Next51. Petersen, Carl (1813-1880)
Den Sidste Franklin-Expedition med "Fox", Capt. M’Clintock. Copenhagen: Fr. Wøoldikes forlagsboghandel, 1860.
Burial of a crewman, under the light of a paraselene, from Carl Petersen, Den Sidste Franklin-Expedition med "Fox”, 1860.
McClintock’s sledge party, discovering a cairn on King William Island, from Carl Petersen, Den Sidste Franklin-Expedition med "Fox”, 1860.
Petersen was a Danish Greenlander, from Upernavik, who had served as interpreter on William Penny’s search expedition of 1850-51 and on Kane’s second Grinnell voyage of 1853-55. Petersen was invited to fill the same role on McClintock’s search expedition in the Fox.
Atypically (for an interpreter), he wrote and published his own account in Danish of the voyage of the Fox. McClintock must have given Petersen access to all his drawings, for the illustrations are identical to those in McClintock’s Narrative, except that here they are reproduced as fine tinted lithographs, whereas McClintock used cruder wood engravings.
One of the plates shows an event from early in the voyage, when a crewman died and was buried in the ice in northern Greenland, under the light of a striking paraselene.
Another shows the sledge party of McClintock, as he was about to discover a cairn at Cape Herschel on King William Island. This was NOT the cairn that contained the famous document that confirmed that Franklin had died and the ships had been abandoned; that cairn was found further north, at Victory Point.
The discovery at Victory Point was not recorded in any illustration, in either McClintock’s or Petersen’s narrative, although the document itself is reproduced in facsimile in both books.
