Resurrecting Dr. Moss: The Life and Letters of a Royal Navy Surgeon, Edward Lawton Moss MD, RN, 1843-1880(Northern Lights)

Resurrecting Dr. Moss chronicles the life and death of Edward Lawton Moss, a Royal Navy surgeon on the last great British north polar expedition of the nineteenth century. Arctic historians and bibliophiles are familiar with Moss's account of the 1875-76 British Arctic Expedition, published under the title Shores of the Polar Sea, but little has been known about Moss himself.

Now, thanks to Paul Appleton's painstaking research, his life has taken shape in this well-crafted biography.Relying heavily on Moss's own letters, Appleton recounts his travels in the Caribbean, the Arctic, and on Canada's Pacific coast, creating a vivid portrait of a man he calls ""an example of the best traditions of British naval medicine during the Victorian era"". Artist, author, explorer, and scientist, Dr. Moss was also a pioneering medical officer.

During his posting in British Columbia, he played a pivotal role in founding one of the earliest medical institutions on Canada's west coast, the hospital at the Esquimalt Naval Base. Moss's life was cut short at the age of thirty-seven when the HMS Atalanta disappeared en route from Bermuda in 1880.

Table of Contents:
The Promise of the West as Settlement Frontier. Adventurers in the Promised Land: British Writers in the Canadian North West, 1841-1913. Canada's Rocky Mountain Parks: Rationality, Romanticism, & a Modern Canada. Clifford Sifton's Vision of the Prairie. "We Must Farm to Enable Us to Live": The Plains Cree & Agriculture to 1900. Utopian Ideals & Community Settlements in Western Canada, 1880-1914. "Land I Can Own": Settling in the Promised Land. The City Yes, The City No: Perfection by Design in the Western City. Land of the Second Chance: Nellie McClung's Vision of the Prairie West as Promised Land. The Kingdom of God on the Prairies: J.S. Woodsworth's Vision of the Prairie West as Promised Land. "A Far Green Country Unto a Swift Sunrise": The Utopianism of the Alberta Farm Movement, 1909-1923. "No Place for a Woman": Engendering Western Canadian Settlement. Preaching Purity in the Promised Land: Bishop Lloyd & the Immigration Debate. Policing the Promised Land: The RCMP & Negative Nation-Building in Alberta & Saskatchewan in the Interwar Period. Uncertain Promise: The Prairie Farmer & the Post-War Era. The Artist's Eye: Modernist & Postmodern Visualizations of the Prairie West. The Dream Still Lives: Promised Land Narratives during the Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee. From Farm to Community: Co-operatives in Alberta & Saskatchewan, 1905-2005.

About the Author :
Paul Appleton, a history teacher, earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Calgary and pursued doctoral studies at Queenâs University. He published articles about Dr. Moss in BC Historical News, The Westcoaster, and Archaeology magazine. Paul Appleton died in March 2006. William Barr is a research fellow at the Arctic Institute of North America. A glacial geomorphologist by training, his major research focus is the history of exploration in the Arctic, a subject on which he has published extensively. In May 2006, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Historical Association for his contributions to the historiography of the Canadian North.