Wed, Feb 18, 2026
Arctic Fever: Image and Narrative in North Circumpolar Voyaging of the Long Nineteenth Century
The University of Toronto has opened a new exhibition, Arctic Fever: Image and Narrative in North Circumpolar Voyaging in the Long Nineteenth Century, which explores how the Arctic was imagined, represented, and pursued during a period of intense global fascination.
The Arctic is feverishly topical now because of the pressures of climate change on the north circumpolar ecosystem and its Indigenous communities. The phrase 'Arctic fever', however, arose in the 19th century to describe the unquenchable passion for Arctic exploration. The exhibition brings these urgencies together through visual and textual accounts of the circumpolar Arctic in the nineteenth century, including Western discoveries, fictive literature, displays of technology, and descriptions of panoramic spectacles. Ephemera, including newspapers and illustrated playbills, are featured, as are Indigenous perspectives on Arctic travel and life.
Arctic Fever is curated by Mark A. Cheetham, University of Toronto, and Isabelle Gapp, University of Aberdeen, who have also edited a full length, scholarly book of the same title to accompany the exhibition. The book is available from the Fisher Library.
Photo: University of Toronto- Libraries