The Tragedy of the Italia, with the Rescuers to the Red Tent.

Giudici, Davide. New York: Appleton, 1929.
  • 1928 Italian North Pole Flight of Umberto Nobile (aboard the airship Italia).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

An account by an Italian reporter aboard a Russian icebreaker looking for Nobile after the airship had crashed.

“The North West Passage” Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship “Gjoa” 1903-1907 by Roald Amundsen with a Supplement by First Lieutenant Hansen Vice-Commander of the Expedition.

Amundsen, Roald. Two Volumes. (New York: Dutton, 1908).
  • 1903-07 Norwegian Northwest Passage Expedition (Roald Amundsen aboard Gjoa).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

A strangely colorless, almost vacuous account of a long expedition, at least in this translated prose. Volume I has only a few bookish references, a picture on p. 119 of a shelf of scientific books in the Villa ‘Magnet”, the small base building for magnetic observations. And a description of an Eskimo visit to the ship:

A Man’s Woman.

Norris, Frank. New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Norris’s turn-of-the-century novel is loosely based on George Washington De Long’s U.S. North Polar expedition aboard the Jeannette (1879-81). It borrows freely from the locale (Wrangell Island and environs), the beset and crushed ship, the forced march on ice and pressure ridges, the heroic commander, the few survivors finally rescued. He adds the love interest, a strong-minded woman who resists the commander, succumbs, marries, and subtly convinces the hero that he is the one who must achieve the North Pole for the United States, knowing his safe return to be doubtful. He sails from New York in a new ship clearly modeled on Nansen’s Fram. Sources in Greely’s expedition and parallels with Robert E. Peary, who had already begun his North Pole quest and was in Northern Ellesmere land at the time of publication, are easily drawn.

Three Years of Arctic Service, An Account of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881-84 and the Attainment of the Farthest North.

Greely, Adolphus Washington. Two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

These volumes are Greely’s personal, not official, somewhat sanitized version of his expedition and its aftermath. Much of the work is taken from Greely’s journals, and those passages are given within quotation marks, as in the original publication.

Shackleton’s Argonauts: A Saga of the Antarctic Icepacks.

Hurley, Frank. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1948.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 72-73: While on the subject of salvage [from the dying Endurance], I might add that I recovered the volumes of the encyclopaedia from the chief’s cabin and a large part of my own personal library, as well as several packs of cards. Many a day we had cause to bless the fact. What tedious hours were whiled away in reading; what wonderful and purely imaginary fortunes changed hands at poker patience.

Seasons with the Seahorses; Or, Sporting Adventures in the Northern Seas.

Lamont, James. New York: Harper, 1861.
  • 1858-59 British Private Journeys of "Sport and Discovery" (James Lamont).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 80, in a description of the cabin: As for reading, it is next to impossible, for I defy any body to read long sitting on a locker nine inches broad; also, the bunks are too dark, and if we try to read in them we generally go to sleep.

Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer.

Loomis, Chauncey C. New York: Knopf, 1971.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An excellent account of the life of the most eccentric of Arctic explorers who essentially abandoned his family in Cincinnati to pursue his Arctic dreams. Unprepared and inexperienced in Arctic ways, he adopted to and adapted Eskimo ways of living and survival by living with them for long periods and learning from them their secrets of survival. Both his origins and demise are clouded in mystery.

Journals of Samuel Hearne and Philip Turnor.

Hearne, Samuel; Turnor, Philip. Edited with Introduction and Notes by J. B. Tyrrell. Toronto: The Chaplain Society, 1934.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

This volume is chiefly about the surveyors recruited to the HBC to chart the immense territory of Prince Rupert’s Land in the latter18th century. The Introduction tells of recruiting them through the good offices of mathematician William Wales of Christ’s Hospital London, who recommended Philip Turnor for one of the surveyor posts.

A Naturalist at the Poles: The Life, Work & Voyages of Dr. W. S. Bruce the Polar Explorer.

Brown, R. H. Rudmose. London: Seeley, Service, 1923. [Five early chapters by W. G. Burn Murdoch].
  • Heroic Age 1901-1921.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Rudmose Brown, as he is often called, participated in only one Antarctic expedition, the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition organized by William Spires Bruce. But his influence in polar studies was extensive through his academic career, his high status in the geographical community, and his exceptional writing ability of which this book is a prime example.

