Meta Incognita: A Discourse of Discovery: Martin Frobisher's Arctic Explorations, 1576-1578

The Canadian Museum of Civilization is to be commended for Meta Incognita: A Discourse of Discovery: Martin Frobisher’s Arctic Explorations, 1576-1578, a two-volume compilation of everything there is to know about the series of disasters known as the Frobisher explorations. This is a valuable piece of work and should be in the library of everyone interested in the history of the North. It’s also one of the ugliest books printed in the 450 years since Frobisher sailed: the design and typography are examples of the very worst that “desktop publishing” has to offer the neophyte, the cover appears to have been designed by a second-rate cereal box artist, and the editing seems to have been done by a spell-check program. As Frobisher’s holes in the ground pretend to be gold mines, so this publishing fiasco pretends to be a book, but they both have undeniably great stories.