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

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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.

The History of the British Navy: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time.

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Volume III: p. 48, on Parry’s wintering over in 1818: The reindeer had not long departed when the sun disappeared likewise… it was during this gloomy period that the resources of Parry’s genius showed themselves, in the numerous contrivances with which he beguiled the minds of his followers, and, by providing them with incessant and varied occupation, preserved their health both of mind and body. He set up a theatre, in which plays were acted once a fortnight; those who could read being fully employed in learning their parts, while those less accomplished found work to their mind in preparing the fittings of the theatre, or in cutting up old sails and bunting into petticoats to disguise their messages, as well might be done, under the appearance of Miss in her teens, or Lydia Languish. He skillfully availed himself also of the desire for instruction, which the example of those who could become actors and actresses excited in their comrades, to establish a reading-school; and conducted it so successfully that before the end of the winter there was not a man in either ship who could not read…. And last of all, though in that desolate and solitary region little could arise that could fairly be entitled news, he established a weekly newspaper, of which Captain Sabine became the editor, with the whole body of officers for contributors; and which, though it necessarily partook more of the character of a magazine than of that of a newspaper, fully answered its intended purpose of furnishing employment for the leisure hours of both writers and readers.

The Great White Fleet. Its Voyage Around the World 1907-1909.

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A balanced account of sardonic admiration for what was intended as a show of naval strength and yet often regarded as President Roosevelt’s political publicity stunt by much of the western world. It also touted the “Yellow Peril” despite a peaceful visit to Japan.

An Arctic Boat Journey, in the Autumn of 1854

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Hayes participated in Charles Hall’s 1854 attempt to reach the North Pole, and contributed a couple of versions of his account before completing this 1860 version, closely following publication of Hayes’s The Open Polar Sea.

Ancestral Voices.

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p. 31-32, describes a visit to Lord & Lady Kennet's home in 1942: Lord Kennet was luckily in bed with bronchitis so we were alone. K [Scott’s widow] as outgiving as ever. The first glimpse of her showed how she is ageing. Her figure is noticeably spread, and not mitigated by the shapeless, sacklike garments she always wears. She is the worst-dressed woman I know; and rejoices in a sort of aggressive no-taste in clothes and house.

Opposite Poles

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A light and half-hearted defense of Hillary’s determination to get to the Pole ahead of Fuchs, despite his dissembling on his motives. The title emphasizes the conflict. McKenzie, a NZ journalist drove one of the Ferguson tractors enroute to the S.P. between depot 450 and 700.

The Life of Charles Dickens.

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p. 482, from Volume III: It is also to be noted as in the same spirit, that it was not the loud but the silent heroisms he most admired. Of Sir John Richardson, one of the few who have lived in our days entitled to the name of a hero, he [Dickens] wrote from Paris in 1856. ‘Lady Franklin sent me the whole of that Richardson memoir; and I think Richardson’s manly friendship, and love of Franklin, one of the noblest things I ever knew in my life. It makes one’s heart beat high, with a sort of sacred joy.’ (It is the feeling as strongly awakened by the earlier exploits of the same gallant man to be found at the end of Franklin’s first voyage, and never to be read without the most exalted emotion.)

Arctic Rovings; Or, The Adventures of a New Bedford Boy on Sea and Land.

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A youthful autobiographical account of the cruelty of unjust captains in exercising their power. The whaler was the Condor and the Captain a Mr. Whiteside. Records various incidents that “relieve the monotony of sea life”: a man overboard; a suicide under delirium tremens; beatings for no apparent reason by a vindictive captain; the thrill of “There she blows!”

“There She Blows:” A Narrative of a Whaling Voyage, in the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans.

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Originally published in 1849, this is Ben Ely's personal account of whaling off Madagascar aboard the bark Emigrant. This modern edition includes a biographical introduction and much additional information by Ely's great-grandson. Facsimile of original title page. ALBION, p. 202.

Alone to the South Pole.

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An unsupported sledging and ski trip from the Ronne Ice Shelf near the Ellsworth Mountains to the South Pole, ca. 1300 km, with use of GPS and maps. He provides one of the best synopses of expedition reading, at a time when books and reading are being replaced in Antarctica by videos, albeit with a small group of titles.

Whaling Industry of New London

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p. 71, 76-77, re the involvement of James Buddington in the George Henry and Resolute recovery.

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

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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).

Eskimo Realities.

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A beautiful evocation of the Inuit culture, its orality, its spiritual essence, and its pictorial sensitivity.

Eskimo Life.

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This work is best seen as Nansen’s defense of the Greenlanders against the onslaughts of “civilization.”