A Voyage to the Arctic in the Whaler Aurora

Lindsay, David Moore. Boston: Dana Estes, 1911.
  • 1884 Whaling Voyage to Greenland (aboard Aurora).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

This voyage was in 1884 to Greenland fisheries via Newfoundland. His introduction is prescient: I cannot imagine it being read by many, as the subject can only interest a few who have themselves gone down to the sea in ships. (p. 11). Lindsay was a lively reader but more in retrospect than in this book.

Marginalia.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Bollingen Edition. Five? Volumes. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 19-- .
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Volume I:

A Voyage of Discovery….

Ross, John, Sir. 2nd ed. Two volumes. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819.
  • 1818 First British Northwest Passage Expedition (John Ross aboard Isabella with the Alexander).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Ross was encouraged to attempt this early expedition searching for the Northwest Passage, but severely criticized by John Barrow for failing in that search. He had some significant accomplishments but this trip effectively ended his career with the Admiralty.

South with Endurance: Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition 1914-1917, the Photographs of Frank Hurley.

Hurley, Frank. London: Bloomsbury, 2001.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This book has a wider focus than the title implies, including more material on Hurley’s photographic career than his Antarctic photographs. But it covers the Antarctic work well, from archives of RGS, the State Library of New South Wales, and of SPRI, Cambridge.

The Polar Rosses: John and James Clark Ross and their Explorations.

Dodge, Ernest S. (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

These two Rosses, respectively uncle and nephew, were arguably the major forces in Polar exploration from Barrow’s initial enthusiasm in the 1810s through to the successful findings of the Franklin Search, that despite Barrow’s loathing for Sir John after the failure of Ross’s first search for the North West Passage. This is an excellent and well-written biography of the two men and their era of discovery.

Ship’s Libraries, Their Need and Usefulness.

Pierson, John S. New York: American Seamen’s Friend Society, 1878. 33 p.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 5 describing what first can be done for the physical and spiritual welfare of the sailor, the author goes on to ask what more can be done for his welfare: Obviously the only way left to reach him is by the printed truth,—The Bible, the tract, the good book. Just here then comes in the ship’s library with its indispensable offices,--the last important advance made in the line of religious work among seamen,--the ‘missing link,’ I think we may call it, in the chain of evangelical agencies for their benefit.

Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton and the Changing Face of Heroism.

Barczewski, Stephanie. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007.
  • Heroic Age 1901-1921.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Deals largely with the reversal of reputations of Scott’s decline and Shackleton’s growth throughout the 20th century, and the balancing of the two in the first decade of the 21st century. Unfortunately, this is a long book that should have been a short one. She insists on recounting the set pieces of all the voyages with individual chapters on the English expeditions (Discovery, Nimrod, Terra Nova, and Endurance), with minimal nods to Bruce, Filchner and others less preoccupied with the Pole that the two Englishmen. She tries hard to achieve a balance between the two but seems by the epilogue to be favoring late arguments on behalf of Scott, even when the arguments are weak (e.g. Fiennes claim that only one who has been there can assess Scott in the Antarctic). There is nothing that I found about reading or any non-curricular activity to help keep the men sane, though she suggests that a number went bonkers. A disappointing work which ignores the “destiny” of its title.

The Arctic Whaleman, Or Winter in the Arctic Ocean: Being a Narrative of the Wreck of the Whale Ship Citizen, of New London.

Holmes, Lewis. Boston: Wentworth, 1857.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

An account of whaling in the Bering and Chukchi Seas; the wreck of the 'Citizen' in Sept. 1852; and customs and behavior of the natives of the Chukotsk Peninsula, as experienced by the ship's survivors during a nine-month sojourn there. Part Two gives history (in general) and details of whaling, the various whales and outfitting.

A Voyage Round the World; but More Particularly to the North-West Coast of America: Performed in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788, in The King George and Queen Charlotte, Captains Portlock and Dixon.

Dixon, George. London: George Goulding, 1789.
  • 1785-88 British Exploring Circumnavigation to Northwest Pacific (Captain Portlock aboard the King George and George Dixon aboard Queen Charlotte).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Not clear who is writing these letters, signed as W.B., since they refer to Dixon. Dixon’s Introduction describes the author as “a person aboard the Queen Charlotte, who has been totally unused to literary pursuits, and equally so to a sea-faring life” (p. xxii). Some editions show Portlock as the author.

A Man’s Woman.

Norris, Frank. New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Norris’s turn-of-the-century novel is loosely based on George Washington De Long’s U.S. North Polar expedition aboard the Jeannette (1879-81). It borrows freely from the locale (Wrangell Island and environs), the beset and crushed ship, the forced march on ice and pressure ridges, the heroic commander, the few survivors finally rescued. He adds the love interest, a strong-minded woman who resists the commander, succumbs, marries, and subtly convinces the hero that he is the one who must achieve the North Pole for the United States, knowing his safe return to be doubtful. He sails from New York in a new ship clearly modeled on Nansen’s Fram. Sources in Greely’s expedition and parallels with Robert E. Peary, who had already begun his North Pole quest and was in Northern Ellesmere land at the time of publication, are easily drawn.

Proceedings of the “Proteus” Court of Inquiry on the Greely Relief Expedition of 1883.

United States. War Department. Proteus Court of Inquiry. 48th Congress, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. No. 100. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1884.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 77, part of government inquire into the failure of the relief expedition of 1883 and the Proteus. The witness here is Lieut John C. Colwell:

Watkins’ Last Expedition.

Chapman, Frederick Spencer. With an Introduction by Augustine Courtauld. London: Chatto and Windus, 1934.
  • 1932-33 British East Greenland Expedition (Gino Watkins aboard Quest).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. xii, Introduction: Time may pass, but the memory will never fade of that little tent we shared, the thoughts we shared, the fears we shared; how, during those dark fierce days of blizzard, when travel was impossible, he [Chapman] used to read in a clear tenor from one of our few small books, while the tent shook to the bass of the storm’s accompaniment.