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
 Preview 

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’

The Ice and the Inland: Mawson, Flynn, and the Myth of the Frontier.

Hains, Brigid. Melbourne, AU; Melbourne University Press, 2002.
  • 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A comparative study of two frontiersmen, Douglas Mawson’s work in Antarctica (mostly 1911-14) and John Flynn, a Presbyterian minister of the Australian Inland Mission. Concentrating on the AAE (1911-14) Hains has gone through many if not all of the diaries of participants, taking special note of their books and reading, more so than any expedition I know of.

Climbing the Pole: Edmund Hillary & the Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1955-1958.

Thomson, John. Norwich, UK: Erskine Press, 2010.
  • 1955-58 TAE: Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An excellent book which skewers Hillary for his disingenuous claim that his trip to the South Pole, upstaging Vivian Fuchs, was a spur of the moment decision, while convincingly documenting that it was Hillary’s intent from the outset of his involvement with TAE.

Searching for the Franklin Expedition. The Arctic Journal of Robert Randolph Carter.

Carter, Robert Randolph. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Private journal of a cruise in the Brig Rescue in search of Franklin, together with the Advance. Part of US Grinnell Expedition in 1850, one of 12 search vessels that year. Carter was first officer of the Rescue, a small ship that wintered in 1850-51 off Beechey Island in, where the bodies of three of Franklin’s menrs had been found. Clearly Carter is intelligent witty and educated. p. 10: The headquarters [of the expedition] were the luxurious Astor House, whose accommodations were provided by the management; and the Grinnells had already stocked the ships’ libraries with books, many written by earlier Arctic explorers.

The North Pole and Bradley Land.

Balch, Thomas Willing. Philadelphia: Campion, 1913.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An exploration of the Cook-Peary controversy, with excerpts below based on his reading experience and that of others.

South with Shackleton.

Hussey, L. D. A. London: Sampson Low [1949].
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A rather saccharine account of Endurance and Shackleton, with very little critical self-assessment. Nonetheless, it mainly conforms to most stories of the expedition.

Arctic Explorations: The Second Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, 1853, ’54,’55. Illustrated by Upwards of Three Hundred Engravings, from Sketches by the Author….

Kane, Elisha Kent. Two volumes. (Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 124 Arch Street, 1856).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

An extremely well-written account. Although he says his vessel, The Advance, was supplied with “a large, well-chosen library” (Vol. 1, p. 20), there is scarcely any indication in the work that it was used, apart from occasional references to reading religious services.

A Brief Narrative of an Unsuccessful Attempt to Reach Repulse Bay, through Sir Thomas Rowe’s Welcome, in His Majesty’s Ship Griper, in the Year 1824

Lyon, George Francis. London: John Murray, 1825.
  • 1824 British Voyage to Repulse Bay (aboard Griper, commanded by Captain George F. Lyon).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 27: The agreeable visits from ship to ship, which so pleasingly break in on the monotony of a Polar voyage, were now denied us, but I was amply compensated for the want of a more extensive society, by having the happiness of knowing that I had officers and men with whom I was confident of continuing on the most friendly terms. We had already in our passage across the Atlantic arranged our little plans of improvement and amusement, and I looked forward with pleasure to the approach of winter.

Saskatchewan Journals and Correspondence. Edmonton House 1795-1800; Chesterfield House 1800-1802.

London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1967.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. ??, Peter Fidler at Norway House in 1800: But he provided himself very well with the means to spend profitably any time he could take off from fur trading or hunting buffalo, for he undoubtedly took to Chesterfield House the instruments, nautical almanacs and books which had been sent to him by the ship of 1799 and on which he had spent no less than £30 out of his salary of £60 for season 1798-99. [Footnote 6: The books sent to Fidler in 1799 were Poets & Novels; Hennes Eng.; Goldsmith’s Grecian History and his Roman History; Charles Hutton’s Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary; his Compendious Measurer; Diarian Miscellany; John Gay’s Fables; Guide to old age; Charles Vyse’s Arithmetic; an abridged Buffon’s Natural History; Samuel Hearne’s Journey to the Northern Ocean; Monthly Reviews; Annual Register; John Imison’s School of Art; Samuel Vince’s Practical Astronomy; John Wilson’s Trigonometry; and Leadbeater’s Drawing. p. lxxxv-lxxxvi]

Sitting on Penguins: Australia and the Antarctic.

Murray-Smith, Stephen. Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Mandarin Australia, 1991.
  • 1985-86 Australian Expedition to Antarctic Bases.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

The author went as a highly critical “ministerial observer” to visit Australian bases in Antarctica and as a journalist reporting on his 1985-86 trip, “a testimony to the spectacular beauty of the region and an indictment of our treatment of it.”