About this collection
Background and acknowledgements
The following history was compiled by Andrew Taylor, in Winnipeg, on August 1, 1991:
Arctic Blue Books and UM Libraries
- Two photocopy sets of the entire Arctic Blue Books were obtained through the help of an archivist, Donald Curtin. Donald tracked down the dusty original British Parliamentary Papers from 1818-1878 held in storage in Hull, Quebec and they were photocopied for Dr. William (Skip) Koolage and his group, who were annotating and checking Taylor's Index throughout the early 1990s.
- Phillip Cronenwett, Director of Archives at Dartmouth College, kindly provided photocopies of two Blue Books missing from the Parliamentary Library in Ottawa.
- Koolage and his group made copies of the 6000 plus pages of the Arctic Blue Books and donated those to the University of Manitoba Libraries.
- In 1998, the Index went online on the University of Manitoba's Libraries’ homepage.
Index numbering system
This index will follow the original index numbering system of Andrew Taylor which is based upon the original publication dates of the British Parliamentary Papers.
Marie Tremaine, editor of the The Arctic Bibliography assigned number 45212-45257 to Taylor's descriptions of these papers. We have chosen Taylor's publication date-specific entries because they allow the reader to place the source materials in their historical context. However, we have kept the Tremaine numbers in a sub-file for those who wish to have them for reference.
Below are listed the Taylor index numbers which appear in this Index (and are noted in A Preliminary Guide) and the corresponding Tremaine numbers which the reader will find in Section 3: Arctic Blue Books.
The reader should note that Taylor's 1833 and 1877c have been dropped by Tremaine. These are very short papers of two pages each. One paper included by Tremaine (45237) was a later inclusion in the Arctic Bibliography and was not reviewed by Taylor.
Taylor-Tremaine Numbering System
| Taylor | Tremaine | Printed Date: Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons |
| 1818 | 45212 | March 9, 1818. 9 p. Sessional Papers, Bills Public 1818, v.1, no. 99 |
| 1833 | (omitted) | |
| 1834a | 45213 | April 28, 1834. 40 p., fold. col. map. Sessional papers, Reports from committees, 1834, v.18, no. 250, Previously listed as no. 6107 of Arctic Bibliography |
| 1834b | 45214 | July 18, 1834. 2p. also pub. as: Sessional papers, Estimates and accounts 1834, v. 42, no. 493 |
| 1846 | 45215 | February 13, 1846. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers 2, Estimates 1846, v. 26, no.51 |
| 1848a | 45216 | April 13, 1848. 84 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1847-48, v.41 no. 264 |
| 1848b | 45217 | June 7, 1848. 4 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1847-48 v. 41, no. 386 |
| 1849a | 45218 | March 23, 1849. 2 p. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers, 1849, v. 31, no. 152 |
| 1849b | 45219 | March 30, 1849. 28 p. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers, 1849, v. 32, no. 188 |
| 1849c | 45220 | April 20, 1849. 12 p. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers, 1849, v. 32, no. 188-II |
| 1849d | 45221 | June 13, 1849. 4 p. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers, 1849, v. 32, no. 387 |
| 1849e | 45222 | July 12, 1849. 4 p. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers, 1849, v. 32, no. 497 |
| 1850a | 45223 | March 5, 1850. vi, 157 p. illus., 2 fold. maps. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers 1850, v.34, no. 107 |
| 1850b | 45224 | May 23, 1850. 2 p. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers, 1850, v. 35, no. 368 |
| 1850c | 45225 | may 31, 1850. 6 p. Sessional Papers, Reports and papers, 1850, v. 35, no. 397 |
| 1851a | 45226 | March 7, 1851. iv, 106 p. 2 fold. maps. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1851, v. 33, no. 97 |
| 1852a | 45227 | 1852. Eyre and Spottiswoode, lix, 199 p. 2 illus., 2 fold. maps. Sessional Papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50, no. 1435 |
| 1852b | 45228 | 1852. Eyre and Spottiswoode, iii, 368 p. 66 illus., 28 maps incl. 6 fold. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50 |
| 1852c | 45229 | 1852. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 216 p. 9 illus., 4 maps incl 1 fold. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50, no. 1449 |
| 1852d | 45230 | February 3, 1852. 6 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852. v. 30, no. 1 |
| 1852e | 45231 | February 13, 1852. 6 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 30, no. 59 also pub. as House of Lords, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 17, no. 29 |
| 1852f | 45232 | February 27, 1852. 18 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50, no. 115 |
| 1852g | 45233 | April 6, 1852. 12 p. fold. map. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50, no. 248 |
| 1852h | 45234 | May 7, 1852. 4 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50, no. 317 see also: no. 45238 |
| 1852j | 45235 | May 21, 1852. 12 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50, no. 390 |