Polar Extremes: The World of Lincoln Ellsworth.

Pool, Beekman H. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 2002.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

A sympathetic but not uncritical account of Ellsworth, his problem with his father, his relationship to Amundsen and Nobile on Svalberg, to Alaska flight, etc.

Labrador: Its Discovery, Exploration, and Development.

Gosling, William Gilbert. New York: John Lane, 1911.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 36: A book called the Chronicles of Eusebius, published by Henry Estienne in Paris, in 1512, describes seven savages who had been brought to Rouen from the country called Terre Neuve. There can be no doubt that the French fishermen, particularly from Normandy and Brittany, greatly preponderated in the fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador during the sixteenth century. The New Interlude, 1517, to be quoted fully later, laments that while the English were neglecting the countries discovered by them, “full a hundred sail,” of the French loaded with fish there every year. While some allowance must be made for poetic licence, it was no doubt mainly correct. John Rut encountered eleven Norman vessels in the harbour of St. John’s in August, 1527, and the St. Malòins showed by their opposition to Jacques Cartier in 1533 that they carried on a regular fishery in the Straits of Belle Isle, and probably in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well. In Edward VI’s Journal of his reign, he mentions that the French Ambassador informed him that the Emperor of Spain “had stayed certain French ships going fishing to Newfoundland.”

The Narrative of Captain David Woodard and Four Seamen, who Lost Their Ship while in a Boat at Sea, and Surrendered Themselves up to the Malays, in the Island of Celebes; …Holding Out a Valuable Seaman’s Guide… .

Woodard, David. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1804.
  • 1793-96 British Officer Voyage. Shipwreck of America and Survival (Captain David Woodard).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Introduction by William Vaughan is a veritable guide to reading for seamen. On January 20, 1793, Woodard, an English officer, “sailed as chief-mate in the American ship Enterprise, captain Hubbard, from Batavia, bound to Manila” (p. 2). In seeking provisions, Woodard in a small rowing boat with sail, and with five other sailors, was soon separated from his ship with no water, food, or compass. After other misadventures they fought with some Malays who killed one of their men and then stole the boat, leaving five men stranded and fleeing into the jungle. The Narrative is the rest of the story, plus a series of appendices telling other shipwreck tales.

Thin Edge of the World.

Migot, André. Boston: Little, Brown, 1956.
  • 1952-54 Double voyage of Frenchman André Migot to Kerguélen Islands and to the Mawson Base in Antarctica as doctor and naturalist.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A double expedition for something of a French loner with an Antarctic obsession. After a varied exploratory career, primarily in Tibet, Migot began this journey with a French expedition spending one year on the Kerguélen Islands as doctor to a 50-man contingent, as well as a biological researcher. As he was preparing to return he learned of a subsequent Australian expedition to Antarctica itself, intended to set up the Mawson base in the Australian sector of Antarctica. He applied, was accepted, and a month after the French left the Australians picked him up to go directly to the Australian bases on the continent where he again served as doctor and naturalist, although the trip only lasted three months.

An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, Wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa, in the Month of August, 1815, with an Account of the Sufferings of the Surviving Officers and Crew, Who were Enslaved by the Wandering Arabs, on the African Desart, or Zahahrah….

Riley, James. Hartford: Judd, Loomis, 1836.
  • 1815 US Naval Expedition to African West Coast (aboard Commerce commanded by James Riley).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 117, an attempt to recreate a reading experience of a letter with liberating news: My feelings, during the reading of this letter, may perhaps be conceived, but I cannot attempt to describe them; to form an idea of my emotions at that time, it is necessary for the reader to transport himself in imagination to the country where I then was, a wretched slave, and to fancy himself as having passed through all the dangers and distresses that I had experienced: reduced to the lowest pitch of human wretchedness, degradation, and despair, a skinless skeleton, expecting death at every instant: then let him fancy himself receiving such a letter from a perfect stranger, whose name he had never before heard, and from a place where there was not an individual creature that had ever before heard of his existence, and in one of the most barbarous regions of the habitable globe : let him receive at the same time clothes to cover and defend his naked, emaciated, and trembling frame, shoes for his mangled feet, and such provisions as he had been accustomed to in his happier days — let him find a soothing and sympathising friend in a barbarian, and one who spoke perfectly well the language of a Christian nation ; and with all this, let him behold a prospect of a speedy liberation and restoration to his beloved family: