Christian Drury
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cjdrury.bsky.social
Christian Drury
@cjdrury.bsky.social
4.3K followers 1.6K following 710 posts
Historian of empire, travel and modernity in the Arctic. DurhamARCTIC PhD. He could never help reading about cricket. He/him. Personal academic website: https://www.christiandrury.co.uk/
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cjdrury.bsky.social
Some new (to me) Nordic travel writing: William Sansom's THE ICICLE AND THE SUN (1958)
The front pages of William Sansom's THE ICICLE AND THE SUN (1958), including a map of Scandinavia with the sea in green and land in white
November 26, 2025 at 10:58 AM
cjdrury.bsky.social
A wintery Durham from the train ❄️
Durham Cathedral with snowy roofs in front of it
November 19, 2025 at 10:55 AM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Some of the installations at Lumiere in Durham. A botanical feel this year - rhizomes, flowers and harvests 🍄
A network of interconnecting green threads lit up A field of large, colourful flower sculptures in front of the Cathedral Lots of floating paper lanterns, lit from inside, in the Cathedral cloisters A projection of trees against a row of houses
November 13, 2025 at 10:55 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Rowers on the Wear this morning
Two rowing boats going down a river lined with autumnal trees under grey cloud
October 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Autumn in Teesdale 🍂
High Force, a large waterfall, with trees in autumn colours either side of the river
October 25, 2025 at 3:41 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Some autumn woodland colours 🍂
A view through some trees with green, yellow and orange leaves on them
October 12, 2025 at 2:01 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Nice to see this in actual print as well!
The cover of TRANSNATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE REGION, 1840-1940
September 26, 2025 at 12:53 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Excited to see this chapter in print - it's about British travellers in Jotunheimen, travel infrastructure and the idea of remoteness: books.radbouduniversitypress.nl/index.php/ru...
Escaping Modernity, Accessing the Past: The Transnational Construction of the Remote in Late-Nineteenth-Century Norway Christian Drury Introduction In his retrospective account of three decades of climbing in Norway, the British mountaineer William Cecil Slingsby reflected on his ignorance of the places he visited in the 1870s. This was something that he believed, by the first decade of the twentieth century, no mountaineer reaching Norway would experience again. Slingsby wrote that his lack of knowledge “cannot easily be appreciated by the tourists of to-day who find a comfortable hut wherever one is needed, guides who can at least lead them to the foot of any mountain which they may wish to climb, and last, but not least, improved maps and most excellent guide-books.” Slingsby was commenting on a
September 10, 2025 at 9:15 AM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Peter Wessel Zapffe bouldering near Tromsø in 1927

📷: Nasjonalbiblioteket
A man in a hooded jacket and sunglasses climbing on a rocky outcrop above snowy ground
August 31, 2025 at 8:46 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Seaside mosaics in Whitley Bay Metro station 🚇
Three mosaic installations in archways, showing families playing on a beach and the coast by moonlight
August 23, 2025 at 4:27 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Summer evening in Durham ☀️
Durham Cathedral and the banks of the river in sunshine from Prebends Bridge
August 14, 2025 at 3:56 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Walkers in Jotunheimen, c. 1880

📷: Axel Lindahl/Norsk Folkemuseum
Two figures looking at a lake surrounded by mountains
August 13, 2025 at 7:10 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Climbing in Lyngen in the 1930s

📷: Zapffe/Nasjonalbiblioteket
A climber on a narrow rockface photographed from below
August 13, 2025 at 7:07 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Zapffe climbing on Stetind in 1936

📷: Nasjonalbiblioteket
A man in a hat climbing a rock face, photographed from above with a steep drop below
August 13, 2025 at 11:28 AM
cjdrury.bsky.social
One of Jørgen Grundtvig-Olsen's Jotunheimen panoramas

📷: Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen
A panorama of a mountain valley with patchy snow and a group of walkers
August 13, 2025 at 11:26 AM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Mountaineers in Lyngen in 1931

📷: Zapffe/Nasjonalbiblioteket
Two mountaineers on a snowfield with rows of mountains beyond
August 12, 2025 at 8:14 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
The Lyngen Alps, photographed by Wilse in 1909

📷: Norsk Folkemuseum
A sharp range of snowy mountains coming down to and reflected in a fjord
August 12, 2025 at 8:12 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
The British mountaineer Margaret Sophia Green with her Norwegian guides, Halvor Halvorsen and Torgeir Sulheim in Skjolden in the late 1880s

📷: Knud Knudsen/ Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen
A woman and two men in late nineteenth century mountaineering clothes, carrying ropes and alpenstocks, on a path towards a house, with mountains in the background
August 12, 2025 at 8:04 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Feel the vitalism!
A naked man with his back to the camera stood in deep snow and looking towards a mountain
August 12, 2025 at 8:00 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
A horse-drawn sled on Folgefonna - a popular form of travel for tourists in the 1880s!

📷: Knud Knudsen/Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen
A horse-drawn sled on a expanse of snow, with two men riding it
August 12, 2025 at 5:49 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
A fun group portrait at Svartisen in 1921!

📷: Wilse/Norsk Folkemuseum
A group of around 30 men and women in coats and hats stood in front of a glacier foot. They are all looking to their left, away from the camera
August 12, 2025 at 5:34 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
An unknown rock climber at an unknown location in Norway, photographed by the Orcadian photographer, Tom Kent, between 1898 and 1907
Two men roped together climbing a narrow chimney on a rock face
August 12, 2025 at 4:40 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
...and the view from the summit of Galdhøpiggen, taken by Elisabeth Beyer in 1926

📷: Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen
A vista of snowy mountains and snow fields
August 12, 2025 at 4:38 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Mountaineers on the summit of Galdhøpiggen in 1911

📷: Wilse/Norsk Folkemuseum
A group of eight walkers stood in snow, with snow falling. They are in a range of formal and informal clothes, with different types of coats and hats visible
August 12, 2025 at 4:34 PM
cjdrury.bsky.social
Else Hertzberg, one of Norway's foremost female mountaineers in the 1930s, climbing in the Lyngen Alps

📷: Zapffe/Nasjonalbiblioteket
A woman stood on a snowfield surrounded by mountains, facing away from the camera and roped to the photographer
August 12, 2025 at 4:00 PM