{"id":12424,"date":"2019-05-08T19:58:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T23:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12424"},"modified":"2019-05-08T19:58:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T23:58:05","slug":"the-saga-of-a-supercargo-by-fullerton-waldo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12424","title":{"rendered":"‘The Saga of a Supercargo,’ by Fullerton Waldo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A little while ago<\/strong> Dale Nelson, a friend of mine, sent me a book he thought might interest me. It was an old work called The Saga of a Supercargo<\/a><\/em>, by the now-forgotten author Fullerton Waldo, copyright 1926. It\u2019s an account of a tramp steamer voyage from Philadelphia to Greenland, on which Waldo served as a \u201csupercargo\u201d (a representative of the ship\u2019s owners with supervisory duties). Dale thought I might enjoy it for its descriptions of Greenland. I did \u2013 more than I expected, actually \u2013 though I wish I\u2019d read it before I wrote West Oversea<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Greenland (a protectorate of Denmark) was embargoed to foreign trade \u2013 in order to protect the native Inuit (here called Eskimos, of course) from exploitation and disease. However, Greenland had one export product \u2013 the mineral cryolite (which Waldo spells kryolith<\/em>), used in various industrial applications, mostly for cleaning. The Pennsylvania Salt Company had a license to receive part of the island\u2019s cryolite production each year, to help defray the costs of the colony to the Danish crown. The P.S.C.\u2019s ships were the only non-Danish ships permitted in Greenland, and Waldo, as a writer, was interested to document the voyage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a lively account. Waldo recounts the stormy voyages to and from Greenland (no wonder the Vikings didn\u2019t do it more), and the frontier conditions in which a small colony of Danish officials, mining engineers, and laborers made a life in a frontier setting, often in dangerous conditions. Inuit life is described in amusing detail. Forecasts said that the cryolite deposit would run out in a few years, and then all this would end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waldo was a pretty good writer. He writes as an author of his\ntime \u2013 his writing is a little more flowery than what we\u2019re used to today, but\nunlike many older writers, he uses the flowery language well, and doesn\u2019t overdo\nit. It illuminates his meaning. I found it an interesting study in style. I also\nenjoyed his sharp character sketches of his fellow crewmen \u2013 mostly Norwegians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book is, apparently, fairly rare, and the facsimile on\nsale at Amazon isn\u2019t cheap. But if you run across it and find the subject interesting,\nit\u2019s well worth reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little while ago Dale Nelson, a friend of mine, sent me a book he thought might interest me. It was an old work called The Saga of a Supercargo, by the now-forgotten author Fullerton Waldo, copyright 1926. It\u2019s an account of a tramp steamer voyage from Philadelphia to Greenland, on which Waldo served as … Continue reading ‘The Saga of a Supercargo,’ by Fullerton Waldo<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[1029,1113,3021],"class_list":["post-12424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","category-reviews","tag-fullerton-waldo","tag-greenland","tag-the-saga-of-a-supercargo"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}