Whitney traveled with Peary to Greenland in 1908 and spent the year only with Eskimos north of Etah at Annootok, while Peary was making his north pole attempt. Whitney is the complete hunter, rich and well-provided, and demonstrates some intellectual curiosity about the natives and about the natural resources, and does try to master their language, but he evidently reads little except under the duress of prolonged inactivity.
Hunting with the Eskimos: The Unique Record of a Sportsman’s Year among the Northernmost Tribe….
Whitney, Harry. New York: Century Co., 1910.
- Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
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[personal journal on the Henry B Hyde]
Russell, William Bennett. Collection of Maine Maritime Museum (Bath).
- Maritime Reading
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The personal journal of William Bennett Russell during his travels on the Henry B Hyde in 1894 includes an account of his discovery of an American Seamen’s Friend Society loan library aboard the ship:
Logbook for Grace: Whaling Brig Daisy, 1912-1913.
Murphy, Robert Cushman. New York: Macmillan, 1947.
- 1912-13 American Whaling Expedition (Daisy).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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An engaging account by a 25-year-old naturalist of a whaling voyage to South Georgia in 1912, taking the form of a log written to and for his new wife, Grace. Witty and reflective, including lots of material on his own reading and library, mostly during the ship’s passage through the tropics.
Arctic Odyssey: The Diary of Diamond Jenness 1913-1916.
Jenness, Diamond. Hull, QU: Canada Museum of Civilization, 1991.
- 1913-16 Canadian Arctic Expedition (Led by Stefansson with Captain Bob Bartlett commanding the Karluk).
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Preview
p. xxi: The author [Jenness] was unusually fond of Homer’s The Odyssey. In the summer of 1906, as one of only two students in a Greek class with Professor William von Zedlitz at Victoria University College, Wellington, New Zealand, he was invited to read The Odyssey each Friday evening in Greek at his professor’s home…. during the seven months he wandered about southwestern Victoria Island with his Copper Eskimo friends, in 1915, my father often found moments for reading passages in and obtaining spiritual comfort from a small copy of The Odyssey he carried with him. This book evidently had a special meaning to him, and he continued to extract both pleasure and comfort from it on later occasions, including a time two years later when he was in the muddy wartime trenches in France.
Journal of a Voyage with Bering, 1741-1742.
Steller, Georg Wilhelm. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.
- Arctic Reading: Russia
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p. 189: Footnote: Among the essential items [on Bering’s expedition] were three quadrants, one chronometer, one compass, one spyglass, eleven books of navigation, one bundle of charts, two bundles of calculations, and seven maps. [See Bancroft 90: n 14.]
Life Aboard: The Journals of William N. and George F. Smith.
Smith, William N. and George F. Edited by Alan D. McNairn. (Saint John, CAN: NBM Publications, 1988.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
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Diaries of typical 19th-century voyages by New Brunswick ships to all over the world, usually carrying timber. Nothing polar about it (mostly St John to Liverpool), but an interesting example of a seaman’s journals.
Sledge: The British Trans-Greenland Expedition 1934.
Lindsay, Martin. London: Cassell, 1935.
- 1934 British Trans-Greenland Expedition (commanded by Martin Lindsay).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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An account of the traversal of the Greenland Ice-Cap, between Jakobshaven, near Disco Island on the west coast, and Angmagssalik on the east coast.
Shackleton’s Forgotten Expedition: The Voyage of the Nimrod
Riffenbergh, Beau. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004.
- 1907-09 British Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Nimrod).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A thorough and balanced defence of Shackleton and his achievement in the furthest south of 1909, against Markham’s attempts to besmearch his reputation.
Hudson’s Bay Copy Booke of Letters Commissions Instructions Outward 1688-1696.
Hudson’s Bay Company. Edited by E. E. Rich. (London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1957). [Hudson’s Bay Record Society, v. 20].
- Hudson's Bay Company.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Preview
This is a miscellaneous collection of letters of the HBC on the early history of the Company and its early tribulations.
Antarctica Unveiled: Scott’s First Expedition and the Quest for the Unknown Continent.
Yelverton, David E. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2000.
- 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A fairly thorough study of the Discovery expedition (1901-04), very sympathetic to Scott, managing to skewer Huntford’s speculations against Scott in a gentle way in footnote after footnote. His maps of the period are more confusing than helpful, but it is a sound study and a fairly good read. It does seem to me that his attempt to create the sense of a race between the German expedition of Drygalski and the Gauss with Scott’s ventures is purely hypothetical. And he does have a penchant for determinist chapter headings; Preordained Strategies; To the Threshold of Destiny; The Best-Laid Schemes…; Hostages in a Frozen Trap; Slings and Arrows of Misfortune; and The Expeditions Fateful Legacy.
A Voyage Round the World, in His Britannic Majesty’s Sloop, Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the Years 1772, 3, 4, and 5.
Forster, Johann Reinhold. Two volumes. London: B. White, J. Robson, P. Elmsly, and G. Robison, 1777.
- 1772-75 British Naval Expedition–Second Voyage (Captain James Cook aboard the Resolution).
- “Discovery” of Antarctica.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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This is the first appearance of Forster’s volumes. For a modern edition and further transcripts, see the Hakluyt Society edition below.
‘Heroism displayed’: revisiting the Franklin Gallery at the Royal Naval Exhibition, 1891.
Lewis-Jones, Huw W. G. Polar Record 41 (2005) 185-203.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Excellent article on the use by Clements Markham and others to reignite interest in Arctic exploration through a blockbuster exhibition of 1891, reinforcing romantic, patriotic, heroic, and other ideals from past British history.
A Life of John Davis, The Navigator, 1550-1605, Discoverer of Davis Straits
Markham, Clements R. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1889.
- 1585–1605 British Voyages of Discovery for the Northwest Passage and the Davis Straits (with John Davis on Three Voyages).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
With Scott: The Silver Lining.
Taylor, Griffith. Banham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1997. Reprint of 1916 edition, intro by David Walton.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Griffith Taylor led the Western Party of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, scientifically constituting perhaps the most successful part of Scott’s fatal journey.
Cruising in the Antarctic.
Solyanik, A. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956.
- 1952-53 Russian Whaling Voyage.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Recounts a whaling journey from Odessa to Antarctica in 1952-53 in a flotilla of 16 ships. Rather typical Soviet narrative with great harmony, a few problems heroically overcome, and excellent discipline: