Kevin McDermott

I want to reach out over the line

Fathers and daughters, in my opinion, have a special relationship.

Hamnet, both the novel and film adaptation, has prompted interest in Shakespeare as a father.

In truth, we know next to nothing.

There is the famous Will, where he leaves his daughter Susanna the bulk of his estate, including the main residence in Stratford, while his wife, Anne Hathaway, inherits the second best bed with the furniture.

The will is widely interpreted as expressing Shakespeare's desire to have his land and property passed down to the future male children of his daughter.

But there is no other documentary evidence, no diaries or letters, which might open a window onto Shakespeare the family man.

My brother Noel, 13 years my senior, has spent a lifetime reading Shakespeare and considering the question of the representation of fathers in the plays, especially in relation to their daughters.

Nothing remarkable in that, you might think, except that my brother lived for nearly four decades among the Inuit in the High Arctic, including for a period in Resolute Bay, a settlement on the Northwest Passage,

the fabled sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

My brother studied Inuktitut, the Inuit language.

He accompanied the old hunters on the ice as they tracked caribou and seal, and he learned to hunt from them.

He gathered folktales, and he studied Shakespeare.

So I can say with certainty that Shakespeare was read within the Arctic Circle during the dark days of winter, with the outside temperatures falling as low as minus 40 degrees centigrade and the darkness lasting 24 hours, as my scholar brother rather plays and consider the question of fatherhood.

But he wasn't the only one who read Shakespeare in the High Arctic.

In all likelihood, the crew of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition, which set out to navigate and chart the Northwest Passage, read and performed Shakespeare during the first winter while they were icebound near Beachy Island.

Shakespeare, along with the Bible, was standard reading for officers and crew on British naval ships in the 19th century, and theatricals were popular entertainment on long voyages.

When the Franklin sailors failed to return home, several rescue missions were launched.

We know that one ship, the HMS Resolute, from the 1852 Arctic expedition, was well prepared for theatrical productions.

The Irish-born actor and theatre manager, Charles Keane, donated a wardrobe to the Arctic Theatre as the ship's surgeon and theatrical director styled it.