Geography in Luck of the North

[Roy Kooijman]

Sigvald wrote:
> This summer I brought a quiz with me to the summer-meeting of 
> the Danish
> Donaldist Society. One of the sections in this quiz was about 
> geography in
> Barks' stories. The task was to tell what real place/country 
> the Ducks went
> to in 10 different stories - one place/country in each story. 
Sounds like a interesting quiz. Maybe you could mention which other 9
stories you choose...

> One of these
> stories was FC 256-2 - "Luck of the North". Afterwards, when 
> I told everyone
> the correct answers, David Gerstein surprised everyone by 
> telling us that in
> the US-version of this story the Ducks is said to go Alaska - not to
> Greenland as told in the Nordic prints of this story.
>
> So, what's correct then? Normally I'd say that the original version is
> correct, but this time I am not sure about that at all. Not 
> that I don't
> trust Barks. It's just that I have this strange feeling that the US
> publisher's for some reason may have altered/censored this 
> story at this point.
>
> So, what possibilities that IMO are left is Alaska and 
> Greenland. What facts
> does the US-print of this story provide to help us point out 
> one of these
> places as the correct one?
> a) The name and position on the map points out Alaska.
Barks mentions latitude 70 north by latitude 167 west several times in the
story.
I looked those coordinates up at http://www.mapquest.com/ and:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&latitude=70&longitu
de=-167
After zooming out you will find out that it's indeed near Alaska.
I wonder if an editor had changed the name of the country why this does
point out to Alaska, coincidence? :-)

> b) The natives live in igloo's (ice-houses) *not* in wooden houses.
> c) The natives are using Kayaks when they travel at sea.
> d) The natives are drawn like, dressed like and are called Eskimos.
> e) At sea the Ducks find an iceberg with a Viking-ship frozen in it.
> 
> So what does this tell us? The facts mentioned in a) are 
> easily changeable
> and ARE changed in the European versions compared to the 
> US-one. Thus IMO
> this really tells us nothing.
In the Netherlands the thing changed is that it's not 70 north but 75 north,
small difference.

> b), c) and d) does IMO clearly point towards Greenland.
> Even though it's theoretical possible for an iceberg to drift of from
> Greenland to the Alaska area it doesn't seem very plausible. 
> But if that was
> barks' idea I find it strange that it doesn't confuse the 
> Ducks to discover
> a Viking-ship in an area the Vikings as far as is known, 
> never visited or explored. 
In the end of the story DD+HDL find a map on the old viking ship and HDL say
to DD (who almost tears up the map):
"This is an old Norse map of North America- drawn hundreds of years before
the time of Columbus!"
So the Vikings must have visited the area otherwise they couldn't make a
map...

> Thus IMO also e) clearly seems to point out 
> Greenland as the land
> in the north that is shown in "Luck of the North".
Well IMO it still is Alaska. I don't know enough about your points b, c or d
so I cannot argue about those.
Anyway I had some fun reading the story again and in improving my geography
knowledge, thank you Sigvald!

> Well, I don't know, but what IMO is pretty sure though is that the
> INDUCKS/COA presentation of this story needs to be updated.
Maybe the English description "DD fools GL to go to North Pole with fake
uranium mine map" could be changed indeed...

-- Roy
PS Sigvalds link to COA contained an extra character at the end, try this
instead:
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/W+OS++256-02//Luck_+of_+the_+North