Refusing History after Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Sur”

T he “Heroic Age” commenced with the revival of interest in Antarctica around 1900 and ended before the era of mechanization and aerial reconnaissance beginning in the late 1920s. Its colonial modes of knowledge were limited by the ability of the human body to withstand the environment. Human inhabitation was its goal, experience its method, and the footstep—the mark of embodied movement and progress upon the terrain—became its prime symbol. The material facts of the race to the pole are as easy to trace as tracks in snow. Amundsen dog-sledded from the Bay of Whales beginning on October 19, attaining the pole on December 11, 1911, and returning safely to base. Scott man-hauled his sleds, attaining the pole on January 17, 1912, five weeks after Amundsen. The British team was caught in a blizzard 20 miles from a food depot. The entire polar team froze to death in or near their tents. Members of the base team located and removed the corpses the following summer. Scott’s diary was found with his body; his last act had been to write in it. The British have managed to put a heroic spin on an expedition for which heroism and failure seem inseparably linked. 1 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Cartography · Geography · Symbol (formal) · Canadian Identity and History · History · History of Science and Natural History · Philosophy · Polar Research and Ecology

• Imperial Eyes

  Mary Louise Pratt•Imperial Eyes•1992

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• Mappings

  Susan Stanford Friedman•Mappings•1999

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