Keep the Mind Alive: Literary Leanings in the Fur Trade.

Cole, Jean Murray. Journal of Canadian Studies16 no. 2 (1981) p. 87-93.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Fur traders in the 1830s showed strong need for newspaper and periodical literature, which the Company refused to ship inland with other supplies because of their weight. Though starved for news, books would sometimes help. Scotsmen favored Ossian, Burns, and Scott, but there was also demand for classic English literature, Shakespeare and Dickens.

An African in Greenland.

Kpomassie, Tete-Michel. New York, New York Review Books, 2001.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 272, on staying in the earthen hut of Robert Mattaaz in Upernavik in the 1950s: Generally, the interiors of turf dwellings were covered with rough wooden paneling to strengthen the earth walls and ceilings…. But old Mattaaq had had an original idea: the four wooden walls of his house were lined all over with pages cut out from picture magazines—so many that you couldn’t see a scrap of wood behind them! A careless observer might have thought that these pages had been stuck on just anyhow, but far from it. In his own way, old Robert was a ‘bookworm’ whose favorite reading matter was restricted entirely to periodicals. Every week for many years now he had been getting hold of magazines dealing with ‘world affairs.’ And even now when he avoided going out as much as possible because of the curiosity his appearance aroused in the village—his wife, his daughter, his youngest son Niels, aged fifteen, and his two other married sons who also lived in Upernavik, continued to buy them for him. But therein lay the rub: these magazines, reviews and newspapers began to make such a clutter on the floor that one day old Rebekka suggested throwing them out the window. Alarmed, the old man began by sorting out this junkheap and pinning on the wall the articles he wanted to reread. And so—casually, almost unintentionally—a first layer of printed pages spread over the four walls, followed in time by a second layer, a third, and even a fourth layer. The ceiling, too high for Robert Mattaaq to reach—and where two sagging planks threatened to collapse at any time—was the only area unpapered. The first pages dated from five years back and, as new pages had kept being added to the old ones, my host had great difficulty locating old articles or documents he needed [Pictures of Maataaq and his room, which he calls his ‘library’ are on the penultimate plate in the center of the book.]

A Series of Fourteen Sketches Made during the Voyage up Wellington Channel in Search of Sir John Franklin and the Missing Crews of H.M. Discovery-Ships Erebus and Terror, Together with a Short Account of Each Drawing. By Commander Walter W. May, R. N. Late Lieutenant of H.M. Discovery ship Assistance (Captain Sir Edward Belcher, C.B.)

May, Walter W. London, Published May 1855 by Day & Son, Lithographers to the Queen, 6-7-8-9 Gate Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Fourteen remarkable lithographs, preceded by succinct descriptions of each, from Disco, to Beechy Island, to Wellington Channel, including sketches of sledge parties on the ice. May himself was a Lieutenant on the Assistance before it was abandoned. Last plate show relics of Franklin that Dr. Rae had found. Final part of description lists officers on all five of Belcher’s ships: Assistance, Resolute, Pioneer, North Star, and Intrepid.

Ice.

Jones, Tristan. Kansas City, KS: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1978.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Narrative of the author's attempt to sail singlehandedly as close as possible to the North Pole.

On Greenland’s Closed Shore.

Hutchison, Isobel Wylie. Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood, 1930.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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On this trip Hutchison took a fair number of books with her and she generously shared them with her hosts.

Arctic Experiences: Containing Capt. George E. Tyson’s Wonderful Drift on the Ice-floe, A History of the Polaris Expedition, the Cruise of the Tigress, and Rescue of the Polar Survivors. To which is Added a General Arctic Chronology.

Tyson, George Emory. Edited by Euphemia Vale Blake. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A fascinating account of an extraordinary drift on an ice-floe, preceded by “A General Arctic Chronology” by the Editor, E. Vale Blake, (p. 19-74).

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).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A 1926-27 Greenland expedition aboard the Bowdoin, with the purpose of setting up new magnetic stations and resettling old ones.

In Search of a Polar Continent 1905-1907

Harrison, Alfred H. London: Edward Arnold, 1908.
  • 1905-07 Canadian Overland Journey of Alfred H. Harrison.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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The objects of this expedition were to penetrate as far as possible into that unknown region which lies to the north, and to meet and to get to know the natives, of whom I have always fostered an idea of making use in ice expeditions. Besides the natives, the whale-fishers who navigate those waters might, I trusted, be able to render me assistance. Furthermore, I wished to discover, if possible, whether there was land hitherto unknown in the Arctic Ocean: in ascertaining this, I would make Herschel Island my base of operations (p. viii).

