Experiencing the Arctic in the Past: French Visitors to Finnmark in the Late 1700s and Early 1800s

Abstract

This chapter traces three elite French visitors to northern Norway who travelled there long before the area began receiving attention as a tourist destination per se. Drawing on archival records and relevant literature, it recounts the travel experiences of the three visitors, who showed interest in the Arctic environment and its people in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The first story comes from Prince Louis Philippe’s stay in northern Norway. This stay primarily had political motivations, albeit the prince was interested in science. The second story is about Léonie d’Aunet, who is thought to be the first French woman tourist in the Arctic. She travelled on La Recherche, a scientific research expedition vessel that was commissioned by Prince Louis Philippe. La Recherche travelled to northern Norwegian locations, such as North Cape and Spitzbergen. As the wife of one of the expedition members on the vessel, her motivations could most closely be related to those of leisurely and touristic visits to the Arctic today. The last example is Roland Bonaparte, a grandnephew of Napoléon Bonaparte, who travelled to northern Norway at the end of the 1880s; he was interested in taking photographs of Sami people.<p>

<p>Drawing on their motivations and conditions of travel evidenced in their experiences to the unknown Arctic, the aim of this chapter is to contextualize the historic visitor experience in the Arctic within a centre–periphery context. It does this in order to engage and conceptualize the idea of ‘periphery’ in tourism. How we understand contemporary notions of periphery within tourism contexts is clarified when we recall stories of pre-tourism-era visitors to the Arctic.