Life Onboard an Emigrant Ship: Being a Diary of a Voyage to Australia.

Mereweather, John Davies. (London: T. Hatchard, 1852).
  • Maritime Reading
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The Rev. Mereweather of the Anglican Church saw it as his unpaid duty to provide moral leadership to the “poorer classes” being conveyed to Australia. Proceeds from its sale would go to the Female Emigrant Society for that purpose.

Cold Burial: A True Story of Endurance and Disaster.

Powell-Williams, Clive. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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An account of a disastrous winter in the Barrens of the Northwest, of three patrician adventurers, led by a rather irresponsible John Hornby. All three died of starvation in 1927.

Report of the Cruise of the U. S. Revenue Cutter Bear and the Overland Expedition for the Relief of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean, from November 27, 1897 to September 13, 1898.

Tuttle, Francis, Capt. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1899.
  • 1897-98 US Revenue Service Cruise and Overland Rescue Expedition in Relief of Whalers (Tuttle aboard Bear).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 22, on the murder of a native by other natives: About 11 o'clock in the forenoon on the 17th of November, 1807, Mr. Rustan Nelson was sitting in his house reading, and Messrs. Charles Sandbourne and George F. Tilton were working in one of the other rooms, when they all heard two rifle shots fired in quick succession, followed shortly after by four others. Nelson thrust his revolver in his pocket, rushed out of the house, and there saw, close to the house, two natives, Avulik and Shukurana, each with a smoking rifle in his hand, standing over the body of Washok, which was lying on the snow close to his sled, pierced with six bullet holes. Washok's wife was close by, and several other natives were running to the scene of the firing. Sandbourne and Tilton ran out soon after Nelson, and after ascertaining that Washok was dead and beyond all help, they all returned to the house. Soon after the body was carried out into the country and put up on sticks, after the native fashion, the murderers aiding in the ceremony.

This Distant and Unsurveyed Country.

Ross, William Gillies. Montreal, McGill University Press, 1997.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 158: To keep the men alert and cheerful at winter harbor on the search expedition [Franklin search 1850-51], Penny’s surgeons had organized the “Royal Cornwallis Theatre” on board the Lady Franklin. Drawing actors from both ships and also from Sir John Ross’s nearby vessel, the company distributed printed handbills and performed in front of an audience of fifty, wearing calico costumes and accompanied by music that was described—possibly, with some exaggeration—as “tolerable” (Sutherland 1852: I. 428). At about the same time, the “Arctic Academy” got under way, also under the direction of the surgeons. Its classes ran for three hours a night, four nights a week. Reading, writing, and arithmetic formed the basis of the curriculum, but geography excited the men’s interest in a special way because some of them had sailed on merchant voyages to various parts of the world. Despite a limited supply of educational materials (slates, some paper and pencils, an old world map, and one copy of Johnston’sPhysical Atlas),the seamen (some of whom were barely literate) eagerly participated in discussions of global physical and human geography. The brightest men on the ships showed promise of learning elementary navigation by winter’s end.

Voyages of a Modern Viking.

Hanssen, Helmer. London: George Routledge, 1936.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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For someone who participated in Amundsen’s three major expeditions, went to the South Pole with him in 1910, and was captain of Maud on the later Northeast Passage expedition, Hanssen sounds generally as boring as extreme weather reports, at least in this version. There is no indication of a translator, nor any indication that Hanssen and Amundsen may have had a falling out on the 1918-1920 Northeast Passage trip. So the Fram Museum suggests on its website, citing the journals of other participants as claiming Amundsen fired Hanssen because the designation of Hanssen as captain went to his head. If so, even that excitement is concealed in this book.

Island of the Lost.

Cooper, Paul Fenimore. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1961).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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This is an elegant little book posing as a biography of King William Island and a vehicle for telling its indigenous history, the story of the Franklin debacle (prior to discovery of the sunken Erebus), and a fairly brief account of the Franklin Search.

The Wonders of the Arctic World: A History of All the Researches and Discoveries in the Frozen North, from the Earliest Times. Together with a Complete and Reliable History of The Polaris Expedition. By William H. Cunnington.

Sargent, Epes L. [“Perils and Escapes among Icebergs!” precedes title.] Philadelphia, John E. Potter, 1873.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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This large volume neatly combines two works, the first a general history of arctic exploration up to the Hall expedition (Sargent) with an early hagiography of Hall, or in Parry’s words, a “massive whitewash” .

Cold: The Record of an Antarctic Sledge Journey.

Gould, Laurence McKinley. New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1931. [A limited edition was published by Carleton College in 1984.].
  • 1928-30 First U.S. Antarctic Expedition (Byrd on City of New York).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Gould was second in command of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition of 1928-30 and according to this account had responsibility for forming the Little America library.

Chances for Arctic Survival: Greely’s Expedition Revisited.

Wesławski, Jan Marcin, and Joanna Legeżyńska. Arctic 55 4 (Dec. 2002) 373-379.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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The caloric requirements of the expedition survivors could not have been met by their available resources exclusive of cannibalism.

Peter Fidler, Trader and Surveyor, 1769 to 1822.

Tyrrell, J. B. Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. Third Series. VII. Section II (1913) p. 117-27 [Read May 28, 1913].
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 127: Fidler himself was a hard worker, but was of an irascible disposition with comparatively little consideration for the weaknesses and failings of others. He was a diligent student and fond of reading. In the Library at York is a manuscript book of mathematical problems worked out by him, and a large number of printed books in the Library are inscribed with his name and have evidently been contributed to the Library by him. Most of these are on mathematical subjects of some kind, many of them being such books as “The Nautical Almanac,” “The Diary Companion, being a supplement to the Ladies’ Diary,” “The Gentleman’s Diary, or the Mathematical Repository.” Others are on Biblical chronology. In addition to which there is the “Monthly Magazine for a number of years.