Frank Wild

Mills, Leif. . Whitby, Yorkshire: Caedmon, 1999.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Frank Wild served widely in Antarctica on various expeditions including the first Scott voyage of Discovery, with Mawson’s 1912-13 expedition, Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic attempt with Endurance, and finally taking over Shackleton’s Quest expedition when Shackleton died. His finest achievement was leading the 22 unhappy explorers marooned on Elephant Island in 1916, for the 105 days while Shackleton was struggling to South Georgia. Mills’ book is a sound if somewhat solemn biography of a remarkable leader.

Typed transcript of Endurance journal, 1914-15 and 1915-16.

Macklin, Alexander Hepburn. SPRI MS 1589. In two volumes, second vol. starting on Oct 15th, 1915.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 7, Nov 3, 1915 Wedn, after smashup: At the ship I entered Clark’s cabin which is just above water and got some books for him.

In the Heart of the Arctics.

Senn, Nicholas. Chicago, W. B. Conkey, 1907.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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This rather charming account of a voyage with Peary to Greenland in 1905 aboard Erik. Senn was a Professor of Surgery at the University of Chicago, and a veteran medic of the Spanish-American War.

The Open Polar Sea: A Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, in the Schooner “United States.”

Hayes, Isaac I. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1867.
  • 1860-61 US North Pole Expedition (aboard United States, commanded by Isaac Hayes).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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The Open Polar Sea was a prominent but false theory of the nineteenth century that as one approached the highest latitudes the ice would give way to an open sea fed by warm currents which would reach as far as the poles.

Hell on Ice: The Saga of the “Jeannette“

Ellsberg, Edward. .” New York: Dodd, Mead, 1938.
  • 1879-81 US North Pole Expedition (commanded by George De Long aboard Jeannette).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. viii-ix, Preface: Reading what I could get my hands on concerning it [the Jeannette expedition], I soon enough saw that De Long's early failure was a more brilliant chapter in human struggle and achievement than the later successes of Peary and of Amundsen.

Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic Word, 1700-1920.

Creighton, Margaret and Lisa Norling, editors. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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A fine collection of essays by some well-known scholars on relations of women to sailors, primarily but not exclusively in the American industry. The work focuses on the role of women in shipping, far beyond their role as figureheads of the “wooden” title. Much of their work was in pants roles, transvestites wearing men’s clothing to assure their work. There is little I found about their reading as pirates, cabin boys, cooks, etc., but most of the essays are fascinating on the gender issues.

A Frenchman in Search of Franklin: De Bray’s Arctic Journal, 1852-1854.

De Bray, Emile Frederic. Trans. and ed. by William Barr. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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De Bray was influenced by Joseph-René Bellot’s service on an English expedition as a volunteer for the Franklin Search with Sir Edward Belcher aboard HMS Resolute. He served in the Arctic from 1852 to 1854, commanded a number of sledge expeditions, and left the Resolute shortly before it was abandoned. He was a friend of Jules Verne who used De Bray’s Arctic knowledge in a novel based on the Franklin Search.

The Gifts of Reading.

Macfarlane, Robert. Penguin Random House, UK, 2017.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 31-32: As I work on this essay, over the Christmas of 2015, I know that a copy of my book The Wild Places is being sledge-hauled to the South Pole by a young Scottish adventurer called Luke Robertson, who is aiming to become the youngest Briton to ski there unassisted, unsupported and solo. Robertson’s sledge weighs seventeen stone, and he is dragging it for thirty-five days over 730 miles of snow and ice, in temperatures as low as -50˚C, and winds as high as 100mph. Under such circumstances I felt impossibly proud that The Wild Places (paperback weight: 8.9oz) had earned its place on his sledge, and impossibly excited at the thought of my sentences being read out there on the crystal continent, under the endless daylight of the austral summer.

The Journal of Post Captain Nicolas Baudin, Commander-in-Chief of the Corvettes, Géographe and Naturaliste. Assigned by the Order of the Government to a Voyage of Discovery.

Baudin, Nicolas. Translated from the French by Christine Cornell. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1974.
  • 1801-03 French Exploring Expedition to South Seas and Terra Australis (Captain Nicolas Baudin aboard Géographe).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
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This is a magnificent edition of Baudin’s expeditionary journal in English translation, including listings of the exploration books on each of the two vessels. There is nothing that I could easily find in this journal about any reading of those books, though there seem to have been no natural occasions for such reading, e.g. a winterover.

Under Sail to Greenland, Being an Account of the Voyage of the Cutter “Direction”. 1929.

Allen, Arthur S., Jr. Philadelphia: Goodchild, 2002.
  • 1929 Private US Voyage to Greenland (aboard Direction with Arthur Allen and Rockwell Kent).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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An easygoing and relaxed account of the Greenland trip by three twenty-year olds including Rockwell Kent (who took the trip for painting purposes primarily) in a small vessel which was wrecked near Godthaab in the summer of 1929. Tragic in that the author was killed in a car crash the month after returning to the US. A few reading and library references are included in this adventure:

At Anchor: A Narrative of Experiences Afloat and Ashore during the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger from 1872 to 1876.

Wild, John James. London: Marcus Ward, 1878.
  • Maritime Reading
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This is a straightforward and rather innocuous account of the three and a half year voyage, emphasizing flora and fauna as well as buildings throughout their shore visits. Pleasant but anodyne. Wild was the official photographer of the expedition. Wikipedia states in the Wild entry: The ship was equipped with a dark room, enabling development of the photographs taken of the lands and peoples encountered. It is thought that this expedition was the first to include routine photography as well as an official artist .

Such is the Antarctic.

Christensen, Lars. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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Christensen was from a Norwegian whaling family who took three expeditions to Antarctica to study conditions of the whaling industry at the time. He owned his own whaling ship, the M.T. Thorshaven, which he used for these trips. It is an engaging account from the perspective of a businessman, sentimentally attached to whaling. There is little about reading on these trips but a few indications of materials available. The book is notable for its discussions of the history of Bouvet and Norwegian attempts to occupy the island, despite its unsuitability for any whaling purposes and its only apparent use as a meteorological station. He also discusses the exploration of Enderby Land, and Riiser-Larsen’s discovery of Queen Maud Land.

With Peary Near the Pole.

Astrup, Eivind. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1898.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1891-97 and 1898 US Northern Greenland and North Pole Expeditions (Commanded by Robert E. Peary).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Astrup participated in two of Peary’s early Greenland expeditions, in 1891-92 and 1893-94.