Grenfell Campus Summer of Research: Exploring the man behind a legend

By Melanie Callahan | July 2, 2015

Summer of Research is a multimedia project that includes articles, videos, photos and audio files highlighting the work of different Grenfell researchers over a 13-week period.

Explorer Bob Bartlett had a lifelong love affair with the Arctic. For Dr. Maura Hanrahan, of Grenfell Campus’s humanities program, a lifelong fascination with the ship captain began when she spent two weeks in his home town of Brigus, N.L., as a child.

Throughout her career, Dr. Hanrahan has written numerous articles on the famous seafarer.

“In doing research on him, I could not help but notice that Bartlett was largely depicted as a one-dimensional figure, a kind of Boys’ Own hero,” she said. “This couldn’t possibly reflect the person he was so there was clearly a gap in the Bartlett literature.”

Dr. Hanrahan hopes to fill that gap and shed light upon the life and character of a glorified, but not well understood, figure in Newfoundland and Labrador and polar history.

“The man himself might have appeared on Wheetabix boxes, but he is hard to get to know. He carefully managed his image.”

Dr. Hanrahan has been researching Captain Bartlett for almost a decade; the project has become an important part of her work at Grenfell Campus. In that time, her archival study has taken her to the Explorers Club in New York and to Bowdoin College in Maine. She has searched archives in England, The Rooms, the Centre for Newfoundland Studies and the Newfoundland and Labrador Historic Sites Association. There is a wealth of newspaper articles accessible from the New York Times and news publications from other countries, as well as a rich photographic record of the sailor’s adventures.

She has also interviewed many people, including a man in Brigus who worked under Captain Bartlett on the Effie Morrissey, a schooner skippered by the captain that made many important scientific expeditions to the Arctic.

Dr. Hanrahan is writing a book that will be informed by academic research and theory, which she hopes will also appeal to an educated public readership.

This summer, Grenfell Campus will celebrate the accomplished, world-class research taking place in labs, fields, archives and libraries by distinguished researchers from around the world. Summer of Research, is a multimedia project that includes articles, videos, photos and audio files highlighting the work of 16 different researchers over a 13-week period. The platforms will include a dedicated webpage (research.grenfell.mun.ca), Facebook (www.facebook.com/GrenfellCampus), Instagram (@grenfellcampus), and Twitter (hashtags #SummerofResearch and #GrenfellCampus). These articles will culminate in Grenfell Campus’s Research Report, which will be released in fall 2015.

 

 


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