ABSTRACT
Our journey begins in icy Spitsbergen. In 1631, a gunner’s mate called Edward Pelham described the Arctic landscape in which he had recently been residing, and, indeed, trying quite simply to survive, in these terms:
Greenland is a Country very farre Northward situated in 77. degrees and 40. minutes, that is, within 12. degrees and 20. minutes of the very North Pole it selfe. The Land is wonderfull mountainous, the Mountaines all the year long full of yce and snow:The Plaines in part bare in Summer time, There growes neither tree nor hearbe in it, except Scurvygrasse and Sorrell. 2
