Sailors’ Life and Sailors’ Yarns

Codman, John . By Captain Ringbolt [pseud.] New-York: C. S. Francis, 1847.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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A journalistic kind of composite by a somewhat pious and rather strict naval disciplinarian. The following extracts some may read as the comments of a urbane writer of sound but severe morals; I see them as those of a pompous ass.

Fighting the Polar Ice.

Fiala, Anthony. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1906.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 61-62: The Christmas and the New Year holidays passed happily. We celebrated them with banquets, to which our hard working steward contributed many delicacies. A Christmas issue of the Arctic Eagle, our camp newspaper, was printed, Assistant Commissary Stewart making up the forms and running the press, and Seaman Montrose, who had once been a printer, acting as compositor. Nearly all the members of the party contributed to its columns and much amusement at its quips and personals was the result.*

The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions.

Stefansson, Viljhamur. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Stef’s most famous of many books, admired by many, reviled by some including Amundsen, who said it represented a danger in its claim that adoption of Inuit customs would assure safety in the north. The book is prefaced by testimonials from both Peary and Greely.

Within the Circle: Portrait of the Arctic.

Stefansson, Evelyn. New York: Scribner’s, 1945.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 32: Since 1913 a journal printed in the Eskimo language has published twelve monthly issues each year in Godhavn. Avangnamioq, the Northlander, it is called. It is distributed throughout North Greenland as soon as it is off the press. It is sent in yearly volumes to the rest of the country from its printing plant, which is now housed in the town hall, the House of Assembly.

A Forgotten Explorer: Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink

Evans, Hugh Blackwall. Polar Record 17 (1984) 221-35.
  • 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Account of one of the first to set foot on Antarctica (Cape Adare Jan. 1895). Points out a good number of Borchgrevink’s claims for which there is no evidence, allowing the inference that Borchgrevink was a great liar.

Zebulon: Or, The Moral Claims of Seamen Stated and Enforced.

Harris, John. First American revised edition. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, 1837.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

A polemical tract about the neglect of the moral condition of seamen in evangelical work. The proposed solutions include development of safe Christian sailor’s homes in all major ports, banking and credit institutions so sailors will save rather than spend their money on drink and prostitutes, and provision of Bibles and literacy training for all.

Eighteen Months on a Greenland Whaler

Faulkner, Joseph P. New York: Published for the Author, 1878.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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Rather charming and humorous writer who was a compositor, Civil War soldier, printer, etc., and nearly blind, before shipping to Greenland in May 1865-66.

A Frenchman in Search of Franklin: De Bray’s Arctic Journal, 1852-1854.

De Bray, Emile Frederic. Trans. and ed. by William Barr. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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De Bray was influenced by Joseph-René Bellot’s service on an English expedition as a volunteer for the Franklin Search with Sir Edward Belcher aboard HMS Resolute. He served in the Arctic from 1852 to 1854, commanded a number of sledge expeditions, and left the Resolute shortly before it was abandoned. He was a friend of Jules Verne who used De Bray’s Arctic knowledge in a novel based on the Franklin Search.

Archives.

Marvin, Ross. Chemung County Historical Society, 415 E Water St. Elmira, NY.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1905-06 US North Polar Expedition under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Log book kept by Ross G. Marvin July 1905-Jan 1906, during Peary’s North Pole attempt. Marvin was an Assistant to Peary, and Henson was Peary’s Personal Assistant. Marvin also kept a personal diary from July 15 1905 to Sept. 12, 1905.

The South Polar Trail.

Joyce, Ernest Edward Mills. London: Duckworth, 1929.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A participant’s account of Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party, the party assigned to place depots between the Beardmore Glacier and Cape Evans, for Shackleton’s proposed transit from the South Pole to the Ross Sea. The depots were placed successfully but the transit never happened. Three men died on this part of Shackleton’s expedition, thus placing an asterisk on the frequent claim that Shackleton never lost a man.

To the Sixth Continent: The Second German South Polar Expedition.

Filchner, Wilhelm. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1994.
  • 1911-13 Second German Antarctic Expedition (Filchner).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Filchner’s original plans mirrored Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition a few years later, with two ships and men starting from both the Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea then meeting mid-way. Shackleton and Nordenskjöld helped him get a ship, the Deutschland, but he could get only one and went only to the Weddell Sea. He named the iceshelf after Kaiser Wilhelm II, but the Kaiser renamed it after Filchner. The ship was trapped in ice but was freed in the austral summer of 1912. The expedition is noted for its animosities, hostility not indicated in the passages here.

The Race to the White Continent.

Gurney, Alan. New York: Norton, 2000.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Describes and compares three major Antarctic expeditions of the late 1830s, one French (d’Urville), one British (Ross), and one American (Wilkes).

Letterbooks.

Bryant, Henry. APS Mss. Collection 38, Vol. 1.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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January 15, 1903, Bryant to Commander Robert Peary, stating his skepticism toward the Smith Sound route to the North Pole: The chances of failure are too great to warrant further endeavor on the old lines. Suggests repeating the Fram experiment of forcing a ship north of Spitzbergen or better routes. Pledges $2000 to the Peary Arctic Club for this alternate proposal.