Back

Robert Hood (explorer)

Robert Hood
Born1797 (1797)
Portarlington, Ireland
Died21 October 1821(1821-10-21) (aged 23–24)
near Lake Providence, Northwest Territories
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
BranchRoyal Navy
Service years1809–1821
RankLieutenant

Lieutenant Robert Hood (1797–21 October 1821), born in Portarlington, Ireland, was an Anglo-Irish Royal Navy officer, explorer of the Canadian Arctic, and military artist.[1]

In 1819, Hood was appointed midshipman on the Coppermine expedition, where he, along with George Back, was an official artist. In addition to documenting the expedition with watercolour paintings, he kept a journal which was used by John Franklin to complete his official account of the expedition, and recorded important meteorological, magnetic and auroral data. Hood was the first person to note the electromagnetic nature of the Aurora Borealis.[2]

In 1820, while overwintering in Fort Enterprise, Hood fathered a baby girl with a fifteen-year-old Yellowknives girl known as Greenstockings, whose family was also staying there for the winter. Prior to this, he and Back almost duelled with pistols over the affections of Greenstockings.[3][4]

Hood was murdered on 21 October 1821 by an Iroquois voyageur, Michel Terohaute (who had by this time become a cannibal),[5] who was summarily executed by John Richardson a few days later. Hood's promotion to lieutenant came in January 1821, the news of which did not reach the party until 15 December 1821.[6][7]

  1. ^ "Biography – HOOD, ROBERT – Volume VI (1821-1835) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography". www.biographi.ca. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  2. ^ Haven, Samuel Foster (1856). Archæology of the United States: Or, Sketches, Historical and Bibliographical, of the Progress of Information and Opinion Respecting Vestiges of Antiquity in the United States. Smithsonian institution.
  3. ^ "The Franklin Coppermine Expedition, North-East Canada, 1819-22". Britain's Small Forgotten Wars. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  4. ^ Bettridge, Neil (14 February 2019). "Miss Green Stockings". Derbyshire Record Office. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  5. ^ "Robert Hood | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  6. ^ Hood, Robert (1994). To the Arctic by Canoe 1819-1821: The Journal and Paintings of Robert Hood, Midshipman with Franklin. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. ISBN 978-0-7735-1222-1.
  7. ^ "Robert Hood collection - Archives Hub". archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 December 2022.

Developed by StudentB