Icy Hell: Experiences of a News Real Cameraman in the Aleutian Islands, Eastern Siberia and the Arctic Fringe of Alaska.

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p. 59: A few hours out of Petropavlosk as we headed north we found the ice! Into the Arctic ice at last! What a thrill, to say the least. All of the polar stories that I had read came back to me. From the time I was a small boy and read my first stories of adventures in the ice I had dreamed and longed for the experience of being in this ice wilderness. Mental pictures of Deschev, Bering, Cook, Kane, Amundsen, Scott, Peary, Shackleton, Stefansson and the host of others who have written their names in the pages of North and South Polar exploration passed in review.

Those Greenland Days: The British Arctic Air-Route Expedition, 1930-31.

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A rather less engaging book than his later Sledge, but informative on an expedition to scope out air-routes across Greenland by meteorological observations on the icecap. Several reading references:

Marooned: Being a Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Captain Charles H. Barnard, Embracing an Account of the Seizure of his Vessel at the Falkland Islands, &c., 1812-1816.

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No doubt a most harrowing tale, marred only by the seeming innocence and trusting self-presentation of Barnard and his providential beliefs. The work includes excerpts from the log of Barzillai Pease (originals in Syracuse University Library), a co-partner in Barnard’s endeavor. Barnard’s ship, Nanina, was taken over by mutineers, he himself was abandoned by other shipmates, rescued by the Isabella which in turn was shipwrecked, abandoned again, and other perils, his ship eventually declared war bounty by the British during war of 1812.

The Private Life of Polar Exploration.

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p. 65, re Scott’s Northern Party: Levick used to read aloud in the evening, first a chapter a night of David Copperfield, then the Life of Stevenson, then Simon the Jester [William Locke novel]. That was their library, and thus rationed lasted them about half way through the winter…. On Sunday nights they sang with a religious bias.

Trip to Alaska. A Narrative of What was Seen and Heard During a Summer Cruise in Alaskan Waters.

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p. 79-80, on Russian church services in the 1880s: As you enter, the congregation stands facing the screen, but back from the rotunda. The men stand upon the right, the women on the left. The singers consist of men and boys led by the second priest. In Sitka the choir had a position behind a screen to the right of the rotunda. Here in Onalaska they occupy a narrow gallery, where there is also a bench for visitors.

The Long Rescue.

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Re the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, its retreat to the South and its terrible trials. A rather romantic reconstruction, with no index. Author claims his work is based on NYPL sources. There are some bits of reading material in the book.

The Lure of the Whaling Journal.

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p. 162, Feb. 24, 1859: I am teaching Cooper Orthoepy and definitions for which he has generously offered me the large sum of one dollar.

Marginalia.

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Volume I:

South Polar Times

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Only copy, owned by Cherry-Garrard and largely produced by him. Introduction written later by Frank Debenham. No mention of Scott’s Polar party. “Ed., typed & illus. largely by me”—ACG. Drawings by Cherry have a remarkable delicacy.

Pursuing the Whale: A Quarter-Century of Whaling in the Arctic.

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Semi-autobiographical homespun yarns by a Provincetown whaleman and his career from 1868 to 1916, aboard many vessels including the Charles W. Morgan. They are interesting stories but not too revealing of the author. Cook’s wife often accompanied him on his journeys. In 1894, he was Captain of the bark Navarch which wintered at Herschel Island during that year in company with other whalers and other women.