| Ken McGoogan, former literary editor for the Calgary Herald and now a celebrated Canadian author, continues to create controversy with his latest book, Ancient Mariner: The Amazing Adventures of Samuel Hearne, the Sailor Who Walked to the Arctic Ocean. While the book has drawn praise from many quarters, others – notably the Globe and Mail – have questioned McGoogan’s research and his creative approach to the non-fiction genre.
Typically, McGoogan hasn’t taken the criticisms lying down, firing off letters of rebuttal. He has always had a passion for setting the record straight. It may go back to the time when he was seven years old and wrote a poem without anybody’s help, only to have it rejected by a school publication on the grounds that he couldn’t have written it by himself. Now, in an interview with Fast Forward, McGoogan – currently writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick – discusses Ancient Mariner, its subject, the explorer Hearne, and why he applies fictional techniques to his historical writing.
Fast Forward: Why did you choose to write about this exploration era of Canadian history and about its native peoples – at that time referred to as savages?
McGoogan: I find the figure of the explorer intensely interesting. And I suppose, just speaking for myself, there is a visceral reaction – I see a writer as an explorer. Certainly, some savage activities took place in the North – it was survival of the fittest – (but) 18th-century England was a tough place. Hearne essentially grew up in the Royal Navy (which was) a pretty brutal situation – floggings and floggings through the fleet, and ultimately hangings. In London, they were within living memory of putting people’s heads on pikes. So when you start talking about savagery, England itself was not without considerable savagery.
What is it about Samuel Hearne that spurred you to write a book?
He’s easily the most intriguing figure in exploration history. There are so many dimensions to Hearne – Hearne the scientist, Hearne the naturalist, Hearne the storyteller. He was often the first white person native people had ever seen. He was the first articulate European to demonstrate that to survive and thrive in the North, you have to apprentice yourself to the native people.
And then, of course, (there is) the discovery of Hearne having given impetus to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Coleridge scholars knew that he had had some impact on Coleridge, (but) scholars tend to live in specialized worlds of their own, so those who are specialized in Coleridge were not specialists in fur-trade history, (or) the history of the Royal Navy. It’s only when you lay these all alongside each other that the whole picture begins to emerge. And that’s never really been done. Until now.
Hearne wasn’t the target of a specific campaign of mystification (as was Arctic adventurer John Rae, the subject of McGoogan’s previous book, Fatal Passage), but over the years he’s been treated almost exclusively in Canada, and only within the context of his great journey, for the most part, so it’s a myopic point of view in my opinion. There are many dimensions to this man that have been neglected and misapprehended. It was only through analyzing social history and consulting with an expert on the papers of the Royal Navy that I was able to determine that Hearne was a midshipman. Until now, Canadian historians have always thought that he was never more than an ordinary seaman, (but) it’s why Hearne became an officer of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He wasn’t a servant of the company – he was of the officer class, essentially the same class as John Franklin, who came after him.
Given choices such as wholly fictionalized accounts, creative non-fiction, and a traditional book on history, why choose creative non-fiction?
I’m insisting on the non-fictionality of the work and, by doing so, I ask that it be treated seriously. I call what I’m doing imaginative non-fiction. I believe allowing the imagination into the writing of the work is a step forward and adds dimension. The conventional mindset is that (only) analytical narrative can arrive at the truth. I reject that. I want more of the truth than straight analytical narrative can give. What I’m doing is the same thing that Piers Paul Read (Alive) or Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) do. They apply the technology of fiction to bring their factual subject matter to life. I’m bringing that same approach into the writing of history.
What truth does that elucidate, that you don’t get through analytical records?
Levy, a French writer, recently under flak for imagining (reporter) Daniel Pearl’s final moments, says the imagination can provide a kind of a bridge. Otherwise, the record falls silent. I bring the techniques of fiction to the factual materials. Where I do not go (is) I do not make up facts of any importance. I think today’s reader is sufficiently sophisticated to understand that I wasn’t in that room at that given time. The reader understands that as well as any reviewer. I remain absolutely within the established record and I go as far as I possibly can. I’ve turned up stuff on Samuel Hearne that nobody else has.
I’m not offering the last word, I’m offering the first. By bringing new technologies, I create scenes and offer the reader the most likely scenario. Even traditional sources self-contradict. Imaginative non-fiction can clarify or correct those contradictions, and create a logic bridge between disparate "known" facts. |
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