From Pole to Pole: The Life of Quintin Riley, 1905-1980.

Riley, Jonathan P. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1989.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Quinton Riley was the Quarter Master of the British Graham Land Expedition, and this biography includes one full chapter on his participation in the BGLE (p. 55-95). He is described as a good-natured but argumentative colleague, of firm religious convictions, and a valuable member of the expedition staff.

Cold Comfort: My Love Affair with the Arctic.

Rowley, Graham W. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1996.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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This is a rather dry account of a mid-1930s expedition to map the coastline of Baffin Island and the Foxe Basin and also some archaeological work on Thule and Dorset cultures. There are scattered reading references:

The Private Life of Polar Exploration.

Scott, James Maurice. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1982.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 65, re Scott’s Northern Party: Levick used to read aloud in the evening, first a chapter a night of David Copperfield, then the Life of Stevenson, then Simon the Jester [William Locke novel]. That was their library, and thus rationed lasted them about half way through the winter…. On Sunday nights they sang with a religious bias.

Tom Cringle’s Log.

Scott, Michael. Two Volumes. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1833.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Early maritime fiction, sometimes compared to Marryat’s work. There is a good deal of material, not very respectful, about black sailors. Not much reading amidst the swashbuckling, except for burials. An example:

In the Heart of the Arctics.

Senn, Nicholas. Chicago, W. B. Conkey, 1907.
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This rather charming account of a voyage with Peary to Greenland in 1905 aboard Erik. Senn was a Professor of Surgery at the University of Chicago, and a veteran medic of the Spanish-American War.

Books Afloat & Ashore: A History of Books, Libraries, and Reading Among Seamen During the Age of Sail.

Skallerup, Harry Robert. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1974.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 4: In 1631, when Captain Thomas James fitted out his vessel in Bristol for a voyage in search of the Northwest Passage, he purchased ‘A Chest full of the best and choicest Mathematicall bookes that could be got for money in England; as likewise Master Hackluite and Master Purchase, and other books of Journals and Histories. [See C. Miller, ed. Voyages of Captain Luke Fox of Hull, Hakluyt Soc. London 1894, p. 265-67, 606 p.]

Arctic Explorations and Discoveries during the Nineteenth Century. Being Detailed Accounts of the Several Expeditions to the North Seas, both English and American, Conducted by Ross, Parry, Back, Franklin, M’Clure, Dr. Kane, and Others. Including the First Grinnell Expedition….in Search of Sir John Franklin.

Smucker, Samuel Mosheim. New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Co., 1858.
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Although boredom is something that we have all suffered from at some point in our lives, and has become one of the central preoccupations of our age, very few of us can explain precisely what it is. In this book Lars Svendsen examines the nature of boredom, how it originated, its history, how and why it afflicts us, and why we cannot seem to overcome it by any act of will. A diverse and vague phenomenon, described as anything from 'tame longing without any particular object' (Schopenhauer), 'a bestial and indefinable affliction' (Dostoevsky), to 'time's invasion of your world system' (Joseph Brodsky), boredom allows many interpretations. In exploring these, Lars Svendsen brings together observations from philosophy, literature, psychology, theology and popular culture, examining boredom's pre-Romantic manifestations in medieval torpor, philosophies of the subject from Pascal to Nietzsche, and modern related concepts of alienation and transgression, taking in texts by Samuel Beckett, J. G. Ballard, Andy Warhol and many others. He also puts forward an ethics for boredom, discussing what stance one can adopt towards boredom as well as how one ought not to do so. This book arose from the author's attempt to relax and do nothing. Finding this impossible, he thought it better to do something, so he wrote A Philosophy of Boredom. A witty and entertaining account that considers a serious issue, it will appeal to anyone who has ever felt bored, and wanted to know why.

An Account of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage by Hudson’s Streights, to the Western and Southern Ocean of America. Performed in the Year 1746 and 1747, in the Ship California, Capt. Francis Smith , Commander. By the Clerk of the California.

Swaine, Theodore. Two volumes. London: Jolliffe, Corbett, and Clarke, 1748.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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The little found in these volumes concerning reading and writing has to do with the documents of the expedition itself, as well as the account of earlier voyages.

Within the Circle: Portrait of the Arctic.

Stefansson, Evelyn. New York: Scribner’s, 1945.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 32: Since 1913 a journal printed in the Eskimo language has published twelve monthly issues each year in Godhavn. Avangnamioq, the Northlander, it is called. It is distributed throughout North Greenland as soon as it is off the press. It is sent in yearly volumes to the rest of the country from its printing plant, which is now housed in the town hall, the House of Assembly.

The Arctic in the Middle Ages,

Vaughan, Richard. Journal of Medieval History8 (1982) 313-42.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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An overview of knowledge of the Arctic in the middle ages. Claims that any one of the writers displays woeful ignorance, but collectively they provide a good picture of the medieval Arctic, from cold to frostbite, from skies to polar bears, to unicorn horns. The writers he cites are Saxo Grammaticus who is in “the very first rank of medieval writers about the north” and who wrote about geysers and volcanoes in Iceland, and Finnish use of skies. See his History of the Danes, 2 volumes, 1978-9.

Man and the Conquest of the Poles.

Victor, Paul-Émile. Translation by Scott Sullivan. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963.
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p. 75: Barents did all he could to keep up the morale of his flock. By the flickering bear-oil lamp he read them Mendoza’s History and Description of the Great Chinese Empire. Seated in a circle around the smoking fire, their backs frozen, the men listened to their chief, the ‘scholar’ who would one day get them out of the spot they were in. [1596]

The Hedstroms and the Bethel Ship Saga: Methodist Influence on Swedish Religious Life.

Whyman, Henry C. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1992.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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The Bethel ships were intended as floating chapels for seamen and also immigrants. They were evangelical, teetotal, sabbatarian, and predominantly Swedish Lutheran turned Methodists. The period was 1840s to 1860s at least, and followed a Swedish movement called theläsare, a reading fellowship of like-minded Christians. Both of the NY ships were named John Wesley, and the movement here was led by Olof Hedstrom. There is little here about the use of Bethel ships elsewhere, even at sea, but it is an interesting introduction to the phenomenon.