The North Pole and Bradley Land.

Balch, Thomas Willing. Philadelphia: Campion, 1913.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An exploration of the Cook-Peary controversy, with excerpts below based on his reading experience and that of others.

Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor.

Winton, John. London: Michael Joseph, 1977.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 25-26: In July 1838 the Admiralty sanctioned the supply of libraries to sea-going ships. Large ships were issued with 276 books, small ships with 156. The books were mostly religious or of an ‘improving’ nature. Various societies and private individuals also contributed. As early as 1816 a Lieutenant Baker and a Dr Quarrier supplied the Leander frigate, fitting out from Woolwich, with a library of several hundred books. Mrs Elizabeth Fry later persuaded the Admiralty to issue libraries to naval hospitals and to the coastguard.

Tammarniitt (mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63.

Tester, Frame James and Peter Kulchyski. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 1994.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
 Preview 

Examines government involvement in Northern Canada which led to relocation of Inuit from the east coast of Hudson's Bay to the high Arctic, the Henik Lake and Garry Lake famines, the establishment of Whale Cove in response to inland famines in the Keewatin, and the second wave of state expansion in the 1950's.

The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives.

Blum, Hester. Chapel Hill NC: University Press of North Carolina, 2008.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

As much literary history as exploration narratives, this fascinating study examines both several classics of American fiction and the reading habits of sailors. Blum has gathered a great deal of information about the working-class forecastle men and their interest in reading. For transcripts of their reading reactions, their dealing with ennui, and the production of literature for their use see entries in these anthologies for Cheever, Colnett, Dana, Delano, Little, Mercier, Porter, and several other whalemen.

A History of Polar Exploration.

Kirwan, L. P. New York: Norton, 1960.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Kirwin’s History is widely considered the classic history of polar exploration.

The Seaman’s Library Manual.

Howe, Herbert L. Prepared by Herbert L. Howe, Librarian. New York: American Merchant Marine Library Association, 1939. No pagination.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Introduction by Christopher Morley: I have seen the Green Box in use aboard American ships at sea, and I know what it means…to the reader off duty.

The Barren Grounds of Northern Canada.

Pike, Warburton. London: Macmillan, 1892.
  • 1889-91 Canadian Overland Journey to Barron Grounds by Warburton Pike.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

An 1889-91 trip from Edmonton to Athabasca and the barren grounds in search of caribou and musk-ox. Pike nearly starved on Peace River in 1891.

Benjamin Leigh Smith: a forgotten pioneer.

Credland, Arthur C. Polar Record 20 (125) May 1980, p. 127-145.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Smith lived from 1783 to 1913 and took five important Arctic voyages to Novaya Zemblya, Svalbard, and Franz Josef Land. The last, in Eira, sank in August 1881 near Mys Barentsia in Franz Josef Land.

Life Aboard: The Journals of William N. and George F. Smith.

Smith, William N. and George F. Edited by Alan D. McNairn. (Saint John, CAN: NBM Publications, 1988.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Diaries of typical 19th-century voyages by New Brunswick ships to all over the world, usually carrying timber. Nothing polar about it (mostly St John to Liverpool), but an interesting example of a seaman’s journals.

A Time to Speak: An Autobiography.

Fuchs, Vivian. Oswestry, UK: Anthony Nelson, 1990.
  • 1955-58 TAE: Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A comprehensive story of his life with concentration on his Falklands (FIDS) experience, and the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955-58. He is very judicious in describing his relations with Hillary on the later, but a certain animosity comes through.

Forty-Five Years under the Flag

Schley, Winfield Scott. New York: D. Appleton, 1904.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 4: About the year 1855 a number of comparatively new books, such as Midshipman Easy, Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful and Frank Mildmay, written by that inimitable author of sea fiction, Captain Marryat, came into the writer's reach and so fas cinated his young mind as to determine an almost unconquerable desire for a sea life. Under this influence, joined to the fact that his great namesake and sponsor, General Winfield Scott—a conspicuous figure in the war of 1812 and that of Mexico in 1847 and 1848—had encouraged the idea of a military life, and had promised his influence to this end when the writer had reached the proper age, a military career with its ambitions and hopes seemed to exclude thoughts of all others. Nothing was known of the limitations to a military life in that time, and no thought of its requirements, its sacrifices, its exposures or its responsibilities could enter a mind filled with dreams and hopes that the time would come in later life when there might be such opportunities as others had had to do some lasting benefit to their home and country.

Along the Labrador Coast.

Townsend, Charles Wendell. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1907.
  • 1900? US private Summer Expedition for Birding and Touring the Labrador Coast.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

It is hard to determine from this book or the internet the date of this engaging tourist journal of the Labrador outports. On p. 98 he refers to the 230 years that the Hudson’s Bay Company had been trading furs from the natives; with a founding date of 1670 we can infer a 1900 date for the trip. He also there notes “No wonder the letters have been interpreted “Here before Christ,” for the company generally get ahead of the missionaries.