In the wake of Louise Arner Boyd

Voyage 2, Svalbard, April 2015

In April, 2015, one year after my first voyage in the wake of Louise Arner Boyd and after my Confirmation (upgrade to PhD), I again went to the Arctic to renew my search for evidence of Boyd’s explorations. I flew London - Oslo and then Oslo - Longyearbyen, Svalbard (formerly Spitzbergen). I knew Boyd had also specifically visited here. She wrote:

“In August 1924, I visited Spitsbergen and the pack ice to the northwest in a small Norwegian tourist vessel. This trip gave me my first view of the Arctic regions and laid the foundations for four expeditions subsequently carried out under my leadership.” (Boyd:1935:1)

“The coast of Spitsbergen was sighted at 2:00 p.m. on September, 1, just 62 hours from the time that we had set our course off the Greenland Coast. We took time out for a stop at Sentinelle Banks for a little salmon fishing, and it was 2:00 a.m. when we anchored off the Norwegian coal-mining village of Longyear City, (now Longyearbyen – my insert) on Advent Bay in Ice Fiord. Later in the morning the ship was moved to the coaling station to take on fuel, while the members of the expedition visited the mining village. Since I had been there a number of times before, I had the pleasure of renewing old friendships.” (Boyd:1948:43)

A totally unexpected literary companion was the discovery of the writings of Marion Amy Wyllie[1] who in 1923 had also been to Svalbard (Spitzbergen). She writes beautifully and knowledgeably about her location:

 “It would be in vain to attempt to convey in words an adequate idea of the beauty of the land-locked bay in which we found ourselves, after the two long days at sea. This artic summer with its life of four months’ continual daylight like, some eastern fairytale, set in a solitude in which all impressions become lasting[…] 

The sparkling east glacier is some three miles wide. The highest points of the mountains being thrust through its surface like islands in a sea of ice[…]

Spitzbergen, this snow-clad cluster of islands, lost in the solitudes of the Arctic Ocean, is 400miles away from the most northern point of Norway. It was nevertheless well known for at least four centuries to whalers and seal hunters. It is interesting to the whole of Europe, on account of the scientific expeditions for which it has been selected as a base for attempts to reach the North Pole”. (Wyllie:1923:286/7)

Here I was in these high Arctic waters accompanied by the memories of two amazing women who I had brought together through my practice led research from across the centuries: Marion Amy Wyllie (1909) Louise Arner Boyd (1926 ) and finally myself (2015).

After the disappointment at not finding Louise Arner Boyd in the Polar Museum in Tromsø where they specialise on Arctic explorers (only men) I wondered whether I might find information about her presence here at the Polar Institute, Longyearbyen, Svalbard. I knew that the University research was more specifically about climate mapping and environmental monitoring in the Arctic, however, I wondered if they would at least have evidence of Boyd’s amazing photographic images of glaciers and fiords that were now beginning to be used in climate research in America.

I asked if they had any information or evidence of Louise Arner Boyd’s scientific research carried out on her voyages to the Arctic regions including Svalbard. They showed me how to access their Polar Archives and I typed in Boyd’s name – nothing. I typed in the ship she had sailed on i.e. Veslekari, again nothing. I wondered how this could be. When I explained to the archivist about my research she was extremely interested and apologised that she knew nothing about Boyd. She asked if I could come back and give a talk at the Polar Institute as she was sure that the local people would be interested.

No sign of the presence of Louise Arner Boyd. What does a woman have to do to be acknowledged in the important academic spaces of Arctic exploration.

However, I did again encounter Wanny Wolstad standing over two polar bears she had killed printed on a tea-towel and kitchen chopping board! I wondered whether you would ever see a man depicted on such lowly domestic objects.

Finally on my last day I visited the North Pole Expedition Museum also in Longyerabyen, Svalbard and asked if they had heard of Louise Arner Boyd and whether they had any information about her voyages to the Arctic. The young woman at the desk said they did not have anything.  I decided to walk around the museum anyway and just as I was leaving I recognised a photograph of what looked like Boyd in an aeroplane. On closer inspection it was her - I remembered that that she hired a plane to fly her over the North Pole. The clue was in the title of the museum – North Pole Expedition Museum. It was true that they didn’t have anything about her amazing voyages but they did have a record of her flight as the first woman to fly over the North Pole.