Under the Pole Star: The Oxford University Expedition, 1935-6.

Glen, Alexander Richard. London: Methuen, 1937.
  • 1935-36 Oxford University North East Land Spitzbergen Expedition (led by Alexander Glen).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

A British expedition to North East Land of Spitsbergen, with a mixture of English and Norwegian crew, scientists and sailors. Glen was the expedition leader and wrote this account with a debonair and detached style. The assignment was to survey the north east region of the archipelago. Obviously this was a bookish group who did a good deal of reading but seldom reporting on what they were reading. The author himself seems prone to boredom and speaks of it fairly often.

Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands during the Years 1823, 1824, 1825….

Stewart, Charles S. With an Introduction … by William Ellis. London: Fisher and Jackson, 1828.
  • 1823-25 American Voyage to Sandwich Islands (aboard HMS Blonde).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

The author is a somewhat sanctimonious American missionary who nonetheless enjoyed a conversation with Lord Byron, a naval officer and cousin of the poet whose morals he detested. There is a good deal of material towards the end of the book on providing religious literature, writing tablets, hymn-books, etc. for Sandwich Island natives in their native language—literacy training for the reading of the Bible.

Pacific and Indian Oceans; or the South Sea Surveying and Exploring Expedition.

Reynolds, Jeremiah N. New York: Harper, 1841.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This volume includes a couple of Reynold’s works commenting on the preparation for the ExEx, from which he was eventually excluded. The volume includes reprints of two works previously published by the author: Address on the subject of a surveying and exploring expedition to the Pacific Ocean and South seas -- New York, 1836, and, Exploring expedition. Correspondance between J. N. Reynolds and the Hon. Mahlon Dickerson, under the respective signatures of "Citizen" and "Friend to the navy", touching the South sea surveying and exploring expedition -- [New York, 1838?] He never went to the Antarctic but his comments in preparation have peculiar interest.

[Journal]

Roggeveen, Jacob. [needs citation].
  • 1721-22 Dutch South Seas Expedition to Australia (Jacob Roggeveen).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

This voyage was intended to confirm earlier knowledge of the Falklands in its path to Australia. It was too hurried to stop at the Falklands but it did find Easter Island before it reached New Ireland (Papua New Guinea) where Roggeveen’s journal ends, 18 July 1722.

Knight, Errol Lorne. Typescript diary of Wrangel expedition in which Knight died (Dartmouth STEF Mss 90, folder I. 3-Original diary is in folder 1.
  • 1921-23 Canadian Wrangel Island Expedition (Organized by Vilhjalmur Stefansson).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

This is the diary apparently doctored by Harold Noice with long sections missing and some lines erased, some having to do with Ada Blackjack (cf. p. 15, Jan 14): I am sure she is the most stubborn creature I have ever known. [That comment follows 3 erased lines.]

Cruising Voyage Round the World.

Rogers, Woodes, Captain. (New York: Dover Publications, 1970). [First published London 1712].
  • 1708-11 Woodes Rogers aboard the Duke and Dutchess.
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Woodes Rogers’ journal is most notable for its account of finding Alexander Selkirk after his four years spent as a desert-island castaway on the Juan Fernandez Islands west of Chile.

On Floating Ice: Two Years on Antarctic Ice-Shelf South of 75°S.

MacDowall, Joseph. Edinburgh: Pentland Press, 1999.
  • 1955-59 Royal Society IGY Antarctic Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

For one year MacDowall was the leader of this expedition and base at Halley Bay in the Weddell Sea, one of Britain’s contributions to IGY. It is quite a prosaic account, with little drama, but notable for its citations to the base newspaper, the Halley Comet.

Arctic Exploration.

Hoare, J. Douglas. . London: Methuen & Co., 1906.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 89: Very little that is worthy of note occurred during the first winter. The monotony of the excessively dull season was, however, relieved by the appearance of a party of Eskimos, who proved to be thoroughly friendly, except on one occasion when they nearly assassinated half the party because they imagined that they had caused the death of one of the members of their tribe by witchcraft.

The Three Voyages of Edmond Halley in the Paramore 1698-1701.

Halley, Edmond. Edited by Norman J. W. Thrower. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1981. [Vol. II is a Portfolio of Maps].
  • 1699-1701 English Naval Expedition (Edmond Halley aboard Paramore).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

[Note]: Halley retained the confidence of the Admiralty, and his second cruise from September 1699 to September 1700 was successful. He went south as far as 52° into the ice field north of the site of the modern Halley Bay Geophysical Observatory and was in considerable danger, as he was later from a storm off the coast of Africa. (ODNB)

Memo

Osborne, Henry Fairfield. From AMNH Central Archive 488, Febr. 10, 1913.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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AMNH President, Henry Fairfield Osborne: I am inexpressibly shocked and grieved to learn of the disaster that has overtaken the members of the Scott Expedition to the South Pole. The blow is as unexpected as it is crushing. Captain Amundsen confidently expected that the Scott party would reach the tent, records and welcome which he left at Solheim. Only recently in conversation, both Captain Amundsen and Sir Ernest Shackleton have expressed to me their expectation of soon hearing favorably from this fourth attempt to conquer the South Pole. Neither expressed the least doubt as to the result. It is a fresh demonstration of the great hazards attending extreme Arctic exploration. …

The Arctic Whaleman, Or Winter in the Arctic Ocean: Being a Narrative of the Wreck of the Whale Ship Citizen, of New London.

Holmes, Lewis. Boston: Wentworth, 1857.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

An account of whaling in the Bering and Chukchi Seas; the wreck of the 'Citizen' in Sept. 1852; and customs and behavior of the natives of the Chukotsk Peninsula, as experienced by the ship's survivors during a nine-month sojourn there. Part Two gives history (in general) and details of whaling, the various whales and outfitting.