Fighting the Polar Ice.

Fiala, Anthony. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1906.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 61-62: The Christmas and the New Year holidays passed happily. We celebrated them with banquets, to which our hard working steward contributed many delicacies. A Christmas issue of the Arctic Eagle, our camp newspaper, was printed, Assistant Commissary Stewart making up the forms and running the press, and Seaman Montrose, who had once been a printer, acting as compositor. Nearly all the members of the party contributed to its columns and much amusement at its quips and personals was the result.*

A Voyage Towards the South Pole, Performed in the Years 1822-24 Containing an Examination of the Antarctic Sea (1827).

Weddell, James. A reprint with a new Introduction by Sir Vivian Fuchs. Second edition. London: David & Charles Reprints, 1970.
  • 1822-24 Weddell Whaling Expeditions.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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It’s obvious that Weddell was well-read on the history of the region he explored (cf. his translation and abstracts of earlier Spanish reports, on p. 61-9), but this isn’t evidence of books aboard—he does speak of the credibility of some books inducing him to search certain islands, implying that copies were on the ship. And the obligatory prayer-books on British ships were certainly present.

Within the Circle: Portrait of the Arctic.

Stefansson, Evelyn. New York: Scribner’s, 1945.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 32: Since 1913 a journal printed in the Eskimo language has published twelve monthly issues each year in Godhavn. Avangnamioq, the Northlander, it is called. It is distributed throughout North Greenland as soon as it is off the press. It is sent in yearly volumes to the rest of the country from its printing plant, which is now housed in the town hall, the House of Assembly.

A Report on the Resources of Iceland and Greenland.

Peirce, Benjamin Mills, compiler. Washington, DC: GPO, 1868.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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This is a report commissioned by William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, on the desirability of acquiring Iceland and Greenland for the US, just as the U.S. had acquired a few Caribbean islands and Alaska.

Congress and the North Pole; An Abstract of Arctic Legislation in the Congress of the United States.

Howgate, Henry W. Kansas City, Mo.: Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, 1879.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 22ff, discussion on April 16, 1856, by Congressmen of Kane’s Narrative, Mr Tyson recommending the purchase of “fifteen thousand copies for the use of Congress.”

Come North with Me: An Autobiography.

Balchen, Bernt. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Balchen, Bernt, 1899-1979—Norwegian/American Explorer and Pilot. From a very early age Balchen was fascinated by the allure of the Polar regions and the prospect of using aviation to explore them. From 1925 until well after World War II he was involved in many of the most dramatic and often dangerous exploits of many of the Polar explorers and he knew most of them: Amundsen, Nobile, Ellsworth, Byrd, etc. and he is widely believed to be the first person to fly over both Poles, with Amundsen in the North and Byrd in the South. He held dual citizenship of both Norway and the United States, and served in the US Army Air Force in secret operations supporting the Norwegian resistance during the World War II.

Voyages of a Modern Viking.

Hanssen, Helmer. London: George Routledge, 1936.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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For someone who participated in Amundsen’s three major expeditions, went to the South Pole with him in 1910, and was captain of Maud on the later Northeast Passage expedition, Hanssen sounds generally as boring as extreme weather reports, at least in this version. There is no indication of a translator, nor any indication that Hanssen and Amundsen may have had a falling out on the 1918-1920 Northeast Passage trip. So the Fram Museum suggests on its website, citing the journals of other participants as claiming Amundsen fired Hanssen because the designation of Hanssen as captain went to his head. If so, even that excitement is concealed in this book.

Clement Markham: Longest Service Officer, Most Prolific Editor,

Savours, Ann. in Compassing the Vaste Globe of the Earth: Studies in the History of The Hakluyt Society, 1846-1996. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1996) p. 165-88.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 168, on Markham’s 1850-51 Greenland expedition: Confined to a tent by a storm, he ‘Read Pickwick aloud, ate, drank, slept and read Johnson’s life of Pope, alternately. Had a duck and sandpipers stewed in green pea soup, for dinner.’ See Markham’s MS. Journal in the Royal Geographical Society, Archives, CRM 3. This entry is from 7 July 1851.

Shipwrecked in Greenland.

Thompson, Arthur R. Boston: Little, Brown, 1905.
  • 1894 US Expedition to Greenland aboard Miranda.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A summer pleasure expedition by a few American young men that ended in the shipwreck of the Miranda off the Greenland coast. Reads like a young adult adventure, introducing young readers to the realities of Arctic exploration.

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.

The Polar Rosses: John and James Clark Ross and their Explorations.

Dodge, Ernest S. New York: Harper & Row (Barnes and Noble Import), 1973.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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The Ross family of Uncle and Nephew could be called the dominant English explorers of the first half of the nineteenth century, despite the enmity which John Ross inspired from Sir John Barrow, the kingpin of the Royal Navy’s Arctic and Antarctic aspirations. John Ross was only engaged in the Arctic, with one of the first expeditions seeking the Northwest Passage, and much later the beginnings of the Franklin Search. James Clark Ross, on the other hand, was on his uncle’s first expedition, served with Parry on subsequent voyages, but is chiefly remembered for his command of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1838 to 1842, a long and important voyage bracketed for James Clark by Arctic expeditions. Among their achievements he can claim to have found both Magnetic Poles.

Griffith Taylor: Visionary Environmentalist Explorer.

Strange, Carolyn and Alison Bashford. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2008.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Taylor was born in England but went to Australia at age 12, where he was a student of Edgeworth David, before studying in Cambridge 1907-09 (Emmanuel College). This biography presents him as a brilliant scientist but irascible, vain glorious, and sometimes mean-spirited. A geologist turned geographer he became an ardent geographic determinist, seeing both nature and man determined by their natural environment. He went on the Terra Nova expedition with Scott, and wrote about it in his With Scott: the Silver Lining, the silver lining being the scientific accomplishments of the expedition.