Chapter Text
The Rescue
- I didn't actually look up how well dog sleds can run over shale but let's just pretend everything's fine
- The men with Edward when they meet Christophe are all the men who were in his lead party in the book which ends with them all getting devoured by Tuunbaq :( but in this case, it's just a hunting party
- I fully forgot about the men who decided to stay behind on terror so you can decide what happens to them
- I tried my best with the geography stuff. if the men are somewhere in the Adelaide Peninsula after walking from King William Island, Roes Welcome Sound is indeed about 300 miles southeast, right off of Ukkusiksalik National Park
- According to Google, sled dogs can run anywhere between 6-12 miles an hour depending on the conditions. If you put them at 10 mph and estimate about 10 hours of travel time per day, they'd get to RWS in three days give or take. So, it would take 5 weeks to transport 70 men in groups of 14. If this math is in any way wrong, please let me know
Hudson Bay/Ships/Travel
- The bit about Hudson Bay freezing easier because of its high salinity is true, and also why the timeline is moved forward a month. The Bay is frozen for most of the year, though the parts that thaw are normally fully thawed by August.
- Henry Hudson did get kicked off his own ship and disappeared in James Bay (the smaller offshoot at the bottom of HB) which he thought led to the NW Passage....sir you've still got half of Canada to get around
- Discovery was one of the ships that reached Jamestown. I don't really go into detail about the Starving Time at Jamestown because I'm not American and didn't cover it in school and don't feel confident talking about it, but they did eat people
- There's an alternate version of this fic where instead of Québec, they dock in Churchill, Manitoba AKA the polar bear capital of the world but I'm not a monster
- I don't know how effective a steamboat paddlewheeler would be in this situation (not very, because salt water would wreck her boiler and caused it to rot) but Beaver was a real ship in Canada at this time, I've simply moved her from BC
- Gonna be real with you: i have no idea how long it takes to sail across Hudson Bay, nor do I know how they got from Eastmain - which is quite north in the province and does not have any rail connections NOW let alone in 1848 - to Québec City. Oregon Trail-style wagons? Teleportation? Who knows.
- I also cannot find any historical records of trains going from Montréal to QC but just...just pretend. I needed a reason for Hickey to escape
- Ratboy could 100% avoid getting captured by shaving his beard and getting a haircut bc I saw a picture of Adam Nagaitis in Chernobyl and was very concerned as to why a 12-year-old was risking radiation poisoning
- JCR and the HSM Enterprise were sent to look for the Franklin Expedition in 1848 but got stuck in the ice by Baffin Bay and the ship had to be abandoned
Misc.
- Francis Baring, 1st Baron of Northbrook was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1849. He took over the position when the previous first lord, the Earl of Auckland, died after having some sort of a fit on New Years' Day
- Brockenhurst is a village in New Forest, Hampshire. It's about a two hour drive from London.
Media References
- Au Clair de la Lune is NOT Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' (tho he did use it as the basis for his song Pierrot), it's an 18th c. French folk which is used to teach children learning an instrument because of it's simple, familiar melody. Here's a fun version
- The song Christophe and friends sing which involves a lot of body parts is «Il est des nôtres» aka 'He's one of Us' which is about getting Sloshed with the Lads and involved touching your glass to various parts of your body (incl. your crotch) without spilling.
- Bridgens sings 'The Unquiet Grave' which is one of my fave folks songs! It dates back to the 15th/16th centuries and is about mourning your true love for a year and a day, summoning their spirit because the constant weeping is keeping their spirit from resting, begging them to kiss you so you can die as well, learning that it would cause both of your hearts to decay, and reluctantly agreeing to stay alive. Fun stuff! I'm partial to this version by the cast of Ghost Quartet which is gay, and this version by Ariana Deligianni which is spooky.
- 'How Many Miles to Babylon' is an 1801 nursery rhyme. Because it's a nursery rhyme, all the versions online are of choirs of children and they're AWFUL.
- All the information about La Medusé and Géricault's painting is accurate. It's a very big painting (16 ft x 23 ft) and the raft was 66 ft x 23 ft so they're the same width which is pretty nifty
- Edward reads Frankenstein because it begins and ends with the Arctic and a rescue by a ship. Also because I'd like to believe that he'd be a goth bitch.
Little Family History
- HUGE shoutout to Tulliver on tumblr for compiling a doc of all the information we know about the Little family!
- The one thing I haven't been able to confirm is the Horse Thing but also horse boy ned little is canon in my brain now and I'm never giving it up.
- Edward was the 7th of 12 children (6 sisters and 5 brothers!)
- In actuality, three of his brothers joined the Navy (his brother Simon was even captain of the royal marines!) but having him be the only sailor is a solid dramatic choice so I'm not changing it
- Also I know that real life Edward Little was born in 1811 but him being older than JFJ is so profoundly weird to me because of his potent stressed grad student energy so I'm operating on the assumption that he's mid-thirties in everything I write
- Jaime, the brother who I mention cutting his hair in his sleep is James Cornelius Little (b. 1807). he eventually became a naval purser and paymaster and actually attended a meeting abt the Franklin Expedition which is neat!
- (I'm also operating under the assumption that they all have nicknames for each other, I don't think there's any recorded nickname proof. It's just me)
- Maggie, who relayed info re: The Raft of the Medusa was Margaret Anne Little (b. 1809). She married a man named John Cragg in 1843, so it's perfectly plausible that they saw the painting, which was finished in 1818-9 and displayed in the Louvre since 1824.
- The final sibling I mention is Louisa Janet Little (b. 1815), the baby of the family. She's the one who dresses up like Anne Bonny while they're all playing pirates
Cut Bits
- originally, Edward was going to be reading Wuthering Heights (which came out in 1847) and doing a horrible impression of Blanky's accent at which point Blanky himself was going to walk by and be like...excuse me?
- Then I switched it to reading some Poe but I don't like Poe half as much as I like Mary Shelley
- There was going to be a callback to Neptune trying to yeet himself into the port in Greenhithe by having him try to yeet himself into the St. Lawrence, Jimmy Fitzjimmy was going to grab him and in the process knock down all the lieutenants like the worst game of dominoes and JCR was going to look at all this like....ah yes. the best men the discovery service has to offer
- "Moonbeam" was going to be one of the nicknames Thomas uses but I couldn't find a good spot to use it