At Sea with the Scientifics: The Challenger Letters of Joseph Matkin.

Matkin, Joseph. Edited by Philip F. Rehbock. Honolulu, HA: University of Hawaii Press, 1992.
  • 1872-76 Challenger Expedition of Natural History (George Nares and Frank Thompson).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
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p. 17, Introduction: Books and newspapers were no doubt available in the ship’s library, which during a portion of the voyage was in the charge of Matkin’s immediate supervisor, the ship’s steward. In addition, a special collection of scientific and travel books was taken aboard explicitly for the expedition (see Appendix E), although these were probably reserved for the use of the scientific staff and may not have been readily available to Matkin. It is also possible that bulletin’s describing the ship’s ports of call were posted for the crew’s edification. Finally, Matkin himself on more than one occasion mentions visiting a library ashore.

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
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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.

The Whale and the Supercomputer: on the Northern Front of Climate Change.

Wohlforth, Charles P. New York: North Point Press, 2004.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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A traditional Eskimo whale-hunting party races to shore near Barrow, Alaska, while their trapped comrades drift out to sea on ice that should still be solid. Elsewhere, a team of scientists transverses the tundra, measuring the thinning snow every ten kilometers in a quest to understand the effects of albedo the heat-deflecting property of snow that helps regulate the planet's temperature. Journalist and lifelong Alaskan Charles Wohlforth here crystallizes how climate change isn't an abstraction in the far North; it's a reality that has already dramatically altered daily life. He describes how Alaskan Natives and scientists attempt to reconcile their radically different ways of observing changes in the environment, and the implications for us all. (Daedalus Books Description)

Narrative of the Overland Journey of Sir John and Lady Franklin and Party from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour 1842.

Burn, David. Edited by George Mackaness. Sydney: D.S. Ford, 1955.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Burn accompanied the Franklin’s on this apparently epochal journey through what are evidently difficult terrain, weather, and rivers. Burn kept a travel diary of the experience with full respect for the Governor General and his wife. Most interesting is his account of Franklin as preacher: p. 15, Sunday, 3rd May 1842: By 8 A.M., every tent, save Lady Franklin’s, had been struck, most of the knapsacks packed, and breakfast speedily thereafter dispatched. His Excellency very shortly summoned the men, and in a thrilling tone of most impressive earnestness, read the morning service, to which he added a short but very striking sermon on the edict of Darius which consigned Daniel to the den of lions. In many a gorgeous temple have I listed to the soul-reviving promises of the Scriptures, but I much question if ever the language of sacred truth was more generally or attentively heard, than whilst delivered amid drizzling rain in the wild bush, to some who had proved most reckless violators of their country’s laws [20 convicts were on the journey as carriers and palanquin-bearers]. May the truths of that holy hour live in their hearts, and sanctify our own. The weather becoming worse and worse, with every indication of an unfavourable continuance, Lady Franklin, too, remaining considerably indisposed, the tents were once more pitched, and our quarters reoccupied for the dreary uncomfortable day.

Safe Return Doubtful: The Heroic Age of Polar Exploration.

Maxtone-Graham, John. New York: Scribner’s, 1988.
  • Heroic Age 1901-1921.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 1: On the night of January 30, 1916, a frail, white-haired gentleman retired to the bedroom of his house in London’s Eccleston Square. Once undressed, he swung expertly into a hammock and, as he had done for more than seven decades, read himself to sleep in traditional Royal Navy fashion: One hand held his book, the other a candle, exactly as he had learned as a midshipman in 1844.

Sir Francis Drake and the Famous Voyage, 1577-1580.

Thrower, Norman J. W., editor. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984).
  • 1577-80 English Expedition around the World (Francis Drake commanding The Golden Hind).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

An handsome volume celebrating the 400th anniversary of Drake’s voyage to New Albion in 1577, a collection of essays by some of the luminaries of geographic and cartographic history in the later 20th century: John Parry, David Waters, David Quinn, Helen Wallis, and Thrower himself, among others. It is full of puzzles, enigmas, speculations, secrets, etc. There is this intriguing passage at the end of Helen Wallis’ substantial and fascinating essay on “The Cartography of Drake’s Voyage”:

A Time to Speak: An Autobiography.

Fuchs, Vivian. Oswestry, UK: Anthony Nelson, 1990.
  • 1955-58 TAE: Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A comprehensive story of his life with concentration on his Falklands (FIDS) experience, and the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955-58. He is very judicious in describing his relations with Hillary on the later, but a certain animosity comes through.

The Bibliographical Miscellany.

Petheram, John, ed. 5 numbers, all printed. London: John Russell Smith, 1859.
  • 1612-13 British North-West Passage Expedition (led by Sir Thomas Button, aboard Resolution and Discovery).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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First three numbers deal with the North-West Passage and the 1612 voyage of Sir Thomas Button.

Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy.

Davies, J. D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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This is the first scholarly study of the Royal Navy during the reigns of Charles II and James II. Historians have long viewed the Restoration Navy through the eyes of Samuel Pepys, the greatest diarist and naval administrator of the age. Perceptive and intelligent as Pepys was, he presented only a one-sided view of the Navy, that of a bureaucrat attempting to reorganize it. Davies assesses this traditional picture of the Restoration Navy in the light of recent scholarship, using the evidence not only of Pepys but of his contemporaries. He examines the reactions of naval personnel to the demands imposed by Pepys, and analyzes the structure of the service. He also explores the lives and attitudes of the men (the "tarpaulins") and their officers - the quests for promotion, enrichment, and glory; the very different problems posed by peace and war; the nature of life at sea; and the role of the Navy in national life.

The Canadian Journal of Lady Aberdeen, 1893-1898.

Aberdeen and Temair, Ishbel Gordon, Marchioness of. Edited with an Introduction by John T. Saywell. [Vol. 38] Toronto: Champlain Society, 1960. [First published 1916.].
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Ishbel Marie Marjoribanks Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, better known as Lady Aberdeen (1857-1939), was a British social reformer devoted to women’s rights, philanthropy, and other causes. “As Vice-Regal Consort to Governor General John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen, from 1893 until 1898, Lady Aberdeen organized the National Council of Women in Canada, became first sponsor of the Women’s Art Association of Canada and helped found the Victorian Order of Nurses” [Canadian Encyclopedia ].

Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America.

Coxe, William. Second ed. London: J. Nichols for T. Cadell, 1780.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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p. 30: at some distance from thence lies a great island called Sabya, of which the inhabitants are denominated Rogii: these inhabitants, as the Russians understood or thought they understood him, made crosses, had books and fire-arms, and navigated in baidars or leathern canoes.