She Went a-whaling: the Journal of Martha Smith Brewer Brown.

Brown, Martha Smith Brewer. (Orient, NY: Oysterponds Historical Society, 1993).
  • 1847-48 Whaling Voyage to South Pacific (aboard Lucy Ann).
  • Maritime Reading
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An example of a whaling captain’s wife going to sea with him. Whaling wives were usually known for their New England piety amidst the rough-hewn crews of 19th-century whaling ships. This is the diary of one of them, Martha Brown, who sailed from Orient NY aboard the Lucy Ann on August 31, 1847, on an eastward voyage round the world that eventually passed Cape Horn:

The Hargrave Correspondence 1821-1843.

Hargrave, James. Edited by G. P. de T. Glazebrook. Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1938. [Reprinted Greenwood 1968.].
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 44-5, Cuthbert Cumming to James Hargrave, 2 March 1830: The Manner of doing a thing well is of the utmost consequence, & it would appear that in presenting the Books to the old Gentleman [John Stuart], you were aware of this, & did it well in his last letter to me he dwells with pleasure, & dilates with much apparent satisfaction on this triffling affair— I rejoice to think that I have been in the least instrumental in giving the old Gentleman one moments satisfaction & I am sure so are you.—In my mind there was not a doubt as to your choice. I was fully aware that the Life of Napoleon by our renowned Countryman, would never by you be willingly transferred to any others & yet I assure you that Southey’s Peninsular War is highly extolled by all parties—apropos you have seen Lockharts life of Burns it is said to be the best that ever appeared—I have every reason to expect it out this Summer— Your Indians Select’d Library I have every reason to approve of, yet I cannot conceive it all together Complete, without the addition of the Life of the Bard of Coila above mentioned— I expect this Summer the life of J. Knoxthe stern the austere the undaunted Champion of the Kirk— I am inclined to think, that much information & instruction is to be found in it, and no doubt, will through [throw?] much light on the obscurity of our Kirk History in those eventfull times, & help to clear many doubtfull & disputed points of Scottish History in days of yore—the only books I had from England this year was several volms of that masterly performance Blackie’s magazine and a few reviews. (by the by I sent you 2 or three pr Mr. Jos, pr’y have you received them, I wish’d to send you Blackie’s, but this is impossible as anything of bulk is rejected san[s] ceremony by the light Canoe.—I am by no means surprised however disappointed I may be—that my books should be detained at Swan River every thing considered I expected no better— I hope you will recover some of them this Summer— I cannot for the Soul of me imagine for what reason he is continually spouting at me of this….

The Gifts of Reading.

Macfarlane, Robert. Penguin Random House, UK, 2017.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 31-32: As I work on this essay, over the Christmas of 2015, I know that a copy of my book The Wild Places is being sledge-hauled to the South Pole by a young Scottish adventurer called Luke Robertson, who is aiming to become the youngest Briton to ski there unassisted, unsupported and solo. Robertson’s sledge weighs seventeen stone, and he is dragging it for thirty-five days over 730 miles of snow and ice, in temperatures as low as -50˚C, and winds as high as 100mph. Under such circumstances I felt impossibly proud that The Wild Places (paperback weight: 8.9oz) had earned its place on his sledge, and impossibly excited at the thought of my sentences being read out there on the crystal continent, under the endless daylight of the austral summer.

James Eights, 1798-1882: Antarctic Explorer, Albany Naturalist, His Life, His Times, His Works.

McKinley, Daniel L. Albany, NY: State Education Department, 2005. New York Museum Bulletin 505.
  • 1829-30 First Preliminary US Exploring Expedition (Annawan and Seraph with Captains Nathaniel Palmer and Benjamin Pendleton).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Eights was listed as “Naturalist and Surgeon” on the Annawan Antarctic voyage of 1829-1831 and there are fragmentary results of his work on natural history in the published record, but he is an enigmatic figure, excluded like Reynolds from the Wilkes ExEx in 1838. I see no signs of his readings in the impressive library he helped create for the preliminary expedition.

A Sequel to the North-West Passage, and the Plans for the Search for Sir John Franklin. A Review.

Brown, John. Second edition.flattered London: E. Stanford, 1860.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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This second edition of Brown updates the summary beyond the significant date of 1859 and McClintock’s report. A final section is an unpaginated “Opinions of the Press,” ending with an encomium to Brown from Alexander von Humboldt (August 16, 1858), on the last printed [but unpaginated] page of the book. An excerpt is included here as a remarkable example of a reading experience from an unusual source: