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

 Preview 

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!”

Master Mariner and Arctic Explorer: A Narrative of Sixty Years at Sea from the Logs and Yarns of Captain J. E. Bernier.

 Preview 

Autobiographical collage by the well-known Canadian mariner, with emphasis on his obsession with the North. Introduction by E.T. [?] is dedicated to Bernier’s wife and gives a succinct summary of Bernier’s life including his four Canadian government expeditions to the North. He was a dedicated Catholic, a lifelong teetotaler, and put his faith in divine Providence.

Arctic Meeting at Chickering Hall. Plan for Exploration of the Arctic Regions,

 Preview 

Includes meeting commentary by William Cullen Bryant, Bayard Taylor, Lord Dufferin, and Isaac Hayes. Hayes approved Howgate’s plan but recommended the mouth of Smith Sound rather than Lady Franklin Bay because he wasn’t confident that the later could be reached every year. He was right.

The Arctic in the British Imagination.

 Preview 

Starts with 1818 and Barrow’s Admiralty focus on the north for geographical, scientific, commercial, and nationalistic purposes. David describes three phases:

A Winter Circuit of Our Arctic Coast: A Narrative of a Journey with Dog-Sleds around the Entire Arctic Coast of Alaska.

 Preview 

One of four travel accounts by the “Archdeacon of the Yukon and the Arctic,” with Walter Harper as companion. “My purpose was an enquiry into their present state, physical, mental, moral and religious, industrial and domestic, into their prospects, into what the government and the religious organizations have done and are doing for them, and what should yet be done” (p. viii). Among other things the archdeacon did a good deal of reading during his journey, not all of which will be captured here.

A Tenderfoot with Peary.

 Preview 

p. 6: …as we were leaving Hawkes’ Harbor, the Commander put the Doctor and us [Borup and Macmillan], the tenderfeet of the expedition, to work sorting the hundreds of magazines which were down in the lazarette and were filling every available space. There were fairly complete files of all the principle ones back to January, 1907 [as of June 1908], and as some one has said, ‘If the serial stories weren’t good, the cereal advertisements were,’ and so for that matter were the open-work yarns in the ladies’ journals.

The Rescue of Greely.

 Preview 

The author sums up the expedition on p. 142 as follows:

Literacy, Literature and Libraries in the Fur Trade,

 Preview 

p. 44: However fortunately for me I have dead Friends (my Books) who will never abandon me, till I first neglect them. [Daniel Williams Harmon at Fort Alexandria in 1803.]

Shackleton.

 Preview 

This is a strong, balanced, and helpful biography of Shackleton, marred by Huntford’s invidious detestation of Scott for whom he loses no opportunity, real or speculative, to denigrate, carrying on much as he did in The Last Place on Earth.

National Library of Scotland. Archives.

 Preview 

McClintock Notes : [Murray 12604 1736] McClintock to Murray, generally showing McClintock’s involvement in every detail of the publication of his work.

A Forgotten Explorer: Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink

 Preview 

Account of one of the first to set foot on Antarctica (Cape Adare Jan. 1895). Points out a good number of Borchgrevink’s claims for which there is no evidence, allowing the inference that Borchgrevink was a great liar.

The Cruise of the Corwin: Journal of the Arctic Expedition of 1881 in Search of De Long and the Jeannette

 Preview 

This work collects reports from Muir’s trip, mainly dealing with glaciology and other naturalist interests. His is a graceful and easy style and he has an observant eye, down to the hair on the bottom of a polar bear’s foot.