Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875-6.

Moss, Edward L. (London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1878).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 9: While our two ships steamed northward along the west shores of Greenland, the novel charm of constant daylight was felt by every one. We all had our own ideas of what Arctic summer would be like, but ideas drawn from books rarely remain unchanged when brought face to face with reality. Although the passage into perpetual day was of course gradual, yet it was quite rapid enough to upset all regular habits.

The Journal of Jens Munk 1619-1620.

Munk, Jens. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1980.
  • 1619-20 Danish Expedition to Hudson’s Bay (commanded by Jens Munk on Lamprey and Unicorn).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

Munk led two Danish ships, the Lamprey and Unicorn, to Hudson’s Bay and wintered over at Churchill in 1619-20. Many men including the surgeon died at Churchill, undoubtedly of scurvy.

Journal of a Cruise Made to the Pacific Ocean… in the United States Frigate Essex, in the Years 1812, 1813, and 1814.

Porter, David. Two volumes. Second edition. New York: Wiley & Halsted, 1822. [A modern edition was published in Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986, with an Introduction by R. D. Madison, Edited and with Notes by R. D. Madison and Karen Hamon.].
  • 1812-1814 American Naval Cruise to the Pacific commanded by David Porter (aboard frigate Essex).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

The second edition is the only complete edition and generally regarded as the best one. The 1986 introduction added much information of importance and interest. – Hill. Samuel Eliot Morison called it the best bit of sea literature of the period. (See also Smith II, 1632. Howes P-484 (aa). Hill 1373.)

Fatal North: Adventure and Survival Aboard USS

Henderson, Bruce. Polaris, the First U.S. Expedition to the North Pole. New York: New American Library, 2001.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A mediocre recounting of the Polaris expedition, the poisoning of Captain Hall, the Tyson trip on the ice floe. Nothing about reading except one note on the presence of books.

Such is the Antarctic.

Christensen, Lars. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Christensen was from a Norwegian whaling family who took three expeditions to Antarctica to study conditions of the whaling industry at the time. He owned his own whaling ship, the M.T. Thorshaven, which he used for these trips. It is an engaging account from the perspective of a businessman, sentimentally attached to whaling. There is little about reading on these trips but a few indications of materials available. The book is notable for its discussions of the history of Bouvet and Norwegian attempts to occupy the island, despite its unsuitability for any whaling purposes and its only apparent use as a meteorological station. He also discusses the exploration of Enderby Land, and Riiser-Larsen’s discovery of Queen Maud Land.

Matthew Fontaine Maury, Father of Oceanography: A Biography, 1806-1873.

Grady, John. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Summary [from ABEBooks]: In becoming "a useful man" on the maritime stage, Matthew Fontaine Maury focused light on the ills of a clique-ridden Navy, charted sea lanes and bested Great Britain's admiralty in securing the fastest, safest routes to India and Australia. He helped bind the Old and New worlds with the laying of the transatlantic cable, forcefully advocated Southern rights in a troubled union, and preached Manifest Destiny from the Arctic to Cape Horn. Late in life, he revolutionized warfare in perfecting electronically detonated mines. Maury's eagerness to go to the public in person and in print on the questions of the day riled powerful men in business and politics, and the U.S., Confederate and Royal navies. They dismissed him as the "Man on the Hill." Over his career, Maury more than once ran afoul of Jefferson Davis, and Stephen R. Mallory, secretary of the Confederate States Navy. He argued against eminent members of the nation's emerging scientific community in a decades-long debate over science for its own sake versus science for the people's sake. Through the political, social and scientific struggles of his time, however, Maury had his share of powerful allies, like President John Tyler; but by the early 1870s they, too, were in eclipse or in the grave.

From the Deep of the Sea, Being the Diary of the Late Charles Edward Smith M.R.C.S., Surgeon of the Whale-ship

Smith, Charles Edward. Diana of Hull. Edited by his Son. (ondon: A. & C, Black, 1922.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

The whaling voyage of the Diana occurred in 1866-67, during which the ship was trapped in the ice during the winter. Smith was surgeon aboard the whaler, and something of a puritan. In the words of the editor: Here we have an account straight from the pen, while the heart was still palpitating from some narrow escape or from what seemed at the time certain destruction.

A Very Gallant Gentleman.

Bernacchi, Louis Charles. (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1935). [First published 1933].
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This is Bernacchi’s hagiographic biography of Capt. Lawrence Oates, who died with Scott on the 1912 South Pole expedition [“I may be some time”], recalled more than 20 years later. Bernacchi, who was aboard the first Scott expedition on Discovery, idealized Scott “a leader with no desire for publicity or cheap notoriety. A man of high ideals…, The new expedition was no mere dash to the Pole to snatch priority from rival explorers, though the hope of this laurel leaf in the crown of adventure was an added spur to natural ambition” (p. 50).

The Blizzard. Newspaper of the Discovery

May 1902. SPRI MS 859. Illus.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Title page: Never mind The Blizzard I’m all right.

Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The Story of the Square-Rigged Merchant Marine of British North America, the Ships, Their Builders and Owners, and the Men Who Sailed Them.

Wallace, Frederick William. New York: George Sully & Company, 1924.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Largely an encomium to the British men and ships operating in what is now known as Canada, with emphasis on the maritime provinces. There is a great deal of information about the building and history of Canadian, particularly those of Nova Scotia, but nothing I could find on the provision of reading matter. Probably the officers and men were too busy setting speed records.

Tammarniitt (mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63.

Tester, Frame James and Peter Kulchyski. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 1994.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
 Preview 

Examines government involvement in Northern Canada which led to relocation of Inuit from the east coast of Hudson's Bay to the high Arctic, the Henik Lake and Garry Lake famines, the establishment of Whale Cove in response to inland famines in the Keewatin, and the second wave of state expansion in the 1950's.

The Hedstroms and the Bethel Ship Saga: Methodist Influence on Swedish Religious Life.

Whyman, Henry C. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1992.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

The Bethel ships were intended as floating chapels for seamen and also immigrants. They were evangelical, teetotal, sabbatarian, and predominantly Swedish Lutheran turned Methodists. The period was 1840s to 1860s at least, and followed a Swedish movement called theläsare, a reading fellowship of like-minded Christians. Both of the NY ships were named John Wesley, and the movement here was led by Olof Hedstrom. There is little here about the use of Bethel ships elsewhere, even at sea, but it is an interesting introduction to the phenomenon.

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

Bernier, J. E. Ottawa, Ont.: Le Droit, 1939.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 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.