Big Dead Place.

Johnson, Nicholas. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2005.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An antidote to any romanticizing of Antarctic work, esp. with NSF, who Johnson derides as unknowing and stupid bureaucrats. Johnson for all his humor suffered from depression and committed suicide in 2014. There is a bit of reading, and quite a bit about videos replacing books and stateside fashions dictating inappropriate programs, e.g.:

The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley): A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest Peak in North America.

Stuck, Hudson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914.
  • 1913-18 US Private Journeys round the Coast and Interior of Alaska (Hudson Stuck, “Archbishop of the Yukon”).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Unfortunately, most of the readings recorded in Stuck’s first book have only to do with temperature readings, with a few minor exceptions, compared to the prodigious reading recorded in his other books.

1929-47 Libraries at Little America, 1929-30, 1934-35, 1935, 1940-41, 1946-47 (commanded by Admiral Richard Byrd)

  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

There are several mysteries about the libraries and books at the successive bases begun and used by Richard Byrd: who was responsible for selecting the books, were they all donated or were some purchased, and were they disassembled at the end of each mission or were they allowed to float away along with the bases themselves. There is little doubt that the leadership of Little America saw their book collections as vital components of the psychological health of the personnel. [See David H. Stam, “Byrd’s Books: The Libraries of Little America I-III. ” Coriolis: Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime History vol. 6 no. 1, and his Adventures in Polar Reading: The Book Cultures of High Latitudes. New York: The Grolier Club, 2019. pp. 263

Outfits for a Whaling Voyage.

Kirby, H. S. New Bedford, MA: n.p, [probably 1850s by H. S. Kirby, Dealer in ship chandlery and hardware, New Bedford], n.d.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

p. 3: outline has as its last item: “Ship’s library”:

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….

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 Voyage of the ‘Why Not ?’ in the Antarctic: the Journal of the Second French South Polar Expedition, 1908-1910

English Version by Philip Wash. New York, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911. [Reprinted Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1978].
  • 1908-10 Second French South Polar Expedition (Charcot on Pourquoi-pas?).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Charcot’s is a rather ponderous book about an important expedition, with several historical excurses in which he consistently praises Antarctic explorers, as if to elevate himself.

On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds,

Whitney, Caspar W. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine XCII (1896) in Five Parts with separate paginations for each.
  • 1894-95 US Overland Journey of Casper Whitney in the Barren Lands.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 360, on the Chipewyans on Athabaska Lake: It is headquarters of one of the four districts into which this vast fur-bearing land of one million square miles is divided by the Hudson Bay Company; the chief forwarding point for the merchandise which the company sends in for trade, and the fur the Indians send out as pay; a general distributing post-office of the four yearly mails which reach this land, where man is but a mere track upon the snow, and not above one hundred of the roughly approximated ten thousand read English writing. It is the most important North-land mission of the Roman Catholic Oblates Fathers, and it is practically the northern boundary of the Cree and the southern boundary of the Montagnaise Indian family, which in its various branches spreads toward the Arctic Ocean.

A Report on the Resources of Iceland and Greenland.

Peirce, Benjamin Mills, compiler. Washington, DC: GPO, 1868.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

This is a report commissioned by William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, on the desirability of acquiring Iceland and Greenland for the US, just as the U.S. had acquired a few Caribbean islands and Alaska.

Race for the Pole.

Weems, John Edward. Preface by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. New York: Henry Holt, 1960.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Generally a whitewash of the Peary legend and legacy (mainly about the 1908-09 expedition) written as a homely narrative based according to Weems on thorough documentation. Although there is a decent bibliography one can’t find documentation for any given passage.

“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).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

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

Address, on the Subject of a Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas…April 3, 1836.

Reynolds, Jeremiah N. New York: Harper, 1836.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Recounts importance of maritime power to U.S. for commerce, yielding the North and Arctic to Britain which he says will find the Northwest Passage, and arguing for scientific exploration (p. 22-3) without immediate dividends though the practical benefits will soon follow. His proposal is for a voyage of discovery to the Pacific and Southern Oceans.

A Woman’s Way through Unknown Labrador: An Account of the Exploration of the Nascaupee and George Rivers.

Hubbard, Mrs. Leonidas. New York: McClure Co., 1908.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Preface: This book is the result of a determination on my part to complete Mr. Hubbard's unfinished work, and having done this to set before the public a plain statement, not only of my own journey, but of his as well. For this reason I have included the greater part of Mr. Hubbard's diary, which he kept during the trip, and which it will be seen is published exactly as he wrote it, and also George Elson's account of the last few days together, and his own subsequent efforts.

Voyage of the United States Frigate Potomac…1831-34.

Reynolds, Jeremiah N. New York: Harper, 1835.
  • 1831-34 US Circumnavigation (Downes aboard Potomac ).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This voyage spent a little time in the Falklands and saw a few icebergs but it was not an Antarctic voyage. Reynolds, however, is an interesting character who influenced Poe with Mocha Dick and Poe died with delirious shouts of Reynolds name, espoused Symmes theory of the hollow earth, and almost single-handedly pushed for the U.S. Exploring Expedition, whose command eventually went to Wilkes. Here Reynolds asks for a strong navy in defense of American commerce, dedicated the work to Secretary and Officers of the Navy (with whom he later fought). His incisive and sharply sardonic style is best scene in his “Correspondence” a few years later with Harlan Davidson, Secretary of the Navy, whom he attacks for his delaying tactics over the expedition, which was approved 4 or 5 years before its departure.