Image: Anders Beer Wilse/Norsk Folkemuseum
My doctoral research has used British travel writing from the Arctic, particularly Scandinavia and Greenland, to consider how travellers represented and thought about the region. However, I also emphasise the transnational influence of Scandinavian and Arctic people on British ideas of the regions.
My research focus is on travel writing and histories of travel, tourism, and leisure and I also particularly consider how these intersect with the ideas of and practices of empire. My research looks at the cultural histories of British and Scandinavian imperialism, across the Arctic and beyond. I also draw on environmental history, particularly ideas of wilderness, mountain environments, and tourist infrastructure in areas regarded as remote.
I am currently in the early stages of a project looking at the history of glacier tourism in Norway from 1850 to 1950.
Key research interests:
Cultural history; Modern British and Scandinavian history; Environmental history; History of empire; History of travel, tourism, and leisure; History of landscape.
Articles:
"William Cecil Slingsby and Elizabeth Le Blond in Norway: transnational mountaineering, modernity and temporality, 1870–1910", Studies in Travel Writing, March 2025 doi.org/10.1080/13645145.2025.2462540)
Public writing:
“Revisiting Arctic History”, Arctic Relations, September 2020 (https://www.arctic-relations.info/revisitingarctichistory)
““Supported by every traveller in Norway”: Den Norske Turistforening, tourism infrastructure and transnational travel”, The Arctic Institute, April 2022 (https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/supported-traveler-norway-den-norske-turistforening-tourist-infrastructure-transnational-travel)
“The Future of Our Past: Voices from the Next Generation of Environmental Historians”, White Horse Press blog, April 2022 (https://whitehorsepress.blog/2022/04/21/the-future-of-our-past-voices-from-the-next-generation-of-environmental-historians/)
“Guides and guiding in late-nineteenth century Arctic travel”, Symeon, July 2022 (https://www.durham.ac.uk/media/durham-university/departments-/history/Symeon_Issue_12.pdf)
“Salmon in Sápmi: John Francis Campbell’s Scandinavian Journals”, National Library of Scotland blog, August 2022 (https://blog.nls.uk/salmon-in-sapmi-john-francis-campbells-scandinavian-journals/)
“A British mountaineer's notebooks”, Collecting Norden virtual exhibition, November 2022 (also in Norwegian) (https://www.uio.no/english/research/strategic-research-areas/nordic/research/research-groups/collecting-norden/collecting-norden-virtual-exhibition/objects/a-british-mountaineer-s-notebooks.html)
“Norwegian Mountain Lithographs: Mapping the Nation and Guiding the Tourist”, NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment, February 2023 (https://niche-canada.org/2023/02/09/norwegian-mountain-lithographs-mapping-the-nation-and-guiding-the-tourist)
"Glacier Tours in the Northern Playground", The Historian, August 2024 (https://www.history.org.uk/publications/resource/10977/glacier-tours-in-the-northern-playground)
Book reviews:
“Huw Lewis-Jones, Imagining the Arctic: Heroism, Spectacle and Polar Exploration”, Nordicum-Mediterraneum, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 2022) (https://nome.unak.is/wordpress/volume-17-no-1-2022/book-review-double-blind-peer-review/huw-lewis-jones-imagining-the-arctic-heroism-spectacle-and-polar-exploration-london-i-b-tauris-2017)
Alfred de Quervain, "Across Greenland's Ice Cap: The Remarkable Swiss Scientific Expedition of 1912”, H-Environment, H-Net Reviews (November 2022) (https://networks.h-net.org/node/19397/reviews/11555891/drury-quervain-across-greenlands-ice-cap-remarkable-swiss-scientific)
“Nordic Travels by Janicke S. Kaasa, Jakob Lothe and Ulrike Spring”, Scandinavian Studies, vol. 95, no. 2 (Summer 2023) (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/34/article/895970)
Barbara Sjoholm, "The Palace of the Snow Queen: Winter Travels in Lapland and Sápmi", H-Environment, H-Net Reviews (May 2024) (https://networks.h-net.org/group/reviews/20032743/drury-sjoholm-palace-snow-queen-winter-travels-lapland-and-sapmi)
"The Magnetism of Antarctica: The Ross Expedition 1839–1843 by John Knight", International Journal of Maritime History (September 2024) (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08438714241272714)