National Outdoor Book Award
1 appearances
-
Edition 10 (2006) Winner
Prentice G. "Spike" Downes
プレンティス・ジー・スパイク・ダウンズ
Prentice G. "Spike" Downes
Pen Names:
Spike（Nickname / common name）
Profile
- Gender
- Male
- Born
- New Haven, Connecticut, United States
- Died
- age 50
- Nationality
- United States
- Languages
- English
- Religion
- Episcopal Church (family background)
- Residence History
- New Haven, Connecticut (birthplace) → Concord, Massachusetts (residence and teaching)
Career
- Occupations
- school teacher, author, explorer (travel writer)
- Active Years
- 1936-1959
- Influenced By
- Cree oral traditions, Dene culture and storytellers, Tradition of northern exploration and explorers
- Influenced
- Later northern travel writers and ethnographic fieldworkers, Researchers who used his journals and collections as source material
Education
| Institution | Faculty | Department | Degree | Period | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kent School | — | — | — | 1924–1928 | United States |
| Harvard University | — | — | — | 1928–? | United States |
Kent School
Period:
1924–1928
Year of Graduation:
1928
Country:
United States
Secondary school graduation
Harvard University
Period:
1928–?
Country:
United States
Graduation year not clearly stated in sources
Awards & Nominations
Works
Major Works
Sleeping Island: A Journey to the Edge of the Barrens
1943 Travel literature / TravelogueA record of canoe journeys into the Canadian far north in the 1930s. Downes documents the lives, traditions and landscape of the Cree and Dene peoples, recounting travel without maps and reliance on local Indigenous knowledge to navigate to remote outposts.
explorationrecording Indigenous culturesmemory and cultural disappearance
Bibliography
- Downes, P. G., Sleeping Island: A Journey to the Edge of the Barrens (1943)
- Prentice Downs eastern arctic journal 1936, edited and introduced by R.H. Cockburn. Arctic 36 (3): 232–250 (1983)
- Cockburn, R.H., 'Prentice G. Downs 1909-1959' Arctic 35 (3): 448 (obituary/memoir)
Style & Themes
- Literary Style
- laconic, observational proseethnographic attention to detail
- Recurring Motifs
- solitary canoe journeysrivers and waterwayselders' storytelling and oral traditionsdisappearance of cultural practices
Legacy
P. G. Downes is known for his 1930s northern explorations and detailed recordings of Canadian Indigenous cultures. His notebooks and collections are preserved in museums and archives and valued as primary source material on the Canadian North.
Museums
- Royal Saskatchewan Museum Saskatchewan, Canada
Academic Societies
- Arctic Institute of North America / Arctic journal community
Archives
- Trent University Archives
- Library and Archives Canada
In Popular Culture
- Cited field records and notebooks within contexts of northern exploration literature
Quotes
-
He traveled a great distance "in order to learn the things of long ago."
Source: Remembrance by his daughter Annie Downes Catterson
Trivia
- Nickname was 'Spike'
- Made canoe journeys without maps relying on local Indigenous directions
- Contributed descriptions and materials (including pottery) used by Canadian museums