Frobisher's interest, and that of Queen Elizabeth, turned quickly to the idea of making a fortune by mining this black rock in the Arctic. Further expeditions were mounted, and a short-lived mining colony established on a small island just off what we now know as Canada's Baffin Island.

Charles Hall had some success in finding traces of Frobisher's expeditions, but found little of use about Captain Franklin's doomed mission. But he at least was prepared to listen to the Inuit, follow their guidance, and credit what they said, but he treated them as though they were children. I was struck by this passage, referring to the Inuit people who had taken him in and enabled him to survive when otherwise he would certainly have died:

He was Father Hall, as he described himself; they were his children and he wished them to obey him. They had fed, clothed, and housed him, yet he considered them the dependents.

You can only shake your head at such blindness and ignorance, failings certainly not shared by Robert Ruby on his much later expedition to the north.

Each of these interleaved stories is well told and full of interest and unexpected turns. Recommended.

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[Matthew Chisholm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The polar universes are often and inexpressibly vague and mythological. Perhaps that's why for such a number of years they held such heightened scrutiny for would-be explorers scraping across Earth's final frontiers. What is strange, however, is Ruby's account of two parallel arctic explorations three centuries apart make the arctic seem more desirous than the New World (southern edition) in the High Renaissance or industrializing America much later. Martin Frobisher and Charles Francis Hall serve the book-ends of Ruby's narrative, who are quite expertly shown as different men first and different explorers last. Both are in searches for something, which Ruby thankfully shows us is really themselves. Frobisher, under the weight of reaching a passage to Cathay and then loading the coffers of Renaissance England with alchemic "black ore" is really a man sprawling in the turmoil of playing second fiddle. Hall, on the other hand, seeks the arctic not for wealth but for recognition, not of personal exploits, but of playing hero to a group of men already blown to dust by the arctic frost. One wonders if Hall had found Franklin's men if he would have truly enjoyed their revelation to the modern world. Ruby makes him certainly romantic enough to try.

As the polar regions receive more and more attention in the upcoming years for their destruction instead of their frontier merit, books like Ruby's are key to remembering that the arctic is more than a melting smeer on the coattails of global warming. Indeed, places like Frobisher's Bay and Baffin Island need to be rediscovered for not only their natural beauty but human intersection. Thus, in a way, Ruby writes an environmental history that though steeping in Occidental superiorities seeks to undermine the concept that man has never truly inhabited one of the coldest places on earth. Truly, the Inuit are the heroes of this narrative, which is easy to feel as one by one they drop to death as soon as they butt up against European or American households. On a more speculative note, Ruby inadvertently, or maybe a little overtly, tells us that to each section of the earth is a set of men, and that set is limited. It's nice at the end of the day to still believe that nature can win. Ruby makes us believe for a couple hundred of pages that this is still true.

[Billy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting tale of the three 16th century English expeditions to Baffin Island and the 19th, 20th and 21st century investigations of this little known history. Most surprising to me is the stunning incuriosity and mostly outright contempt for the Inuit on the part of Martin Frobisher and most of his band of Elizabethan era explorers. Explorers is probably the wrong word as they were less interested in finding the northwest passage than in enriching themselves by bringing back ore that they thought had a significant amounts of gold. The English on these and later expeditions failed to understand that the Inuit had evolved a strategy that allowed for survival in this harsh world. Seeing the natives as crude savages ensured that the lessons the Inuit had to teach would not be learned.

[Unwisely · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good one! Arctic exploration, without any starving or freezing to death! This book traces the history of Martin Frobisher's series trips from England to Baffin Island in 1576. He is always vaguely mentioned in the Arctic books, but this covered it. (He was mining for gold. No, really.) Intertwined with this is the story of Charles Francis Hall, who got interested in the Arctic and decided to go there. And maybe find John Franklin, but, mostly just to go. And so he did. And found that the Inuit still had stories about the Frobisher expedition.

A pleasant read, sheds light on some of the first Arctic exploration, and didn't give me nightmares. Recommended!