p. lix-lxii: The introduction has an inventory of the many relics found at the final site of Barents fatal expedition. No 75 includes the following items: A great number of prints from copper engravings, completely frozen together, including some of Goltzius; Pallas, Juno, and Venus, with Bosscher excudit; scenes from the Bible. “The manner of engraving the names of the engravers proves that all these must have been the work of the sixteenth century. It may seem strange that Arctic navigators had prints or engravings on board, but it is not at all so, for Heemskerck and Barendsz intended to go as far as China, when they sailed to the North-East. For that purpose they had merchandise on board, and prints or engravings were often used as such.
A True Description of Three Voyages by the North-East towards Cathay and China, Undertaken by the Dutch in the Years 1594, 1595, and 1596. …
- Arctic Reading: Russia
This Accursed Land.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Bickel notes the absence of “heroics” in Home of the Blizzard, betrayed by his journals, however modest. An earlier version of Mawson’s Will, with some additional reading passages.
Arctic Hell-Ship: The Voyage of HMS Enterprise 1850-1855.
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
An account of the Bering Strait approach to the Franklin Search with Collinson’s Enterprise and McClure’s Investigator.
Hudson’s Bay Copy Booke of Letters Commissions Instructions Outward 1688-1696.
- Hudson's Bay Company.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
This is a miscellaneous collection of letters of the HBC on the early history of the Company and its early tribulations.
Northern Regions: Or, A relation of Uncle Richard’s Voyages for the Discovery of a North-west Passage.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
A serious account of four British expeditions intended to introduce children to the excitement and uncertainties of Arctic travel, without sparing the more gruesome aspects of exploration (death, storms, cannibalism, etc.) Good and accurate descriptions of amusements aboard, and relatively balanced accounts of the “savages.” The expeditions are Parry I, Franklin I, Parry II, and Cochrane’s overland journey to Siberia.
Pilgrims on the Ice: Robert Falcon Scott’s First Antarctic Expedition.
- 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
p. 27: for the Discovery expedition, the Executive Committee of the RGS commissioned an Antarctic Manual, “an idea that hearkened back to the British Arctic expedition of 1875. Edited by George Murray, it dealt with fields of science to be investigated, and was well received.”
‘Birdie’ Bowers of the Antarctic
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Like Seaver’s biography of Wilson, his fellow death-mate, this is a gentle hagiography of a devout Christian and a much-loved mate. On his training ship he would sit on the main deck every evening “before the whole ship’s company,” and read his Bible for a quarter of an hour (p. 22). I found nothing else about his reading during the Terra Nova expedition, but earlier he speaks of reading and thinking a lot in his spiritual quest (p. 40), of his prayer book, and his “violent attack of skepticism” from reading Darwin’s Descent of Man (p. 47), and this in Ceylon in 1909: “I have brought my Wordsworth up here and read it a bit in my room at night, keeping one eye aloft for spiders, one of which fell on me the other night” (p. 119). He was phobic about spiders.
The North Pole and Bradley Land.
- Arctic Reading: United States
An exploration of the Cook-Peary controversy, with excerpts below based on his reading experience and that of others.
The American on the Endurance: Ice, Sea, and Terra Firma Adventures of William L. Bakewell.
- 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Homespun memoir of a footloose and feckless wanderer from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, who happened to be in Buenos Aires in 1914 when Shackleton was looking for an able bodied seaman and took Bakewell on for the voyage.
Abandoned: The Story of the Greely Arctic Expedition, 1881-1884.
- 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
- Arctic Reading: United States
A compelling account of the tragedies and muted triumphs of the Adolphus Washington Greely Expedition. Stefansson’s introduction is fascinating for its discussion of cannibalism and what he calls “rabbit starvation” or “protein poisoning” which makes the case that those who died were the more likely cannibals than the survivors. Todd himself calls his story “essentially one of the physical and moral courage displayed by a small group of men abandoned to hunger and cold in the distant, early days of Arctic work” (p. xix).
The Cabin Boy’s Log: Scenes and Incidents on a New Bedford Whaler, Written from the Journal as Kept by the Lad on a Three Years’ Voyage in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
- 1866-69 US Whaling Expedition to Indian and Pacific Oceans.
- Maritime Reading
p. 18, the Nov. 1866, preparations for the trip of this 15-year old included writing material, a New Testament, and the Episcopal Prayer Book. No indication throughout that he ever used them. Elsewhere there are several passages about pastimes, scrimshaw, boat models but nothing about reading. Notable for the cruelty of the captain to the cabin boy and the sailors.
Round the Horn before the Mast
- 1899- American Schooner Voyage from San Francisco to Europe and Round the Horn aboard Royalshire.
- Maritime Reading
p. 17, after a day of shoveling coal he and his new English friend cleaned up and went to the opera to see “Carmen.”
A Personal Narrative of the Discovery of the North-West Passage…while in Search of the Expedition under Sir John Franklin.
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
The Voyage of Investigator, with Capt. McClure, which separated from its consorts early in the trip, and struck off independently “with a firm reliance on a merciful Providence, and full confidence in our resources” (p. 74). Armstrong was the surgeon and naturalist aboard the Investigator.
Bob Bartlett: Master Mariner.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
A juvenile account of Bartlett’s life up to his late 20s. Chapters include introduction on Bartlett’s own skepticism about books in general and on him in particular; his abortive Methodist College divinity studies in St. John’s at age 15; his first command of a fishing boat; sealing; his maritime certification; Peary’s Windward in 1898; Ootark and building snow igloos; the first and nearly disastrous Roosevelt trip when they had to cannibalize the ship for fuel returning to Newfoundland; the polar sledging trip; Dr. Cook, the “faker”; Karluk; Morissey; and a final tribute to the natives: I feel that men like Ootark, Seegloo, and Inughitag should have their pictures and stories go into permanent form…. If he [Ootark] can’t go into the Hall of Fame, he at least ought to have his name on the vestibule list. (p. 208-09).
Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Sir W. Edward Parry…Late First-Governor of Greenwich Hospital.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
This adoring work could qualify for the category of nepotistic hagiography, though it gives some insights to Parry’s character.