I'm reading Resolute by Martin Sandler about the doomed Franklin expedition (and the mysterious reappearance of one of his ships ten years later found abandoned and floating in the Arctic) and was struck by this description of 19th century whaling captain William Scoresby:
From an early age he was fascinating with science, particularly physical geography, magnetism, and the natural history of the polar regions. Every winter, between whaling voyages, he devoted himself to studying science and philosophy. When he returned to sea he found time, when not pursuing whales, to add to his scientific knowledge. On one of his first voyages he made important observations on the nature of snow and ice crystals. On another, employing a brass water-sampling bottle that he had invented (dubbed a 'marine diver'), Scoresby established for the first time that the water on the ocean floor was warmer than at the surface.
Sandler goes on to detail Scoresby's interest in the Northwest Passage and why the Admiralty should have listened to him as he traveled more than 60 thousand miles in the Arctic in the course of 17 whaling voyages. He is largely just an obscure footnote in history today but his last name struck a huge chord with me.
William Scoresby = Lee Scoresby. Two seconds googling Philip Pullman and Scoresby scored this from an old interview:
How do you come up with the characters’ names?
Some just appear. As soon as Lyra came to my mind, I knew what she was called. Others I have to make up. Lee Scoresby, for instance: the Lee part comes from the actor Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in the "Dollar" films with Clint Eastwood, because I thought my Lee would look like him, and the Scoresby comes from William Scoresby, who was a real Arctic explorer.
While I'm delighted to know that Lee Scoresby was based on someone real (and the casting of Sam Elliot in the movie when Pullman envisioned Lee Van Cleef is really inspired), it is most interesting to me that Pullman is reader of Arctic exploration. When I interviewed Geraldine McCaughrean for Endicott Studio, she also showed a long interest in polar explorers, many of whom are still widely celebrated in England. I doubt that many (if any) American children would have a clue who Lee Scoresby is based on, or even care, but I'm becoming more curious as to why we don't know more about these men (both the successes and failures). Americans embrace frontier heroes and myths and base many of our modern myths upon that cowboy image (I'm all over this when writing about the bush pilots). Well weren't the polar explorers just another version of those same idealized versions of man versus nature?
Why don't we consider them cold weather cowboys? A combination of heroics and science - seems like a better model then gunfighters to me (and I write that as a huge fan of westerns).
[Post pic of a young William Scoresby.]
