Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer.

Loomis, Chauncey C. New York: Knopf, 1971.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An excellent account of the life of the most eccentric of Arctic explorers who essentially abandoned his family in Cincinnati to pursue his Arctic dreams. Unprepared and inexperienced in Arctic ways, he adopted to and adapted Eskimo ways of living and survival by living with them for long periods and learning from them their secrets of survival. Both his origins and demise are clouded in mystery.

Matthew Fontaine Maury, Father of Oceanography: A Biography, 1806-1873.

Grady, John. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Summary [from ABEBooks]: In becoming "a useful man" on the maritime stage, Matthew Fontaine Maury focused light on the ills of a clique-ridden Navy, charted sea lanes and bested Great Britain's admiralty in securing the fastest, safest routes to India and Australia. He helped bind the Old and New worlds with the laying of the transatlantic cable, forcefully advocated Southern rights in a troubled union, and preached Manifest Destiny from the Arctic to Cape Horn. Late in life, he revolutionized warfare in perfecting electronically detonated mines. Maury's eagerness to go to the public in person and in print on the questions of the day riled powerful men in business and politics, and the U.S., Confederate and Royal navies. They dismissed him as the "Man on the Hill." Over his career, Maury more than once ran afoul of Jefferson Davis, and Stephen R. Mallory, secretary of the Confederate States Navy. He argued against eminent members of the nation's emerging scientific community in a decades-long debate over science for its own sake versus science for the people's sake. Through the political, social and scientific struggles of his time, however, Maury had his share of powerful allies, like President John Tyler; but by the early 1870s they, too, were in eclipse or in the grave.

Roughing It in the Bush; Or, Life in Canada.

Moodie, Susanna. Two volumes. New York: George P. Putnam, 1852.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Mrs. Moodie (nee Strickland) sailed on an immigrant ship of mainly Scots headed to Canada in 1832. She writes with a refreshing candour about the trials and tribulations of life in the Canadian bush, direct enough to warrant a Norton Critical Edition in 2007, with extensive supporting material about her life and work.

The Frozen Zone and Its Explorers: A Comprehensive History of Voyages, Travels, Adventures, Disasters, and Discoveries in the Arctic Regions….

Hyde, Alexander. Hartford, CT: Columbia Book CO., 1874.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 793-94, concerning the Dutch expedition at Nova Zembla in 1596, describes the Ice House of Berentz found in 1871, a house unvisited for 278 years until 1871, the house included: the books that had beguiled the weary hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago. The ‘History of China’ points to the goal which Barentz sought, while the ‘Manual of Navigation’ indicates the knowledge which guided his efforts. Stranger evidence never told a more deeply interesting story.

Here Are the Books Ernest Shackleton Brought on His Final Antarctic Expedition

Debosak, Michelle. found on the Internet 4/15/16 at http://mentalfloss.com/article/76170/here-are-books-ernest-shackleton-brought-his-final-antarctic-expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Sir Ernest Shackleton's final polar expedition was also his most ambitious. In 1915, he and his crew set off aboard the Endurance with the goal of becoming the first men to cross the Antarctic continent. Though ultimately unsuccessful, their mission lasted 21 months from departure to return. Luckily, Shackleton had plenty of books on board to pass the time, the BBC reports.

Ending in Ice: the Revolutionary Idea and Tragic Expedition of Alfred Wegener.

McCoy, Roger M. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

Alfred Wegener is most famous for his proposed theory of continental draft, published in 1912. At first denied and scorned, then dismissed as unimportant, followed by eventual acceptance. His other fame relates to his several research expeditions seeking to understand the climatic influence of Greenland weather. He died on the ice trying to rescue his scientific colleagues isolated at Eismitte in 1930. Unlike so many explorers he was dedicated to his scientific endeavors.

Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition.

Murdoch, John. Introduction by William W. Fitzhugh. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1988. [First published 1892.].
  • 1881-83 International Physical Year US Expedition to Point Barrow Alaska (Ray).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. xvii, re IPY cruise on Golden Fleece to Point Barrow, Aug 8, 1881, Murdoch to Richard Rathbun at Smithsonian: The hold and the deck are filled with our stuff, while we are so crowded in the cabin that we are only able to keep out the simple necessary articles and a few books. … I had hoped to have things so that I might do some work on the voyage up, but the vessel is so small and we have so much material that it is entirely out of the question…. They feed us well and by reading, writing, eating and sleeping we manage to fill up the time.

