Antarctic Odyssey.

Law, Phillip. Melbourne: Heinemann, 1983.
  • 1952-53 Australian Heard Island Expedition; 1959-60 Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A history of the early years of ANARE, the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition, by its original Director, and starting with its two island stations at Macquarrie Island and Heard Island and later the Mawson station at Horseshoe Harbour. It’s not a particularly inspired account, and it exhibits a certain solemn narcissism. But it does have some dramatic moments (e.g. the Hurricane) and some useful chapters on issues of administration, the psychological aspects of personnel selection, and questions regarding design of materials to be used at ANARE bases, from prefabricated huts to clothing.

Company of Adventurers: The Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Newman, Peter. London: Penguin Books, 1987.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. xxviii-ix: Returned to English possession by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, York Factory was sacked nearly seventy years later by a valiant raiding party of French marines who had dashed north from the West Indies during the American Revolution. Joseph Colen, the HBC Chief Factor in charge of rebuilding it (and York Factory’s first resident intellectual; he moved in with a library of fourteen hundred books), decided to shift operations to their present site….

In the Lena Delta: A Narrative of the Search for Lieut.-Commander DeLong and His Companions; Followed by an Account of the Greely Relief Expedition, and a Proposed Method of Reaching the North Pole.

Melville, George Wallace. Edited by Melville Philips. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1885.
  • 1879-81 US North Pole Expedition (commanded by George De Long aboard Jeannette).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

This was the crucial expedition in finding the fate of DeLong and the Jeannette.

The Great Frozen Land (Bolshaia Zemelskija Tundra). Narrative of a Winter Journey across the Tundras and a Sojourn among the Samoyads.

Jackson, Frederick George. Edited from his Journals by Arthur Montefiore. London: Macmillan and Co, 1896.
  • 1893-94 British Russian Journey between White Sea and Kara Sea.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Purpose to test newly developed equipment in severe conditions, but also to “visit and, for some months, to live with that primitive group of the human family, the Samoyads of the Great Frozen Tundra of Arctic Russia; to dwell in their tents, to eat of their food, to go and come with them in their daily life, to share their labour and their rest; to mark their ways and seek their motives, to note their relations to one another, and to learn, if possible, something of their sense of a higher influence” (p. ix).

Under the Northern Lights, with Illustrations by G. R de Wilde.

MacGahan, Januarius A. (London: Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876).
  • 1875-76 Private Expedition to Magnetic North Pole and North West Passage (Captain Allen Young aboard Pandora).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Narrative of Captain Allen Young's expedition in his yacht Pandora (later the Jeannette), 1875-76, into Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, and into Peel Sound. Also contains an account of Young's sledge trips during M'Clintock's Fox Expedition. The Voyage was privately organized, its object to sail to the magnetic pole by way of Lancaster Sound and from there negotiate the North West Passage. They reached Beechey Island where they found a number of relics left by earlier expeditions but were finally beset by ice in Franklin Strait. There were two other works written on this expedition, both by the commander, one was privately published and contained photographs. (ABEBooks description.)

South: A Memoir of theEndurance Voyage.

Shackleton, Ernest, Sir. New York: Carroll & Graff, 1998.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 93, [after abandoning the Endurance]: In addition to the daily hunt for food, our time was passed in reading the few books that we had managed to save from the ship. The greatest treasure in the library was a portion of the Encyclopædia Britannica. This was being continually used to settle the inevitable arguments that would arise. The sailors were discovered one day engaged in a very heated discussion of the subject of Money and Exchange. They finally came to the conclusion that the Encyclopædia, since it did not coincide with their views, must be wrong. ‘For descriptions of every American town that ever has been, is, or ever will be, and for full and complete biographies of every American statesman since the time of George Washington and long before, the Encyclopædia would be hard to beat. Owing to our shortage of matches we have been driven to use it for purposes other than the purely literary ones, though; and one genius having discovered that the paper used for its pages had been impregnated with saltpeter, we can now thoroughly recommend it as a very efficient pipe-lighter.’ [Unclear why this paragraph is in Shackleton’s quotes; could these passages be quoted from Worsley’s diary?]

“There she blows:” A Narrative of a Whaling Voyage, in the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans.

Ely, Ben-Ezra Stiles. Edited…by Curtis Dahl. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1976. [First published 1849.].
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Originally published in 1849, this modern edition of Ben Ely's personal account of whaling off Madagascar aboard the bark Emigrant includes a biographical introduction and much additional information by Ely's great-grandson. Facsimile of original title page. ALBION, p. 202.

