Status Updates From May We Be Spared to Meet on...

everyone else writing home: it’s cold, pretty though, love you
james fitzjames, for some fucking reason: collins is mad, no wife for me, goodsir walks on tiptoes, I stripped and nearly drowned in a canoe, I saw a 25ft dolphin, no wife for me x2, fuck this fox

this man’s annoying as fuck im surprised they didn’t cannibalise him sooner

call me paranoid but if the two ice masters, employed solely on the basis that they understand the ice, on MY trip to the arctic, decided to take out life insurance before the ships left, I would probably call in sick

keeps making me cry. literally every page bro leave me alone

The final letter in the book, unattributed but assumed to be written by George Hodgson, contains some of the most vile insane racism I have ever read in my life- sobering reminder that while these men met tragedy, they were products of their time. This letter in particular stands out as especially nasty and hateful compared to other more passive or even sympathetic accounts- nasty piece of work this Hodgson seemed!

Crozier's final confessional letter to James Ross really stands out. Putting aside his fictionalisation and characterisation in The Terror, I recall the biography of him I read earlier the year. His references to Franklin's suffocating hospitality and his feeling of sadness and loneliness really hit hard amongst the optimism of all other crews letters. I find him and Fitzjames the most compelling letter-writers

I like that in Franklin's last long letter to his wife, he mentions that none of the men have mentioned to him being bitten by the mosquitoes around Disko Bay, so he assumes they aren't bothered by them, when in nearly every letter surrounding it the men mention how much they're being bitten and annoyed by the mosquitoes lol, even the officers. Love all the little insights and details like that in here