Ninth Circle: a Memoir of Life and Death in Antarctica, 1960-1962.

Behrendt, John C. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.
  • 1958-62 Operation Deep Freeze.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Much more prosaic than his earlier book on Ellsworth Station, and much less evidence of reading than in that book. Most of what follows is from his diaries of the time and not his connective commentary:

On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds,

Whitney, Caspar W. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine XCII (1896) in Five Parts with separate paginations for each.
  • 1894-95 US Overland Journey of Casper Whitney in the Barren Lands.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 360, on the Chipewyans on Athabaska Lake: It is headquarters of one of the four districts into which this vast fur-bearing land of one million square miles is divided by the Hudson Bay Company; the chief forwarding point for the merchandise which the company sends in for trade, and the fur the Indians send out as pay; a general distributing post-office of the four yearly mails which reach this land, where man is but a mere track upon the snow, and not above one hundred of the roughly approximated ten thousand read English writing. It is the most important North-land mission of the Roman Catholic Oblates Fathers, and it is practically the northern boundary of the Cree and the southern boundary of the Montagnaise Indian family, which in its various branches spreads toward the Arctic Ocean.

Explorers Club Archives II

  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, EC2007-07 [Not all of these files have been carefully reviewed and some await further inspection.]

The Last Voyage of Capt. Sir John Ross, R. N. Knt. To the Arctic Regions; For the Discovery of a North West Passage; Performed in the Years 1829-30-31-32 and 33.

Huish, Robert. To which is Prefixed an Abridgement of the Former Voyages… Transmitted by an Officer Attached to the Last Expedition. London: John Saunders, 1835.
  • 1829-33 British Private Second Voyage to the Northwest Passage (John Ross aboard Victory).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Includes accounts of earlier British voyages to the high Arctic. Huish is wonderfully sardonic in viewing the whole operation from Captain Ross on down.

Etah and Beyond: Or, Life Within Twelve Degrees of the Pole.

MacMillan, Donald Baxter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927.
  • 1926-27 US Northern Greenland Expedition (commanded by Donald MacMillan aboard Bowdoin).
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

A 1926-27 Greenland expedition aboard the Bowdoin, with the purpose of setting up new magnetic stations and resettling old ones.

And the Whale is Ours: Creative Writing of American Whalemen.

Miller, Pamela A. Boston: David R. Godine: Kendall Whaling Museum 1979.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

A book of extensive excerpts of whalemen’s own escape literature, their own personal journals, often sentimental claptrap about home, love, and death, but best when devoted to their trade of whaling which they tended to depict accurately and realistically.

[personal journal on the Henry B Hyde]

Russell, William Bennett. Collection of Maine Maritime Museum (Bath).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

The personal journal of William Bennett Russell during his travels on the Henry B Hyde in 1894 includes an account of his discovery of an American Seamen’s Friend Society loan library aboard the ship:

Journal of the lst 2 months Dec 1910, Jan 1911 of the Terra Nova expedition

Taylor, Griffith. some of which was published in the Melbourne Argus.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

[Griffith] Taylor Collection. “Journal of the lst 2 months Dec 1910, Jan 1911 of the Terra Nova expedition, some of which was published in the Melbourne Argus, and in fact he was composing this journal with that publication in mind (see p. 34).

The Adelie Blizzard: Mawson’s Forgotten Newspaper 1913.

Preface by Emma McEwin. Introduction by Elizabeth Leane and Mark Pharoah. Adelaide: Friends of the State Library of South Australia…, 2010.
  • 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An elegant facsimile of the newspaper of Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1913, taken from the only extant copy. The AAE had a well-stocked library, and though much of the content of the Blizzard was poetic doggerel, there was both serious and satiric discussion of books and also a series in each issue on Polar exploration, based on some of the library’s books.

A Naturalist at the Poles: The Life, Work & Voyages of Dr. W. S. Bruce the Polar Explorer.

Brown, R. H. Rudmose. London: Seeley, Service, 1923. [Five early chapters by W. G. Burn Murdoch].
  • Heroic Age 1901-1921.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Rudmose Brown, as he is often called, participated in only one Antarctic expedition, the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition organized by William Spires Bruce. But his influence in polar studies was extensive through his academic career, his high status in the geographical community, and his exceptional writing ability of which this book is a prime example.

A Voyage of Discovery, Made under the Orders of the Admiralty, in His Majesty’s Ships Isabella and Alexander, for the Purpose of Exploring Baffin’s Bay, and Inquiring into the Probability of a North-West Passage.

Ross, Sir John. Second edition. Two volumes.(London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819).
  • 1818 First British Northwest Passage Expedition (John Ross aboard Isabella with the Alexander).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

The first nineteenth-century attempt to locate a Northwest Passage was commanded by John Ross, a moderately successful expedition that ruined his reputation. John Barrow of the Admiralty was so outraged at Ross’s failure to explore fully Lancaster Sound that he did everything in his power to discredit Ross after this expedition.

The Noose of Laurels: Robert E. Peary and the Race to the North Pole.

Herbert, Wally. New York: Athenaeum, 1989.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1908-09 US North Pole Expeditions under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A genuine attempt at an objective assessment of Peary and his North Pole claim, which Herbert eventually concludes to have been off the mark, probably by 50 miles. He carefully avoids anything that might be prejudicial against Peary, but he doesn’t seem to, the same restraint re Cook (but that itself might be prejudicial on my part). In the end he does seem to vindicate Peary as national hero (see Lisa Bloom).

A Story of British Whaling in Antarctica

McLaughlin, W R D. London: White Lion Publications, 1962.
  • 1962 Pelagic Whaling Voyage to South Georgia.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

By a ship’s doctor, participant on a pelagic whaling expedition to South Georgia, etc. in 1962.

The Life of Sir John Franklin, R.N.

Traill, Henry Duff. London: John Murray, 1896.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 57-58: Traill cites Beechey’s Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole of the Dorothea and Trent in which Franklin sailed: It is a most spirited narrative of a voyage the interest of which as a series of maritime adventures considerable exceeded its scientific results…. But considered as a record of manifold dangers and difficulties encountered with unflinching courage and overcome by brilliant seamanship, the story of their voyage must always hold a high place in the history of Arctic adventure.