Battle for the Soul: Métis Children Encounter evangelical Protestants at Mackinaw Mission, 1823-1837.

Widder, Keith R. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

This deals mainly with a US phenomenon of attempted religious colonialism with relevance to Métis in Canada (Mackinaw Mission, 1823-37). It seems a good example of indoctrination requiring a degree of literacy devoid of independent thinking. An Anglo-Métis at Lake Leech in 1833 describes the house he built, with its old straw Hat, a violin with all its appendages; a small shelf upon which are the few books we possess…” etc. (p. 12). Unlike their Chippewa cousins, Métis children at times slept on beds off the ground, listened to their fathers read from books illuminated by candlelight, and danced to fiddle music. Under the same roof, they observed their fathers transact business with their Chippewa relatives and neighbors, who did not utilize amenities such as books and coffee mills…. Boys watched their fathers, some of whom were illiterate, keep records in ledgers of each transaction, often using symbols or pictures to identify each Chippewa customer’s account. Fathers recognized the advantage of written language as a tool to improve the operation of their businesses” (p. 13). Métis boys learned to speak French and/or English from their fathers and Chippewa from their mothers. Métis males could thus communicate with all members of the fur-trade society. Métis boys possessed skills that Chippewa youth did not. (p. 14).

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.

Franchère, Gabriel. Translated and Edited by J. V. Huntington. New York: Redfield, 1854. [See also the Champlain Society Edition of 1969].
  • 1811-1814 US Voyage to Northwest Coast of America and America’s First American Settlement.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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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

Cosmogony: or Thoughts on Philosophy.

Merrill, John. East Canaan, NH: Published by G. F. Kimball, 1860.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Merrill was apparently on Kane’s 2d expedition for which he kept a journal and meteorological record (p. 14), and worked with Dr. Vreeland in observing auroras (p. 18-9, citing Kane I, p. 425)

An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and Successively Performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: Drawn up from the Journals which were Kept by the Several Commanders, and from the Papers of Joseph Banks, esq.; by John Hawkesworth … Illustrated with Cuts, and a Great Variety of Charts and Maps.

Hawkesworth, John. Three volumes.London: Strahan & Cadell, 1773.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Hawkesworth’s introduction (p. xix) has a brief but controversial discussion of Providence and natural events. p. xx: “it will always be found that Providence interposes too late, and only moderates the mischief which it might have prevented.” In final passage he says he honors God but doubts his intervention in natural events.

Big Dead Place.

Johnson, Nicholas. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2005.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An antidote to any romanticizing of Antarctic work, esp. with NSF, who Johnson derides as unknowing and stupid bureaucrats. Johnson for all his humor suffered from depression and committed suicide in 2014. There is a bit of reading, and quite a bit about videos replacing books and stateside fashions dictating inappropriate programs, e.g.:

Icy Hell: Experiences of a News Real Cameraman in the Aleutian Islands, Eastern Siberia and the Arctic Fringe of Alaska.

Hudson, Will E. London: Constable & Company, 1937.
  • 1930s? US Hunting Trip to Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Siberia.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 59: A few hours out of Petropavlosk as we headed north we found the ice! Into the Arctic ice at last! What a thrill, to say the least. All of the polar stories that I had read came back to me. From the time I was a small boy and read my first stories of adventures in the ice I had dreamed and longed for the experience of being in this ice wilderness. Mental pictures of Deschev, Bering, Cook, Kane, Amundsen, Scott, Peary, Shackleton, Stefansson and the host of others who have written their names in the pages of North and South Polar exploration passed in review.

Race to the End: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole.

MacPhee, Ross D. E. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 2010.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A straightforward and well-written recounting of the Terra Nova expedition, intended as a companion volume to the AMNH’s 2010 centenary exhibition on Scott and Amundsen’s 1910 expeditions. MacPhee is a moderate critic of Scott’s deficiencies and Amundsen’s megalomania.