An account by the wife of Wally Herbert of a year living in northern Greenland and a year-old child and the Inuit.
The Snow People.
- Greenland.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Americans in Antarctica, 1715-1948
- Antarctic Reading: General
A thorough account of American operations in Antarctica, from the Falklands in the 1770s to the 1947-48 US Navy “Operation Windmill.” See individual chapters for each expedition covered.
Cold Burial: A True Story of Endurance and Disaster.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
An account of a disastrous winter in the Barrens of the Northwest, of three patrician adventurers, led by a rather irresponsible John Hornby. All three died of starvation in 1927.
Safe Return Doubtful: The Heroic Age of Polar Exploration.
- Arctic Reading: General
p. 1: On the night of January 30, 1916, a frail, white-haired gentleman retired to the bedroom of his house in London’s Eccleston Square. Once undressed, he swung expertly into a hammock and, as he had done for more than seven decades, read himself to sleep in traditional Royal Navy fashion: One hand held his book, the other a candle, exactly as he had learned as a midshipman in 1844.
Race for the South Pole: Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen.
- Heroic Age 1901-1921.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Uses a clever device of presenting chronologically the diary entries by Amundsen and Scott, together with the shorter diary entries from Amundsen’s colleague, Olav Bjaaland, from September 1, 1911, to March 5, 1912, when Amundsen and the Fram reached Tasmania. The substantial introduction and epilogue by Huntford are informative but characteristically mean-spirited and vituperative in his loathing for Scott, and by implication the British people for making him into a false hero. I found nothing related to any reading by the three diarists.
The Wonders of the Arctic World: A History of All the Researches and Discoveries in the Frozen North, from the Earliest Times. Together with a Complete and Reliable History of The Polaris Expedition. By William H. Cunnington.
- 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
- Arctic Reading: United States
This large volume neatly combines two works, the first a general history of arctic exploration up to the Hall expedition (Sargent) with an early hagiography of Hall, or in Parry’s words, a “massive whitewash” .
Fort Monmouth Communications Museum
- 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
- Arctic Reading: United States
An extensive collection of Greely material, much of it given to Fort Monmouth by Mrs. Stafford in March 1964, shortly before her and her brother’s gifts to the Explorers Club. This included chinaware from Fort Conger (brown floral design) and from the Proteus (2 eggcups), botanical specimens, other artifacts, and a good number of manuscripts and printed material. These were materials retrieved by Peary in 1899 and included letters, condensed meteorological and other observations, etc. The Collection was moved to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, in 2008.
Reminiscences of a Voyage Around the World.
- 1849-51 American Circumnavigation (aboard Hampton).
- Maritime Reading
Written by an Assistant Librarian of the University of Michigan and son of the captain, who says he wrote it to increase an “insufficient salary.” First published in a weekly newspaper, readers he claims called for book publication. The author was early on a cabin boy, a job from which he was “ignominiously dismissed” for his greater interest in the world, than the world around him.
In Nation Named for Ice, Poets Are Just Getting Warmed Up.
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
On Iceland (pop. 330,000) as a nation of devoted if sometimes amateur poets: Icelanders are unusually prolific readers and writers, and books of verse tend to sell very well in Iceland. Poetry was the third-largest category of books published in the country in 2014, after fiction and the arts….
Miscellaneous Materials.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
While most of these texts record observations and actions, on three occasions Bartlett mentions his reading, an activity that explorers on other expeditions often used to stave off boredom. Lists of books read can indicate something about the mental life and preoccupations of figures who otherwise restrict their accounts to facts and action. A significant choice for Bartlett on this expedition was Bernacci’s book on the Antarctic xxxx, read on and about July 15 [1909], when Bartlett still believed that Peary’s Antarctic expedition would happen. On that day Bartlett records, “Commander was asking me about the new Antarctic ship, how I would wish her built. I told him how if it comes off, I will have some of my ideas put into practice.” Bartlett refers on June 11 to Robert Falcon Scott’s observation about grounded seals, but does not indicate whether this knowledge was from a recent reading experience (June 11) or from general knowledge. He also reported reading a novel by Elizabeth Robins, Come and Find Me, lent to him by Peary, that he did not enjoy (June 13th). “It’s a story something in the style of Man’s woman [by Frank Norris]. It’s rather a long spun out yarn. I did not care much about it.” This evaluation, coming from Bartlett, is somewhat surprising since Bartlett’s own natural style, seen in his later books as characterized by others, was exceedingly “spun out,” bordering on the garrulous.
The Retrospect; Or, Review of Providential Mercies
- Whalemen's Reading
I know almost nothing about this book, its author, his ship, his pseudonym, or the attribution to him. My guess is he was a British Naval officer, possibly even a chaplain of firm pious and dogmatic conventions. He did resign from the Navy to take orders, presumably in the Anglican Church. This work is part of the genre of hortatory narratives of damnation, salvation, and the workings of providence. Although they grow tedious in time, although possibly inspirational to some, I’ve given a couple of longer narratives here to give the full flavor of the genre. I leave further research to others.
Antarctic Navigation. A novel.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
A novel about Scott’s last expedition, and a modern day female attempt to recreate that expedition
In Search of the Magnetic North: a Soldier-Surveyor’s Letters from the North-West 1843-1844.
- Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
Overland scientific expedition in mid 1840s written by a staunch Anglican gentleman, concerned about the spiritual welfare of natives but fairly bigoted about it.
History of the American Whale Fishery from Its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876.
- Whalemen's Reading
One of the classics of early whaling literature, though with little material about whaling life at sea or ways to occupy time.
Labrador, The Country and the People.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
p. 175: The best educated people in the country at present are the Eskimo. Almost without exception they can read and write. Many can play musical instruments, share in part singing, and are well able to keep accounts, and know the value of thins. These accomplishments, entirely and solely due to the Moravian missionaries, have largely helped them to hold their own in trade, a faculty for want of which almost every aboriginal race is apt to suffer so severely.