The primary source:
I am assigning you ONE ship logbook written by English adventurer John Davis during an expedition in search of a "Northwest Passage" through the Canadian Arctic to Asia in the sixteenth century.
To find your ship logbook, click here.
The first logbook begins on page 124 of the PDF file (which means: not the page that's written IN the file). You may have trouble locating these logbooks unless you download the PDF. Note that some pages from the second logbook are mixed in here (from pages 131-136); don't read those!
The second logbook begins on page 144.
The third logbook begins on page 168.
To find your ship logbook, click here.
The first logbook begins on page 124 of the PDF file (which means: not the page that's written IN the file). You may have trouble locating these logbooks unless you download the PDF. Note that some pages from the second logbook are mixed in here (from pages 131-136); don't read those!
The second logbook begins on page 144.
The third logbook begins on page 168.
How to read your primary source:
Check out this handy guide by Harvard historian Mark Kishlansky.
This map of the Davis journeys could be useful.
Here's a map that shows the Northwest Passage (and the Northeast Passage) as they exist today.
And here's a map of the major currents of the Arctic.
This map of the Davis journeys could be useful.
Here's a map that shows the Northwest Passage (and the Northeast Passage) as they exist today.
And here's a map of the major currents of the Arctic.
Secondary sources you may find useful:
García‐Herrera, Ricardo, David Barriopedro, David Gallego, Javier Mellado‐Cano, Dennis Wheeler, and Clive Wilkinson. "Understanding weather and climate of the last 300 years from ships' logbooks." Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 9, no. 6 (2018): e544. Click here to download.
Degroot, Dagomar. “Exploring the North in a Changing Climate: The Little Ice Age and the Journals of Henry Hudson, 1607-1611.” Journal of Northern Studies 9:1 (2015): 69-91.
Degroot, Dagomar. "Source Note: The Textual Record of Climate Change at Sea." Environmental History 25:4 (2020): 759-773. Click here to download.
Degroot, Dagomar. “Testing the Limits of Climate History: The Quest for a Northeast Passage During the Little Ice Age, 1594-1597.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History XLV:4 (Spring 2015): 459-484.
McKaya, Nicholas P. and Darrell S. Kaufman. "An extended Arctic proxy temperature database for the past 2,000 years." Scientific Data (2014). doi: 10.1038/sdata.2014.26. After reading the article, click here for its annual data (in an Excel spreadsheet) on average Arctic temperatures.
Degroot, Dagomar. “Exploring the North in a Changing Climate: The Little Ice Age and the Journals of Henry Hudson, 1607-1611.” Journal of Northern Studies 9:1 (2015): 69-91.
Degroot, Dagomar. "Source Note: The Textual Record of Climate Change at Sea." Environmental History 25:4 (2020): 759-773. Click here to download.
Degroot, Dagomar. “Testing the Limits of Climate History: The Quest for a Northeast Passage During the Little Ice Age, 1594-1597.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History XLV:4 (Spring 2015): 459-484.
McKaya, Nicholas P. and Darrell S. Kaufman. "An extended Arctic proxy temperature database for the past 2,000 years." Scientific Data (2014). doi: 10.1038/sdata.2014.26. After reading the article, click here for its annual data (in an Excel spreadsheet) on average Arctic temperatures.
Finding additional climate reconstructions:
Google scholar is your friend. But NOAA's Paleoclimatology Data Map could be, too.
Formatting your work:
- Make a title page! Your title page should have your assignment title in large, centered font. Your name, your class name, my name, and the date should be in a smaller font at the bottom right of your title page.
- Your papers should be written in size 12, Times New Roman font. They should be double-spaced. You should use standard margins (one inch on all sides of the document). Number your pages (at the top right).
- Use formal academic writing (no contractions or colloquialisms).
- Cite all sources using Chicago Style formatting, which means that you need footnotes and a bibliography (note that the bibliography does not add to your page count). Click here to find out how you do this. You should always cite at the end of a quotation. Otherwise, include all citations in a footnote at the end of a paragraph. You do not need to cite every sentence. Your footnotes should be numbered sequentially.
