the Sphinx and the Ancient Mariner
Moochin Photoman
Samuel Hearne, born February 1745, went to sea at age 12 with the Royal Navy, saw fierce and bloody action in the last six years of the Seven Years War (which actually lasted for nine years, but there was already a war called the Nine Years War, so they ignored the first two years). Eighteen years old at the end of the war, knocked about for a couple years, joined the Hudson’s Bay Company at 21, explored the Americas, etched his name (S. Hearne July 1767) on a stone in Sloop’s Cove, Manitoba (it’s still there). Led three expeditions into the Canadian wilderness in search of copper and a passage to the Pacific, witnessed a massacre, had wild monkey sex with native women, enhanced the vast wealth of the Hudson’s Bay Company, lined his own pockets, became governor of Fort Prince of Wales at age 31 and spent the next several years engaging in natural philosophy and reducing the local game population. Six years later, surrendered the fort to the damned French, returned to England, met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a coffee house, became (possibly, but probably not) the inspiration for Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Died of dropsy at age 47, became subject of Ken McGoogan’s biography, read by well-appointed older gentleman in Belfast as the gold mask of a dead Egyptian boy pharaoh peeks over his shoulder.
It’s a big old goofy world.
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