This charming book is not about what whalemen read, but rather about good reading about whales. While presenting a broad picture of the history and literature of whaling, Sanderson does offer a caution: We still don't know very much about anything, and our current ideas on the past are grotesquely warped in certain respects. Our cultural background in western Europe bequeathed to us a singularly lopsided view of ancient history and a strangely biased opinion of our own importance. Europe has been regarded by Europeans for over a thousand years not only as the hub of the universe, but also as the fountainhead of civilization. In point of historical and geographical fact, it is nothing more than a large, rugged peninsula at the west end of Eurasia, the greatest land block on earth, and the womb of culture, as possibly also of modern man himself. One, two, three, or even four thousand years of ascendancy by Europe or any other part of the world is of little real significance in the over-all sweep of history, and even our history is now being discovered to be much more ancient than was previously supposed possible. Stone Age man in Europe, and his more cultured counterparts in other continents, was not nearly so stupid and primitive as we used to think. Jewelry was traded between Ireland and Crete two thousand years before Christ; the Koreans used ironclad ships centuries before we did; Indian princes sailed the open oceans with seven hundred retainers in one ship before the Greeks had invented a fore-and-aft sail; and rorquals were shot with harpoon guns a thousand years before Svend Foyn initiated the modern whaling period. What is more, all kinds of people were roving the oceans from continent to continent millennia before the peoples of western Europe had so much as put a mast in a coracle. Not until the lateness of our own times is appreciated, can any real concept of the past be obtained. And when we come to the history of the whales, we have to start thinking in altogether different terms again. In order to gain a proper perspective, therefore, let us turn from contemplation to action and follow the whale. (p. 12-13)
Follow the Whale
- Whalemen's Reading
Life in a Man-of-War, or Scenes in “Old Ironsides” during her Cruise in the Pacific
- Maritime Reading
p. 3, Preface: CRITICS avaunt! curl not your lips with scorn, Do let my humble Sketches pass scot-free— you will find them but the uncouth "YARNS" Of an unlettered wanderer on the sea.
On Polar Trails.
- 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole.
- Arctic Reading: United States
Mercer Co. Historical Society has Goodsell’s ms which in 650 pages shows his transition from Peary admirer to bitter enemy. This 200 p. revision is extensively cut and edited by Whisenhut from Goodsell’s diaries.
The Ambitions of Jane Franklin, Victorian Lady Adventurer.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
A fairly balanced account of Lady Jane, with heavy emphasis on her role in Van Dieman’s Land where she clearly manipulated her husband’s performance as Governor General while always denying any involvement in the politics of the island. It comes across as an indictment of an ineffectual and easily swayed Sir John and a controlling Lady Jane. Alexander dwells somewhat on Franklin’s prim Protestantism, Sabbatarianism, and Scriptural grounding while Jane comes across as much less concerned about such matters. Disappointingly little about the James Clark Ross visit to Hobart, or about Franklin’s interactions with some North American political convicts.
An Account of the Countries Adjoining to Hudson’s Bay, in the North-west Part of America.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Dobbs work is chiefly a diatribe against Captain Middleton who he claimed lied on behalf of the HBC “to serve the Company at the publick Expense” by concealing any knowledge of a Northwest Passage. His conviction that there was an easy route to the west of Hudson Bay was insistent and turned out to be wrong.
Daily Journal. Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (primarily temperature, animal, auroral, and magnetic observations). Explorer’s Club Inventory 2003-007. Each page bears stamp reading: “Recovered by Robert E. Peary, C. E., U.S.N., from Fort Conger, May, 1899, under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club, and by it restored to the United States, December, 1899.
- 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
- Arctic Reading: United States
The official records of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-84) at the Explorers Club include the Daily Journal, copies of Letters sent, and the Sledge Journal.
Memoirs of Joseph René Bellot…with his Journal of a Voyage in the Polar Seas in Search of Sir John Franklin. [1851-52]
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Though much of this takes place on land, Bellot sailed on the Prince Albert as part of a British expedition searching for Franklin. Bellot died in 1853. The work consists of a memoir of Bellot by Julien Lemer (p. 1-87), an introduction by Bellot (p 88-108, reprinted from the Annales Maritimes), and Bellot’s journal, the remainder, though the running heads get confused.
That First Antarctic Winter: The Story of the Southern Cross Expedition of 1898-1900, as Told in the Diaries of Louis Charles Bernacchi
- 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
A rather heavily edited version of Bernacchi’s diaries together with passages from To the South Polar Regions, with connecting commentary of tedious nature, until the end. Most interesting are the feuds between Borchgrevink and Bernacchi, which are well-captured in the text. Not much reference to reading, books, etc., nor the supposedly decent library aboard ship. Here are a few references:
A Voyage Around the World with the Romanzov Exploring Expedition in the years 1815-1818 in the Brig Rurik, Captain Otto von Kotzebue.
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
p. 27, a paeon to the son of Kotzebue, the German-born, Russian sea captain on his circumnavigation: How often in the far ends of the earth, namely on O-Wahu [O’ahu], Guaján [Guam], etc., have I been praised for my small share in the enterprise of his son, in order to cast a hem of the mantle of his fame over me. Everywhere we heard his name mentioned. American newspapers reported that The Stranger had been performed to extraordinary applause. All the libraries in the Aleutian Islands, as far as I have investigated them, consisted of a single volume of the Russian translation of Kotzebue.
A History of Antarctic Science.
- Antarctic Reading: General
A humanistic study of the development of Antarctic science (not much different from science elsewhere apart from the extreme conditions); as such it constitutes a quite comprehensive history of most Antarctic exploration as well. Antarctic science grows out of mainstream science but has a different relation to politics. Contrasts the “heroic” explorers with the scientists for whom deprivation was no virtue. Fogg defines Antarctic as within the Antarctic Convergence (aka Polar Front), below 50 degrees south, not the 60 degrees of the Antarctic Treaty.
The Arctic in the Middle Ages,
- Arctic Reading: General
An overview of knowledge of the Arctic in the middle ages. Claims that any one of the writers displays woeful ignorance, but collectively they provide a good picture of the medieval Arctic, from cold to frostbite, from skies to polar bears, to unicorn horns. The writers he cites are Saxo Grammaticus who is in “the very first rank of medieval writers about the north” and who wrote about geysers and volcanoes in Iceland, and Finnish use of skies. See his History of the Danes, 2 volumes, 1978-9.
Lines in the Ice: Exploring the Roof of the World.
- Arctic Reading: General
[What follows here is a review I wrote for the journal Historian, included here not as related to reading by polar explorers, but relevant to current reading about them. As far as I know this review was never published, due to some confusion between the US and UK book review editors of Historian.]
Peter Fidler, and Nottingham House, Lake Athabaska,
- Hudson's Bay Company.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Diary of the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic Regions 1901-1904.
- 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Wilson was a prodigious reader. In addition to the citations below he speaks often of readings on medicine or surgery, presumably technical books he had with him on the expedition. He was also a devout Christian and would read his services when he couldn’t attend or in addition to attendance. Most notable was his reading of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” during the fatal polar trip.
Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska.
- 1919 Rockwell Kent Alaskan Trip at Fox Island.
- Arctic Reading: United States
A journal of Kent’s seven-month winter sojourn on Fox Island, Resurrection Bay, Alaska, with his 9-year old son Rockwell, staying in the cabin of an old Alaskan hand named Olson. Illustrated with some of Kent’s early work.