Dear Roger,
Thank you for your time and trouble: I'm sure you're right -
I've had two other helpful replies, both saying the same thing,
and both from Americans (whom one might expect to be right - after
all, it's their continent!). More seriously, Tom Pinney pointed
out (which I could have, and should have, checked) that Durand,
writing in 1914 with Kipling's approval, if not actual assistance,
also identified the Barrens as the same tract of NW Canada.
Yours,
Alastair
On 14/12/2012 10:48, Roger Ayers wrote:
Dear Alastair,
I suspect that Kipling was referring to the
Barren Grounds of northern Canada, first explored by Samuel
Hearne, who wrote a book called A
Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the
Northern Ocean, in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, & 1772
(Strahan & Cadell, London, 1795). This was reprinted a
number of times in the nineteenth and early twentieth century
(see 1911 version at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38404/38404-0.txt )
As the first exploration of the area and by an
Englishman who had also set up the first Hudson Bay Trading
Company post in the interior, it ticks all Kipling's boxes.
Best wishes,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December
12, 2012 10:39 PM
Subject: The Song of the
Dead
Further to my earlier
question about this poem, can any member tell
me, in referring to the "Dead in the West" did Kipling
have a particular area (almost certainly in the
eastern foot-hills of the American
Rockies) in mind when he referred to "The Barrens"? Lewis
and Clark?
Alastair Wilson
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