From Pole to Pole: The Life of Quintin Riley, 1905-1980.

Riley, Jonathan P. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1989.
  • 1920-22 British Graham Land Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Quinton Riley was the Quarter Master of the British Graham Land Expedition, and this biography includes one full chapter on his participation in the BGLE (p. 55-95). He is described as a good-natured but argumentative colleague, of firm religious convictions, and a valuable member of the expedition staff.

Captain Scott’s Desert Island Discs: A Favour of What Were the Happening Sounds in Antarctica 100 Years Ago.

Rees, Jasper. (Wednesday, 11 April 2012) [Online source unknown.].
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Centenaries are sizeable business in 2012. It just so happens that the Olympics are coming to the United Kingdom for the third time in a year which finds us thinking very hard about if being British still means the same thing as it did 100 years when two momentous calamities singed themselves into the national psyche: the Titanic sank, and Captain Scott and his four companions never made it back from the South Pole.

Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, from the Frontiers of China to the Frozen Sea and Kamchatka.

Cochrane, John Dundas. Fourth Edition. London: Charles Knight, 1825.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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p. 64-65, walking towards St. Petersburgh: A sigh escaped me as I ejaculated a last farewell, till, startling at the expression of my weakness, I resumed my journey with slow and melancholy steps. It was ten o'clock (for I had now a watch), and I had reached six miles. The night was beautifully clear, though rather cold from the effects of a northern breeze; while the moon was near her full. I looked at the beautiful luminary, and actually asked myself whether I were, as had been asserted, under the baneful influence of that planet. Smiling that I received no reply, I then considered my projects and intentions, and the conduct I ought to follow; and, sitting down at a fountain on the Poulkousky hill, I read to myself a few lessons, which the time and the occasion seemed to inspire. “Go,” said I, “and wander with the illiterate and almost brutal savage—go and be the companion of the ferocious beast!—go and contemplate the human being in every element

Diary of the Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic 1910-1912. An account of Scott’s last expedition edited from the original mss. in the Scott Polar Research Institute and the British Museum.

Wilson, Edward Adrian. London: Blandford Press [1972].
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 69, Dec. 5, 1910: I have been reading The Illustrious Prince, which Mrs. Wigram, you remember, gave me just before leaving New Zealand, a book I have thoroughly enjoyed—and the last novel, probably, that I shall read until we are well up in the warm sunshine on the way home. If I read novels habitually there would be no diary writing. As it is, the only quiet time in the day is from 4.30 a.m. or 5 a.m. to breakfast at 8 a.m.—and my writing is all done then.

Across the Top of Russia

Petrow, Richard. . New York: David McKay, 1967.
  • 1965 US Coast Guard Surveillance Voyage to Russia’s Kara Sea (aboard USCGC Windward).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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On the 1965 Coast Guard icebreaker, CGS Northwind, trip to the Kara Sea for scientific and spying purposes.

A Black Explorer at the North Pole

Henson, Matthew A. Foreword by Robert E. Peary, Rear Admiral, U.S.N. Introduction by Booker T. Washington. Introduction to Bison Book Edition by Susan A. Kaplan. (Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). [First published as A Negro Explorer at the North Pole in 1912; There are many other editions, often with variant titles.].
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1908-09 US North Pole Expeditions under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Mostly from Hensen’s diary with connecting narrative of Peary’s North Pole expedition of 1908-9.

Thulia: A Tale of the Antarctic.

Palmer, James Croxall. New-York: S. Colman, 1843.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A narrative poem about the sailing travails of the US schooner Flying-Fish on the US Exploring Expedition (1838-42). An appendix describes the circumstances that the poem portrays. Basically this is doggerel poetry describing two vessels of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, the Peacock, and the Flying-Fish. An appendix describes the adventures of the latter ship:

Newspaper clipping

New Zealand Press. SPRI MS 7354/1 BPC leaf 13.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Clipping from this newspaper in SPRI speaking of the “pretentious library” aboard Discovery, and noting that Shackleton had organized it. Probably from the period when Discovery was in Lyttleton, NZ November 1901. See above under Discovery.

On the “Polar Star” in the Arctic Sea.

Abruzzi, Luigi Amedeo di Savoia. Translated by William Le Queux. Two Volumes. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Hutchinson, 1903.
  • 1899-1900 Italian North Polar Expedition (aboard Polar Star commanded by the Duke of Abruzzi and Umberto Cagni).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

Volume. I.

A Voyage of Discovery, Made under the Orders of the Admiralty, in His Majesty’s Ships Isabella and Alexander, for the Purpose of Exploring Baffin’s Bay, and Inquiring into the Probability of a North-West Passage.

Ross, Sir John. Second edition. Two volumes.(London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819).
  • 1818 First British Northwest Passage Expedition (John Ross aboard Isabella with the Alexander).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

The first nineteenth-century attempt to locate a Northwest Passage was commanded by John Ross, a moderately successful expedition that ruined his reputation. John Barrow of the Admiralty was so outraged at Ross’s failure to explore fully Lancaster Sound that he did everything in his power to discredit Ross after this expedition.

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).
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

A 1926-27 Greenland expedition aboard the Bowdoin, with the purpose of setting up new magnetic stations and resettling old ones.

Survival in Antarctica.

National Science Foundation. 1974 Edition. Washington, DC: NSF Office of Polar Programs, 1974.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

On the purpose of this manual: Today people go from the United States to Antarctica in hours. Warm buildings and home comforts shield them from months-long darkness, high winds, and temperatures sometimes below -75°C. (-100°F.). At stations like McMurdo, life seems so normal that it is easy to forget Antarctica's dangers. Tragedy and disaster can strike unexpectedly. It has happened, and it will happen again. This manual will help you prepare for the possibility, when all seems to be going well, of suddenly being in a survival situation.

Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923.

Grant, Shelagh D. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002.
  • 1923 Canadian Murder Trial at Pond Inlet.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Fascinating book on the introduction of European-based law into a culture that had no reason to understand it, in its communitarian consensual approach to justice. Well-written and badly proofed, but worth the read.

The Myth of the Explorer: The Press, Sensationalism, and Geographical Discovery.

Riffenburgh, Beau. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Explores the role of the press in developing idealized versions of polar heroes, whatever their feet of clay. Cites Joseph Campbell, John Ruskin, and particularly J. Mackenzie in clarifying the requirements for heroic status: an exotic setting, the personal characteristics and qualities of the hero, the martyrdom of the hero (though this varied from country to country), and the development of icons of the fallen heroes for whatever nationalistic, patriotic, or commercial motives. (cf. Scott, p. 7).