SOURCE: Venema, Kathleen. “Mapping Culture onto Geography: ‘Distance from the Fort’ in Samuel Hearne's Journal.” Studies in Canadian Literature 23, no. 1 (1998): 9-31.

In the following essay, Venema argues that Hearne's Eurocentric worldview can be found in his narrative accounts of space and his own geographical distance from the Hudson's Bay Company forts.

On 12 August 1770, likely on the plain west of Dubawnt Lake (Hearne [A Journey …] 95n), a gust of wind smashed Samuel Hearne's quadrant onto stony ground and damaged it beyond repair. Hearne was forced, as a result, to give up his second attempt to reach the mouth of the Coppermine River and to return, reluctantly, for a second time, to the Prince of Wales's Fort. Four days before, on 8 August 1770, Hearne foreshadowed the accident in a journal entry memorable for its vitriolic criticism of his aboriginal companions, its expression of palpable personal fear, and its unselfconsciously privileged ‘reading...