Jenness, Stuart E. 1925- (S.E. Jenness, Stuart Edward Jenness)

PERSONAL:

Born August 22, 1925, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; son of Diamond (an anthropologist) and Frances Eilleen Bleakney (a homemaker) Jenness; married Joan E. Burt, June 30, 1949 (divorced March 3, 1980); married Jean Morgan Spencer, August 9, 1980 (deceased, 2003); children: John Diamond, Mary Gwendoline. Ethnicity: "Irish and British." Education: Queen's University, B.Sc., 1948; University of Minnesota, M.S., 1950; Yale University, Ph.D., 1955. Politics: Independent. Religion: Anglican (Episcopalian). Hobbies and other interests: Reading, music (piano playing).

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Geologist. Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, instructor in geology, 1949-51; Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, geologist, 1954-67; National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, scientific editor, 1967-85; writer, Ottawa, 1985—.

MEMBER:

Geological Society of America, Geological Association of Canada, Association of Earth Science Editors (charter member and honorary life member).

AWARDS, HONORS:

John Lyman Book Award, North American Society for Oceanic History, 2005, for The Making of an Explorer.

WRITINGS:

Terra Nova and Bonavista Map-Areas, Newfoundland, Department of Mines and Technical Surveys (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1963.

The Anorthosite of Northern Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia: A Petrological Enigma, Queen's Printer (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1966.

(Editor) Geology of Parts of Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec, Geological Association of Canada (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), 1967.

(Editor) Geochemical Exploration 1987: Selected Papers of the 12th International Geochemical Exploration Symposium and the 4th Symposium on Methods of Geochemical Prospecting, Held in Orleans, France, 23-26 April, 1987, Elsevier (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor and annotator) Arctic Odyssey: The Diary of Diamond Jenness, Ethnologist with the Canadian Arctic Expedition in Northern Alaska and Canada, 1913-1916, foreword by William E. Taylor, Jr., Canadian Museum of Civilization (Hull, Quebec, Canada), 1991.

The Making of an Explorer: George Hubert Wilkins and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1916, McGill-Queen's University Press (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stuart E. Jenness is a Canadian geologist. He completed his graduate degrees in geology in the United States and worked as a geologist at the Geological Survey of Canada and National Research Council of Canada until 1985. At that point, he retired and turned to writing.

In 2004 Jenness published The Making of an Explorer: George Hubert Wilkins and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1916. The book recounts the Canadian arctic expeditions of the Australian George Hubert Wilkins. Wilkins was originally meant to be a photographer of the anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefans- son in his large expeditions into rarely visited lands. When his equipment was lost, Wilkins made himself useful by organizing parts of the trip. Most beneficial to a contemporary audience, however, were his detailed diaries, which recount the tragedies and triumphs of the expeditions and the connections made with local Inuit populations in the area. Writing in Beaver: Exploring Canada's History, Heather Robertson found Jenness's writing to have a "flat, clopping tone." Robertson acknowledged that Jenness gives specific accounts from Wilkins's diaries, but remarked that "the minute details of his long, repetitive trips become tedious." Robertson conceded, however, that Jenness thoroughly provides "detailed, often acerbic, insights into the conduct of all members of Stefansson's 1913-1916 Arctic expedition."

Jenness told CA: "My primary motivations for writing are to communicate facts and ideas that I consider of merit and interest to others. Two brief trips to Coronation Gulf in the Arctic are what influenced my works. There I saw the environment in which my father established his scientific reputation, which provided me with a greater understanding and appreciation of his enormous, early contribution to anthropology. He was a quiet, scholarly man, who encouraged me to be interested in and curious about many subjects.

"My writing process is made up of nine steps. First, I acquire an idea worth writing about (nonfiction in my case). Second, I decide whether the idea has potential to be a short work (article) or a long one (book). Third, I undertake research to obtain sufficient facts and ideas to write on. Fourth, I organize the information and ideas into a logical sequence. Fifth, I write a manuscript (draft version). Sixth, I edit and revise the manuscript, check questionable parts, and perhaps do more research. Seventh, I have a knowledgeable colleague read and offer suggestions for improving the manuscript. Eighth, I revise the manuscript and prepare the final draft. And finally, I search for a publisher, scholarly or popular, depending on the subject matter.

"My inspiration for writing is derived from encouragement and suggestions received over the years from my late wife, my late father, and my brothers, and some peer friends. My writing experience has been entirely in the nonfiction, largely scholarly field. Someone writing a work of fiction would likely proceed quite differently, with different influences."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Arctic, June, 1992, review of Arctic Odyssey: The Diary of Diamond Jenness, Ethnologist with the Canadian Arctic Expedition in Northern Alaska and Canada, 1913-1916, p. 203; December, 2007, William Barr, review of The Making of an Explorer: George Hubert Wilkins and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1916, p. 439.

Beaver: Exploring Canada's History, April 1, 1992, William Barr, review of Arctic Odyssey, p. 54; April 1, 2006, Heather Robertson, review of The Making of an Explorer, p. 48.

Canadian Geographic, January 1, 1992, J. Keith Fraser, review of Arctic Odyssey, p. 89.

International Journal of Maritime History, Volume 17, number 2, 2005, Anne Morton, review of The Making of an Explorer, pp. 433-436.