Icy Graves: Exploration and Death in the Antarctic

Haddelsey, Stephen. . Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2018.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Haddelsey here explores the primary causes of fatal accidents and mistakes causing death in Antarctica: fire, sea ice, mechanical transport, mental illness, aviation, and hypothermia. It is not surprising that a book dealing mostly with sudden catastrophes does not pause to reflect on what reading matter the destined figures had with them. The author tells quite familiar stories extremely well, and ends with a short chapter on risks and risk-taking in Antarctica, a British shortcoming in their vaunted amateurism.

Voyages of a Modern Viking.

Hanssen, Helmer. London: George Routledge, 1936.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

For someone who participated in Amundsen’s three major expeditions, went to the South Pole with him in 1910, and was captain of Maud on the later Northeast Passage expedition, Hanssen sounds generally as boring as extreme weather reports, at least in this version. There is no indication of a translator, nor any indication that Hanssen and Amundsen may have had a falling out on the 1918-1920 Northeast Passage trip. So the Fram Museum suggests on its website, citing the journals of other participants as claiming Amundsen fired Hanssen because the designation of Hanssen as captain went to his head. If so, even that excitement is concealed in this book.

An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and Successively Performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: Drawn up from the Journals which were Kept by the Several Commanders, and from the Papers of Joseph Banks, esq.; by John Hawkesworth … Illustrated with Cuts, and a Great Variety of Charts and Maps.

Hawkesworth, John. Three volumes.London: Strahan & Cadell, 1773.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Hawkesworth’s introduction (p. xix) has a brief but controversial discussion of Providence and natural events. p. xx: “it will always be found that Providence interposes too late, and only moderates the mischief which it might have prevented.” In final passage he says he honors God but doubts his intervention in natural events.

Toughing it Out: The Adventure of a Polar Explorer and Mountaineer.

Hempleman-Adams, David. London: Orion, 1992.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
    Arctic Reading: General
    Maritime Reading
    Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Includes solo trip to South Pole, yacht trip to South Magnetic Pole, and various North Pole attempts. Mills calls him a “pole-grabber” and his great disappointment is failure to achieve the North Pole.

A World of Men: Exploration in Antarctica.

Herbert, Wally. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Herbert was in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year and other times, starting in Dec. 1955 with the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey (FIDS). This is an account of his romance with the ice, which seems to have been a strictly masculine affair as the title implies.

Ice Ship: The Epic Voyages of the Polar Adventurer Fram.

Johnson, Charles W. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2014.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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This is a workmanlike biography of a ship, Fridthof Nansen's Fram, and its major voyages: Nansen's attempt to drift to the North Pole in 1893-96; Otto Sverdrup's journey to Ellesmere Land and Alex Heiberg Island, 1898-1902; and Amundsen's Expedition to the South Pole in 1911-12. It is a good retelling of the major adventures of these three motivated if depressing explorers, though there is little new here and some mistakes and questionable emphases. Although the ship is well-known for its well-stocked library, and that is recognized here, there is little about what was in the library, only some general comments about books in certain fields such as botany and other sciences, and a reading from Corinthians for a burial at sea.

Ancestral Voices.

Lees-Milne, James. London, New York, 1975.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 31-32 describes a visit to Lord & Lady Kennet's home in 1942: Lord Kennet was luckily in bed with bronchitis so we were alone. K as outgiving as ever. The first glimpse of her showed how she is ageing. Her figure is noticeably spread, and not mitigated by the shapeless, sacklike garments she always wears. She is the worst-dressed woman I know; and rejoices in a sort of aggressive no-taste in clothes and house.

Review of J. M. Barrie’s Half-Hours,London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914, and The Voyages of Captain Scott, by Charles Turley, London: Smith Elder, 1914.

London Evening Standard, Nov. 12, 1914.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Anonymous review of an early piece of Scott hagiography: The other book is a memorial of one of the most gallant Englishmen who ever went forth on a high adventure and snatched lasting victory out of failure and death…. Mr. Turley has retold, in Captain Scott’s own words as far as possible, the two great stories, putting them into so convenient a form that no boy or man can be repelled by the presence of detail, scientific or otherwise, inessential to the greatness of the tale.

The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Mill, Hugh Robert. Boston: Little, Brown, 1923.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

A well-written and fairly balanced hagiography by a friend of both Shackleton and his widow. There are few passages on Shackleton’s early reading including the first Scott expedition aboard Discovery.

Frank Wild

Mills, Leif. . Whitby, Yorkshire: Caedmon, 1999.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Frank Wild served widely in Antarctica on various expeditions including the first Scott voyage of Discovery, with Mawson’s 1912-13 expedition, Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic attempt with Endurance, and finally taking over Shackleton’s Quest expedition when Shackleton died. His finest achievement was leading the 22 unhappy explorers marooned on Elephant Island in 1916, for the 105 days while Shackleton was struggling to South Georgia. Mills’ book is a sound if somewhat solemn biography of a remarkable leader.

Adventurous Life.

Mountevans, Edward Racdcliffe, Admiral Lord. London: Hutchison, 1946.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Mountevans was involved in relief expeditions for both of the Scott journeys. He writes with good humor and amusing anecdotes. He tells one involving a salvage expert, Commodore Sir Frederick Young, about the Magellan Straits and a salvage ship on which the Commodore happened to see a notice from the Independent Press Association offering a £500 reward for anyone who could “discover and forward to them the Bible of the explorer Louis de Rougemont which was lost in the steamer, Ananias, wrecked in Magellan Straits. The Bible can well be identified, since the explorer’s name is written on the fly-leaf in his own blood.” The Commodore and fellow sailors decided to create one, found a Bible, soaked it in sea water, found de Rougemont’s signature in a signed article in Wide World Magazine, and used the Commodore’s blood (he was chosen by lot) to forge Rougemont’s signature on the fly-leaf. They then sent the Bible off to the Press Association and claimed the reward. After two months they received this reply: …I am also directed to state that although the sea has worked many marvels, the Directors of the Independent Press Association cannot believe that it has succeeded in translating completely a French Bible into English!” (p. 134-36)

Survival in Antarctica.

National Science Foundation. 1974 Edition. Washington, DC: NSF Office of Polar Programs, 1974.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

On the purpose of this manual: Today people go from the United States to Antarctica in hours. Warm buildings and home comforts shield them from months-long darkness, high winds, and temperatures sometimes below -75°C. (-100°F.). At stations like McMurdo, life seems so normal that it is easy to forget Antarctica's dangers. Tragedy and disaster can strike unexpectedly. It has happened, and it will happen again. This manual will help you prepare for the possibility, when all seems to be going well, of suddenly being in a survival situation.

Edge of the World: Ross Island Antarctica: A Personal and Historical Narrative.

Neider, Charles. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1974.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Neider tells much of the history of Antarctic exploration by focusing on the geographic area of Ross Island and the Ross Sea. The book has a good series of maps which helped me understand what I have often found a confusing place. The book itself is highly derivative, including long passages quoted from some very familiar works of the explorers, from Ross onwards, including Scott and Shackleton, but it also recounts the author’s own experiences and near disasters on his Deep Freeze expeditions to McMurdo and travels elsewhere in Antarctica.

To the Ends of the Earth.

Pease, Francis K. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1935.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Begins with 1925 cruise to Antarctica aboard Discovery, Scott’s old ship, commanded by Stenhouse. First brought gifts to Tristan da Cunha, including many writing implements, essentially useless to that population, and “a large quantity of Bibles, in which, however, the Tristans displayed very little interest, for the reason…that during the course of the years so many Bibles had been sent to the island that there was now an average of seven copies per inhabitant” (p. 20).