Travellers’ Glory and the Habitability of the ‘Frozen Zone’, 1663–1737

Abstract The article explores four travel writings on early modern Lapland. The travelogues were written by Italian and French travellers—Francesco Negri (1623–1698), Jean-François Regnard (1655–1709), Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) and Réginaud Outhier (1694–1774)—who visited the region between 1663 and 1737. The article focuses on the notions of habitability, glory and bravery, and suggests that besides curiosity and scientific exploration the journeys were motivated by the travellers’ desire for glory. The travellers sought glory by acquiring knowledge of rare phenomena and through literary portrayal of their own bravery in the face of hardships caused by the northern climate and natural environment. These narratives of bravery and glory are studied in relation to the idea of the habitability of the Earth: although the travellers found Lapland inhabited, their travelogues brim with exasperation caused by what they considered poor living conditions in the North. While their expressions of discomfort and tribulation served the purpose of amplifying the representation of the travellers’ bravery, they also imply that habitability was a relative notion which depended on the traveller’s own background and cultural preferences. The article approaches notions of habitability and glory from various scholarly viewpoints, including the history of travel writing, history of emotions, environmental history and cultural history.