p. 152, on conflicts between missionaries and Marquesas natives: The Otaheitean and Marquisian languages are so nearly alike they could converse without an interpreter. Mr. Daylia, in one of his meetings, said much about the good land and a bad land, telling them if they would be good and pray they would go to the good land, when they died. This he explained in a manner suited to their understanding. One of the chiefs jumped up and asked if the missionary who died at Nukuhivah (an English missionary who died about two years before) had gone to that good land. Mr. Daylia assured them he had, when, unwilling to believe it, they sent four men to that island, (about fifty miles) to get some of the bones. At the expiration of five or six days they returned, bringing bones with them; and at the next meeting, when Daylia was again telling of the good land, they set up a shouting, calling him a liar and showed him the bones. They told him he had been driven from his own land and had come to live with them, and he might stop preaching about his good land and his bad land, for they would not believe him. In vain were his remonstrances with them. They told him if he would climb a lofty cocoa-nut tree, which stood near, and jump among the rocks unhurt, they would believe him.
Torrey’s Narrative, Or, The Life and Adventures of William Torrey. Written by Himself.
- Whalemen's Reading
Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot.
- Arctic Reading: General
p. 27, shows small library at HBC’s Moose Factory.
Farther North than Nansen. Being the voyage of the Polar Star.
- 1899-1900 Italian North Polar Expedition (aboard Polar Star commanded by the Duke of Abruzzi and Umberto Cagni).
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
Abruzzi’s expedition divides neatly into the two parts described in these volumes. The first volume deals with the sea voyage of the Polar Star, the second with Umberto Cagni’s sledging journey toward the North Pole. Much of the second volume is by Cagni who had taken over command because of Abruzzi’s injuries.
Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.
- Whalemen's Reading
Description of an interesting if unsuccessful experiment to adapt a life-saving device to a “gun-harpoon to attack whales.” This was during a summer voyage of Scoresby aboard the Baffin. As often in whaling journals, especially during summer months, there is nothing here about leisure or professional reading by the men other than Scriptural readings, accompanied by standard invocations of providence.
Strong Men South.
- 1946-48 US Operation Highjump, Byrd’s Fourth Expedition to Little America (aboard USS Mount Olympus).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
A charming if a bit sanctimonious account of Operation Highjump by the chaplain of that 1947 expedition aboard USS Mount Olympus.
Glimpses of the Northland: Sketches of Life among the Cree and Salteaux Indians.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
p. 28: At God’s Lake the work of teaching a school was of a different character. No missionary or teacher had been stationed there, and parents and children were alike totally ignorant of the nature of a school. I arrived at God’s Lake in early September and at once commenced work. The church was a slimsy structure, very cold, and the roof leaked so badly as to render it untenable in rainy weather. There were no desks, chairs or black boards. A few books and slates I brought from Oxford House. A number of children were orphans. I plainly announced in the preceding Sabbath services that only children of school age, that is, from six to fourteen years, would be received, and that I did not conduct a nursery, nor did I want a wife, and therefore grown-up girls could not attend the school, for their sole object in coming was to impress the school-teacher with their charms and thus win a husband if possible.
Ancestral Voices.
- Antarctic Reading: General
p. 31-32 describes a visit to Lord & Lady Kennet's home in 1942: Lord Kennet was luckily in bed with bronchitis so we were alone. K as outgiving as ever. The first glimpse of her showed how she is ageing. Her figure is noticeably spread, and not mitigated by the shapeless, sacklike garments she always wears. She is the worst-dressed woman I know; and rejoices in a sort of aggressive no-taste in clothes and house.
Peter Fidler: Canada’s Forgotten Surveyor 1769-1822.
- Hudson's Bay Company.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Fidler was a rather obscure surveyor and mapmaker of English birth, who served the Hudson’s Bay Company for over thirty years, just beyond the 1820 amalgamation of the HBC with the North West Company. His interest here is that he was instrumental in buying books for the HBC to send from London to their various posts in Canada. This volume is confined to Fidler’s full journals of his travels for his surveying career. They make little of Fidler’s book life, but it does not that he build a personal collection of 500 volumes which he left to the Red River Colony. He had fourteen children by an illiterate Metis woman whom he finally married. He is someone you’d like to meet. Though he suffered through some very hard times he seems to have met them with a stoic resolve, and he died a rather rich man after years of £100 pay per year.
High Arctic: The Story of the British North Greenland Expedition.
- 1952-54 British North Greenland Expedition (Commander James Simpson).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Captain Banks was in the Royal Marines and was Officer-in-Charge of a Weasel team on this 1952-54 expedition.
Wanderings and Adventures of Reuben Delano, Being a Narrative of Twelve Years Life in a Whale Ship!
- Whalemen's Reading
Born in Nantucket and moved to New Bedford, both whaling communities. Father died in a shipwreck near Fairhaven when Reuben was 11. He soon took to sea with his elder brother. His style is aphoristic and cliché-ridden. Whatever the nature of his final conversion, it seems clear that he was never a member of a reading community.
Citizen: An American Boy’s Early Manhood Aboard a Sag Harbor Whale-Ship Chasing Delirium and Death around the World, 1843-1849, Being the Story of Erastus Bill who Lived to Tell It.
- Whalemen's Reading
p. 49-50, aboard a whaler name Citizen, Bill arrives in Oahu: When the ship first comes into port, some papers circulate on board inviting us to call upon the missionary and seaman’s chaplain, the Rev. S. C. Damon.
Annual Report of the Chief Signal-Officer [Albert J. Myer] to the Secretary of War for the Year 1872.
- 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
- Arctic Reading: United States
p. 87: The library of the Office has been increased from six hundred volumes to one thousand three hundred and forty. These books have been catalogued and arranged conveniently for reference, and form the nucleus of a valuable meteorological library, to which additions may be made from time to time.
Elisha Kent Kane and the Seafaring Frontier
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
p. 55-56, on setting off on the first Grinnell expedition: I collected as I could some simple instruments for thermal and magnetic registration, which would have been of use if they had found their way on board. A very few books for the dark hours of winter, and a stock of coarse woolen clothing…constituted my entire outfit; and with these I made my report to Commodore Salter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Sir John Richardson: Arctic Explorer, Natural Historian, Naval Surgeon.
- 1819-22 and 1825-27 John Franklin Overland Journeys with John Richardson.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
p. xii: notes that Richardson’s library as well as that of Frederick Schwatka are now at the University of Illinois.
The Journal of Annie Holmes Ricketson on the Whaleship A. R. Tucker, 1871-1874: from the Original in the Kendall Whaling Museum.
- Whalemen's Reading
A good example of the so-called petticoat whaler, the Captain’s wife., aboard the whaler A.R. Tucker. This is a fairly calm memoir with some observations about the business of whaling, and frequent reference to books, newspapers, and letters but seldom with any reading details.