Archives.

Marvin, Ross. Chemung County Historical Society, 415 E Water St. Elmira, NY.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1905-06 US North Polar Expedition under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Log book kept by Ross G. Marvin July 1905-Jan 1906, during Peary’s North Pole attempt. Marvin was an Assistant to Peary, and Henson was Peary’s Personal Assistant. Marvin also kept a personal diary from July 15 1905 to Sept. 12, 1905.

Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian: A Memoir.

Murray, Thomas Boyles, 1798-1860. London: S.P.C.K., 1856.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
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p.23: Some books and prints were placed in the hands of the youth, and he expressed the greatest delight in seeing views of ships in the ice, and the figure of an Esquimaux watching for a seal. After gazing for a few minutes at the latter, he uttered a cry of pleasure and said, ‘This one of my people!’ [p. 24 shows an engraving of a seal hunter. Among other places, Kalli was taken to the British Museum, the Crystal Palace (1851), the Horse Guard’s Stables, and finally enrolled at a missionary college in Canterbury, St. Augustine’s.]

Writing the New World: Imaginary Voyages….

Fausset, David. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 3, the exotic literature of Europe: … most clearly manifested in fiction about the regions that remained unknown the longest….their works, too, would finally be overtaken by history and supplanted by scientific descriptions of the material and social worlds. [Fausset’s examples are Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Poe, Lovecraft.]

Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Development of the Arctic Submarine.

Leary, William M. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 149, on scattering of ashes of Hubert Wilkins at North Pole from the submarine Skate: While two men held red flares, Calvert [commander of Skate] read from the Book of Common Prayer, then paid a personal tribute to Wilkins….

The Voyage of the ‘Why Not ?’ in the Antarctic: the Journal of the Second French South Polar Expedition, 1908-1910

English Version by Philip Wash. New York, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911. [Reprinted Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1978].
  • 1908-10 Second French South Polar Expedition (Charcot on Pourquoi-pas?).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Charcot’s is a rather ponderous book about an important expedition, with several historical excurses in which he consistently praises Antarctic explorers, as if to elevate himself.

Redburn: His First Voyage, being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service

Melville, Herman. . (Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern-Newberry, 1969).
  • Maritime Reading
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p. 47-8: And I remembered reading in a magazine, called the Sailors’ Magazine, with a sea-blue cover, and a ship painted on the back, about pious seamen who never swore, and paid over all their wages to the poor heathen in India; and how that when they were too old to go to sea, these pious old sailors found a delightful home for life in the Hospital, where they had nothing to do, but prepare themselves for their latter end. And I wondered whether there were any such good sailors among my ship-mates; and observing that one of them laid on deck apart from the rest, I thought to be sure that he was one of them: so I did not disturb his devotions: but I was afterwards shocked at discovering that he was only fast asleep, with one of the brown jugs by his side.

By Airplane towards the North Pole: An Account of an Expedition to Spitzbergen in the Summer of 1923.

Mittelholzer, Walter, et al. Translated from the German by Eden & Cedar Paul. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1925.
  • 1923 German Air Expedition to Spitsbergen.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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This expedition had the two-fold purposes of aerial photography of the Spitsbergen interior, and making the case (albeit in the interests of the Junker aircraft corporation) for the utility of aircraft in polar exploration. In a book devoted to exploration by air it would appear unsurprising that there is no apparent reference to reading as appears in most other exploration literature. It does have this curious reference to Robert Peary’s claim to the North Pole discovery of 1909: “But Peary’s aim had been the establishment of a sporting record, rather than the advancement of science” (p. 164-65).

Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819, 20, 21, and 22. By John Franklin…with an Appendix on Various Subjects Relating to Science and Natural History [Dr. John Richardson]

Franklin, Sir John. London: John Murray, 1823.
  • 1819-22 and 1825-27 John Franklin Overland Journeys with John Richardson.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 258: … I shall mention briefly, that a considerable portion of it was occupied in writing up our journals. Some newspapers and magazines, that we had received from England with our letters, were read again and again, and commented upon, at our meals; and we often exercised ourselves with conjecturing the changes that might take place in the world before we could hear from it again. The probability of our receiving letters, and the period of their arrival, were calculated to a nicety…. The Sabbath was always a day of rest with us; the woodmen were required to provide for the exigencies of that day on Saturday, and the party were dressed in their best attire. Divine service was regularly performed, and the Canadians attended, and behaved with great decorum, although they were all Roman Catholics, and but little acquainted with the language in which the prayers were read. I regretted much that we had not a French Prayer-Book, but the Lord's Prayer and Creed were always read to them in their own language.

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

Muir, John. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
  • 1879-81 US North Pole Expedition (commanded by George De Long aboard Jeannette).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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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.

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)

The Journal of Annie Holes Ricketson on the Whaleship A. R. Tucker, 1871-1874.

Ricketson, Annie Holmes. From the Original in the Kendall Whaling Museum. New Bedford, MA: Old Dartmouth Historical Society, 1958.
  • 1871-74 American Whaling Expedition to Indian Ocean (aboard A. R. Tucker).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A good example of the so-called petticoat whaler, the Captain’s wife. This is a fairly calm memoir with some observations about the business of whaling, and frequent reference to books, newspapers, and letters but seldom with any reading details.

When God Came to the Belchers.

Sullivan, Alan. Queen’s Quarterly 51 no 2 (1944) p. 14-28.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
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On the Belcher murders connected to a religious frenzy by hunters who thought they were God and Jesus:

Glacier Island: The Official Account of the British South Georgia Expedition 1954-1955.

Sutton, George. London: Chatto & Windus, 1957.
  • 1954-55 British South Georgia [Mountaineering] Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Sutton recounts the 1954-55 mountaineering expedition to South Georgia, its successes with some peaks and failure with others. Definitely a low-budget affair shipped on a whaling vessel and then used the gaol of a disused whaling station when not out climbing. Engagingly written though hardly over-dramatic.

The Discovery of the North-West Passage by H.M.S. Investigator, Capt. R. M’Clure, 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854.

McClure, Robert John. Edited by Captain Sherard Osborn, C. B., &c…, from the Logs and Journals of Capt. Robert Le M. M’Clure. London: Longman, Brown, 1857.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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HMS Investigator was one of the ships assigned to the western end of the as yet undiscovered Northwest Passage in the search for Franklin and the hope that his expedition had made it through. By confusion or arrangant independence the Investigator proceeded without its companion ship HMS Enterprise, commanded by Richard Collinson. Caught by the ice, it returned to Hong Kong while Investigator headed eastward into the Passage. The ship spent the next three winters in winter quarters until April of 1854 when the men were found by a rescue team from HMS Resolute and they escaped to the east leaving the ship abandoned. One positive outcome, despite several deaths, was that the voyage definitively established the existence of the Northwest Passage’