When the Greely Expedition left for the Arctic in July of 1881, I am sure the last thing on their mind was the sheer amount of boredom they'd face during their winter season there. However, when their first winter came around, they found themselves locked in a wood house with very little to do and nowhere to go.
So what do you do with infinite amount of time and some resources? Well if you're James Lockwood, George Rice, and Charles Henry, you launch a newspaper.
So "The Arctic Moon" was founded. It was created to chronicle the lives of the 25 men who occupied Fort Conger at the time, and hopefully in the future, to become something to look back on from their time at Lady Franklin Bay.
The newspaper was begun with a lot of enthusiasm, but like a lot of the various hobbies founded out of boredom on the expedition, it only lasted about two months. It was hampered by a lack of material and responses to their calls for article submissions. Despite this, however, "The Arctic Moon" is a key example of an early arctic newspaper and helps us understand the daily lives of these men despite the difference of 144 years.
Recently, I had the opportunity to view David Brainard's papers in the National Archive. I had wanted to see them for months as I was hoping to find something on the expedition that I hadn't seen before. The trip proved lucrative, and I found multiple issues of "The Arctic Moon" within his papers. I have not been able to identify any other papers relating to the newspaper and am inclined to believe that they don't exist. However, what I found seemed of importance to anyone else who might want to research Arctic newspapers or the Greely Expedition, so I transcribed the issues I discovered.
Below, I have linked to the full transcription of the newspaper, which I did in the format of the original paper. For the sake of authenticity, grammatical errors and printing issues have been replicated to the best of my ability. Additionally, I have included notes done on the transcription and any interpretations I have of them. I have done my best to avoid speculation, and if it is included it is clearly stated.
I would like to thank Madeline Newbery, who helped majorly by transcribing the second issue of the paper and by giving me the courage to start researching this history in more detail.
I would also like to thank Kay Stephens who helped with the notes on arctic hysteria and provided helpful resources surrounding it.
Finally, I would also like to thank Hannah who runs an amazing blog which I will link here. The insight she provided me with surrounding temperature inversion as well as some transcription notes were incredibly helpful.
I need to issue a content warning: There is terminology used in "The Arctic Moon" that was common to the period but is now considered offensive and hurtful. I do not agree with the use of this terminology and struggled with it while transcribing as I didn't want to offend anyone, but I needed to produce an accurate transcription.
If you note anything in the transcription that seems false or have any questions, please feel free to reach out. I hope to upload many more posts on this expedition in the months to come.
If you have any questions about citations or resources do not hesitate to reach out, I am happy to provide any materials I can.
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