Vitus Bering: The Discovery of the Bering Strait

Lauridsen, Peter. Revised by the Author, and Translated from the Danish by Julius E. Olson. With an Introduction to the American Edition by Frederick Schwatka. Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1889.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

A fascinating biography of the famous Danish-Russian explorer of the Far East of Siberia and the Northern Pacific. The frequent accounts of reading were not from books usedat sea as most of our examples are but are later readings, included here to give some insights into a significant early expedition.

The Diary of Lieutenant Charles W R Royds. RN Expedition to the Arctic 1901-1904.

Royds, Charles W. R., Lieutenant. Bridwood, NSW, Australia, T. R. Royds, 2001.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Royds was the First Lieutenant on Scott’s Discovery expedition, and was involved in virtually all operations of the ship and the expedition, including ship’s discipline. It’s a rather ponderous (and heavy) tome but full of information about the expedition. He mentions the Cap’t. frequently but I didn’t seem to learn much about Scott from it. He frequently played the piano or pianola for a couple hours at a time. He was clearly a steady reader and names titles but gives little insight into his reactions to the books he read. Here are some examples of reading and related matters:

The Church and the Sailor: A Survey of the Sea-Apostolate Past and Present.

Anson, Peter F. London: John Gifford, 1948.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Catholic missions to seamen clearly lagged behind the Protestant efforts throughout the 19th century, most Catholic activity as outlined here occurring in the late 19th century and concentrating on the liturgical rather than literary needs of seamen. There was some interest in developing seaman’s institutes, including some reading rooms, but the efforts seem modest at best.

The Arctic in the Middle Ages,

Vaughan, Richard. Journal of Medieval History8 (1982) 313-42.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

An overview of knowledge of the Arctic in the middle ages. Claims that any one of the writers displays woeful ignorance, but collectively they provide a good picture of the medieval Arctic, from cold to frostbite, from skies to polar bears, to unicorn horns. The writers he cites are Saxo Grammaticus who is in “the very first rank of medieval writers about the north” and who wrote about geysers and volcanoes in Iceland, and Finnish use of skies. See his History of the Danes, 2 volumes, 1978-9.

Titian Ramsay Peale 1799-1885, and His Journals of the Wilkes Expedition.

Poesch, Jessie. Philadelphia, Pa: American Philosophical Society, 1961.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This book constitutes a fairly broad biographical introduction to Titian Peale, as well as his journals of the Wilkes expedition, not a happy camper much of the time and bitterly disappointed afterwards, when his work was denigrated and to some extent perverted by other parties. But much of it is fascinating and worth reading, even in the tiny font APS has chosen for this book.

Come North with Me: An Autobiography.

Balchen, Bernt. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Balchen, Bernt, 1899-1979—Norwegian/American Explorer and Pilot. From a very early age Balchen was fascinated by the allure of the Polar regions and the prospect of using aviation to explore them. From 1925 until well after World War II he was involved in many of the most dramatic and often dangerous exploits of many of the Polar explorers and he knew most of them: Amundsen, Nobile, Ellsworth, Byrd, etc. and he is widely believed to be the first person to fly over both Poles, with Amundsen in the North and Byrd in the South. He held dual citizenship of both Norway and the United States, and served in the US Army Air Force in secret operations supporting the Norwegian resistance during the World War II.

Statistische und ethnographische Nachrichten uber die russischen Besitzungen an der Nordwestkuste von Amerika.

Wrangell, Ferdinand Petrovich, baron. St. Petersburg, 1839.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

An important work relating to the Northwest Coast, with much material concerning the native tribes of Alaska and the Indians of the Northwest, including quite detailed explanations of the Aleutian language and vocabularies of two California tribes. Wrangel was appointed governor of Russian America in 1827 and deserves much credit for initiating the development of civilization in Alaska. He was responsible for surveying much of the Northwest Coast, commenced the building of roads and other internal improvements, reformed the administration, and promoted missionary work among the natives. He foresaw the great future of Alaska and was keenly aware of the need for inducements for capitalistic investment there. He opened and regulated the operation of mines in Alaska, introduced potato culture, and urged the mother country to organize a fur company. This work is a compendium of valuable ethnographic and geographic data, and in addition to Wrangel's work, includes Father Veniaminov's description of Aleut character, a vocabulary of the Kuskikvims, and a survey of American sources regarding the peoples of the Northwest Coast. Also found herein is a description of the climate of Sitka and other locations in Alaska, and an interesting comparative vocabulary of eight Northwest Coast tribes. The folding map depicts the mainland of Alaska and the adjoining islands. A nice copy of a scarce work about Russian Alaska, and a mine of Northwest Coast ethnographic data. The NUC locates nine copies of this work. HOWES W689, "aa." SABIN 105519, 2711 (refs). LADA-MOCARSKI 106. WICKERSHAM 5875. APPLETON'S