You may also have heard of the controversy about whether or not Robert Peary had in fact made it to the North Pole in 1909 (not everyone has), or had he willfully misrepresented his accomplishment. Even the National Geographic Society, an original supporter of Peary's work, had begun to express doubts. The Navigation Foundation was then commissioned by the National Geographic Society to carry out what is now considered the definitive answer to this question. The conclusion, after much diverse research and analysis, was that Peary did indeed make it to the Pole, and that there was no viable evidence that he had misrepresented his work. The Foundation study under the direction of Admiral Thomas Davies was published as The Peary Report, in 1990. Present directors Douglas R Davies, Roger Jones and Terry Carraway took part in that research. The report will be published again and available to the public in early 2007 in ebook format.
Archives. Peary Report.
- 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1908-09 US North Pole Expeditions under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
- Arctic Reading: United States
War, Ice & Piracy: The Remarkable Career of a Victorian Sailor. The Journals and Letters of Samuel Gurney Cresswell.
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Cresswell was a Royal naval officer aboard both the James Clark Ross and Robert McClure expeditions of the Franklin Search, and can claim to be the first to cover the entire Northwest Passage. He was also a notable water-colourist of these expeditions. The letters reproduced here are primarily to his Parents.
A Voyage Round the World with Captain James Cook in H.M.S. Resolution / by Anders Sparrman; Introduction and Notes by Owen Rutter; Wood-engravings by Peter Barker-Mill.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
A Swedish botanist who was taken on board Cook’s second voyage at Cape Town when he had met the Forsters. Sparrman had studied under Linneaus, who had recommended him for a South African botany project. He joined the Resolution reluctantly and suffered/or helped cause the usual hostilities between officers and scientists, what he calls the “contempt of ignorance.”
Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814, or the First American Settlement of the Pacific.
- 1811-1814 US Voyage to Northwest Coast of America and America’s First American Settlement.
- Arctic Reading: United States
p. 5-7, in Preface to Second Edition: Without disparagement of Mr. Irving ’s literary fame, I may venture to say that I found in his work inaccuracies, misstatements (unintentional of course), and a want of chronological order, which struck forcibly one so familiar with the events themselves. I thought I could show or rather that my simple narration, of itself, plainly discovered that some of the young men embarked in that expedition (which founded our Pacific empire), did not merit the ridicule and contempt which Captain T horn attempted to
Cruising in the Antarctic.
- 1952-53 Russian Whaling Voyage.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Recounts a whaling journey from Odessa to Antarctica in 1952-53 in a flotilla of 16 ships. Rather typical Soviet narrative with great harmony, a few problems heroically overcome, and excellent discipline:
The Life of Captain James Cook.
- 1768–79 British Naval Expeditions of Captain James Cook.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
This biography together with Beaglehole’s five-volume edition of Cook’s Journals constitute the definitive source on Cook’s voyages and work.
The Howling Arctic: The Remarkable People who Made Canada Sovereign in the Farthest North.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
A curious mix of stories about the eastern Arctic, with a certain sympathy for the native but as much or more for the officials who had to deal with their ways in establishing Canadian law.
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
- 1824 British Voyage to Repulse Bay (aboard Griper, commanded by Captain George F. Lyon).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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.
The Third Voyage of Martin Frobisher to Baffin Island 1578
- 1576-78 The Baffin Island Voyages of Martin Frobisher.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
p. 69: the provisional list of supplies included the following:
Two Years in the Antarctic.
- 1945-46 Falkland Islands Dependency Survey, Stonington Island, Base E. (Commander E. W. Bingham).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
A personal account of two years spent in British Antarctica; in the second year they were joined by an American expedition [Finn Ronne; see 1946-48] and later combined to complete an extensive survey of the East Coast of the Graham Land peninsula. Includes details on how the expedition actually lived in Antarctica, how they organized their base, trained their dog teams, and carried out their work.
Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Two emphases in this work deal with the maritime reading experience.
Life on a Whaler; or, Antarctic Adventures in the Isle of Desolation.
- 1851-53 Kerguélen Whaling Voyage (aboard Julius Caesar).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Narrative of a whaling voyage from New London, Connecticut to the South Indian Ocean aboard the ship Julius Caesar, August 18, 1851 to June 4, 1853. Taylor was a 28-year-old doctor and the medical officer of the voyage. The manuscript had been prepared for publication in long hand by the author in 1858--including a title page, table of contents, foreword, and chapter headings--but had never been published until this edition, limited to 900 copies, was printed by the New London County Historical Society in 1929. Illustrations by William T. Peters of the U. S. Japan Expedition. Bound in tan cloth over boards with dark brown cloth spine, gilt-stamped spine and upper board, illustrated endpapers. (from ABEBOOKS)
To the Ends of the Earth: The Truth Behind the Glory of Polar Exploration.
- Arctic Reading: General
p. 17, re Belgica winter in 1897: They read and reread books on navigation and lighthouses, played whist, listened to records, told stale jokes—anything to break the monotony. They ached like teenagers for a glimpse of a woman. [Cook, First Antarctic Night, p. 250, 252]
Rejoice My Heart: The Making of H. R. Mill’s “The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton”: The Private Correspondence of Dr. Hugh Robert Mill and Lady Shackleton, 1922-33
- Antarctic Reading: General
This is a collection of collaborative correspondence that led to the publication of Mill’s Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton (1923) with a great deal of help from Emily Shackleton (Shackleton’s second wife).
Notes from Discovery Journal & Sledging Diaries of R W Skelton
- 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Ms Skelton subsequently published her grandfather’s diaries as The Antarctic Journals of Reginald W. Skelton: “Another Job for the Tinker. (Cheltenham, UK: Reardon Publishing, 2004):