| 1852k | 45236 | June 22, 1852. 40 p. illus plate, fold. map. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 50, no. 501 |
| not cited | 45327 | August 3, 1855. 12 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1854-5, v. 44, no. 489 see also: 45238 |
| 1852m | 45238 | December 20, 1852. iv, 88 p., 3 fold. maps. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852-52, v. 60, no. 82 |
| 1853a | 45239 | May 4, 1853. 4 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852-53, v. 60, no. 444 also pub. in: no. 45241 (infra), p. 147-49 |
| 1853b | 45240 | August 20, 1853. 4 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852-52, v. 60, no. 1013 also pub in : no. 45241 (infra), p. 1-2 |
| 1854a | 45241 | 1854. 225 p. 26 illus., 5 fold. maps. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1852, v. 42, no. 1725 |
| 1854b | 45242 | March 24, 1854. 14 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1854, v. 42, no. 129 |
| 1854c | 45243 | April 7, 1854. 4 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1854, v. 42, no. 171 |
| 1854d | 45244 | April 28, 1854. 4 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1854, v. 42, no. 200 |
| 1855a | 45245 | January 1855. Eyre and Spottiswoode iv, 958 p., 74 illus., 37 maps incl. fold. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1854-55, v. 35, no. 1898 |
| 1855b | 45246 | March 27, 1855. 46 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1854-55, v. 31, no. 140, section VII |
| 1855c | 45247 | April 18, 1855. 2 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1854-55, v.44, no. 181 |
| 1855d | 45248 | July 20, 1855. xx, 38 p. fold. map. Sessional papers, Reports from committees, 1854-55, v. 7, no.409 |
| 1856 | 45249 | 1856. Harrison and Sons, vi, 95 p. 2 maps, 1 fold. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1856, v. 41, no. 2124 |
| 1858 | 45250 | May 21, 1858. ii, 40 p. map. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1857-58, v. 60, no. 2416 |
| 1875a | 45251 | 1875. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 40 p. fold. col. map. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1875, v. 45, no. C-1153 |
| 1875b | 45252 | 1875. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 2 p. col. fold. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1875, v. 45, no. C-11153-I |
| 1875c | 45253 | February 15, 1875. 4 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1875, v. 45, no. 44 |
| 1876 | 45254 | 1876. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 25 p. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1876, v. 45, no. C-1560 |
| 1877a | 45255 | 1877. Harrison and Sons, vii, 484 p. illus., plates incl. fold. maps. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1877, v. 56, no. C-1636 |
| 1877b | 45256 | 1877. Harrison and Sons, lv, 505 p. diagrs., fold. plate. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1877, v. 56, no. C-172 see also: no. 246 |
| 1877c | (omitted) | |
| 1878 | 45257 | 1878. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 156 p. 8 col. plates., 7 graphs. Sessional papers, Accounts and papers, 1878. v. 52, no. C-2176 |
Who is Andrew Taylor?
To learn more about one of Canada’s foremost polar explorers, Andrew Taylor, check out his collection held at the archives or view digitized content from his collection.
Where are the physical Arctic Blue Books?
Copies of the Blue Books are available
- University of Manitoba Libraries, Archives & Special Collections as the Arctic Blue Books Library Archives (A2002-035). They are unbound copies. Contact Archives for access.
- University of Manitoba Libraries
Other collections with complete sets of the Blue Books
- Library and Archives Canada
- Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, Great Britain
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
Related source materials
- Taylor's primary works on the Arctic are Geographical Discovery and Exploration of the Queen Elizabeth Islands and Physical Geography of the Queen Elizabeth Islands.
- Pierre Berton's The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909 is a good popular account of the era and the men and woman (Lady Jane Franklin) who played such prominent roles in the European exploration of northern North America.
- Excellent standard references are Frozen ships : the Arctic diary of Johann Miertsching, 1850-1854 and Leslie Neatby's The Search for Franklin as well as In Quest of the North West Passage.
- Patricia Sutherland's Franklin Era in Canadian Arctic History, 1845-1859 (Ottawa: National Museum of Man Mercury Series No. 131, 1985) provides 16 eclectic essays on this subject.
- For Indigenous villages in Alaska, see Dorothy Jean Ray's Nineteenth Century Settlement and Subsistence Patterns in Bering Strait in Arctic Anthropology 1964: 2.2 pp. 61-97.
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Arctic Blue Books Abstract 1852a i1
Photo by Arctic Blue Books Abstract 1852a i1 -
Photo by Andrew Taylor fonds, A1993-089, Box 1, File 7, Item 2
Photo by Andrew Taylor fonds, A1993-089, Box 1, File 7, Item 2
Contact us
Archives & Special Collections
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