Elisha Kent Kane and the Seafaring Frontier

Mirsky, Jeannette. . Edited by Oscar Handlin. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1954).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 55-56, on setting off on the first Grinnell expedition: I collected as I could some simple instruments for thermal and magnetic registration, which would have been of use if they had found their way on board. A very few books for the dark hours of winter, and a stock of coarse woolen clothing…constituted my entire outfit; and with these I made my report to Commodore Salter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

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.

Master Mariner and Arctic Explorer: A Narrative of Sixty Years at Sea from the Logs and Yarns of Captain J. E. Bernier.

Bernier, J. E. Ottawa, Ont.: Le Droit, 1939.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Autobiographical collage by the well-known Canadian mariner, with emphasis on his obsession with the North. Introduction by E.T. [?] is dedicated to Bernier’s wife and gives a succinct summary of Bernier’s life including his four Canadian government expeditions to the North. He was a dedicated Catholic, a lifelong teetotaler, and put his faith in divine Providence.

The Worst Journey in the World. [1910-12]

Cherry-Garrard, Apsley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1989 [1992]. First published London: Constable and Co., 1922.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Often thought the finest book on Antarctic exploration, this is a dramatic account of Scott's 1910-13 expedition. The expedition was comprised of three actual journeys: the depot journey, during which supplies were laid for the polar trip; the winter journey to Cape Crozier to visit the penguin rookery—the "worst journey" of the title; and the final, tragic attempt on the pole, during which Scott and four others perished. The story of Scott's last expedition is of course a great tale, and Cherry-Garrard uses his considerable skill as a writer to heighten the drama, aided also in his writing by suggestions from George Bernard Shaw.

Edge of the World: Ross Island Antarctica: A Personal and Historical Narrative.

Neider, Charles. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1974.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Neider tells much of the history of Antarctic exploration by focusing on the geographic area of Ross Island and the Ross Sea. The book has a good series of maps which helped me understand what I have often found a confusing place. The book itself is highly derivative, including long passages quoted from some very familiar works of the explorers, from Ross onwards, including Scott and Shackleton, but it also recounts the author’s own experiences and near disasters on his Deep Freeze expeditions to McMurdo and travels elsewhere in Antarctica.

The Arctic Regions: Illustrated with Photographs Taken on an Art Expedition to Greenland.

Bradford, William. Michael Lapides, Editor. Boston, MA: David R. Godine, in association with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2013.
  • 1869 US Greenland Expedition of William Bradford (aboard Panther).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

The narrative of Bradford’s 1869 original is all but unreadable in its original elephant folio format. This version offers a readable Bradford at last, with reduced text format and all the illustrations. The text is a fairly straightforward account of the Greenland voyage, with some good coverage of the natives encountered and especially of the Danish hospitality in several outports. Bradford proudly says at the outset that his ship, the Panther, was a temperance ship for all crew and passengers.

The American on the Endurance: Ice, Sea, and Terra Firma Adventures of William L. Bakewell.

Bakewell, William L. [Edited by Mary Elizabeth Rajala.] Munising, MI: Dukes Hall Publishing, 2004.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Homespun memoir of a footloose and feckless wanderer from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, who happened to be in Buenos Aires in 1914 when Shackleton was looking for an able bodied seaman and took Bakewell on for the voyage.

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
 Preview 

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.

The Bibliographical Miscellany.

Petheram, John, ed. 5 numbers printed. (London: John Russell Smith,1859).
  • 1812-13 British Naval Expedition in Northwest Passage Search (commanded by Thomas Button aboard Resolution).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

The first three numbers of this journal deal with the North-West Passage and the 1612-13 voyage of Sir Thomas Button.

Report on Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1883.

Garlington, Ernest A. Washington: Signal Office, 1883. Signal Office Notes No. 10, re the Yantic and Porteus debacle.
  • 1883 Lady Franklin Bay Relief Expedition.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 25-7: Scientific Outfit of the Lady Franklin Bay Relief Expedition of 1883. Memorandum B, includes the following items:

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.

To the Ends of the Earth: The Truth Behind the Glory of Polar Exploration.

Dippel. John V. H. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2018.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 17, re Belgica winter in 1897: They read and reread books on navigation and lighthouses, played whist, listened to records, told stale jokes—anything to break the monotony. They ached like teenagers for a glimpse of a woman. [Cook, First Antarctic Night, p. 250, 252]

Russian Expansion on the Pacific 1641-1850. An Account of the Earliest and Later Expeditions Made by the Russians along the Pacific Coast of Asia and North America….

Golder, Frank Aldred. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1914.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
 Preview 

p. 86: After reading the different accounts of navigation in the Arctic, and the fact that all attempts to sail east of the Koluima have failed, one is almost forced to believe that the cold is greater east of the river than west of it. It is, of course, impossible to prove or disprove this from the insufficient data at hand.

Northern Visions: New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History.

Abel, Kerry and Ken S. Coates, eds. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2001.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Canadian nationalists in the nineteenth century argued that the North, with its extremes of winter, distance, and isolation, defined the country's essential character and gave its population the resolve and determination necessary to create a prosperous nation. Promoters lauded its enormous economic potential while cursing its vast expanses and dangerous winters. Novelists, poets, and painters were awestruck by its boundless reaches and environmental diversity. Today, the North retains its complex place within the Canadian psyche, at once celebrated as the very essence of the nation, while being largely ignored by a population that clings to the Canada-USA border. Many have debated its significance in Canada's history, and have attempted to bring the region to the attention of the rest of the country by carving out a niche for northern history within the academic curriculum. The current generation of historians has a more ambitious and complex agenda. While they are interested in the North for its own sake, they also firmly believe that the study and teaching of Canadian history as a whole does not currently recognize the North's importance to the development of the nation.