Vihjalmur Stefansson, Robert Bartlett, and the Karluk Disaster: A Reassessment.

Cavell, Janice. Journal of the Hakluyt Society (January 2017). 22 p.
  • 1913-16 Canadian Arctic Expedition (Led by Stefansson with Captain Bob Bartlett commanding the Karluk).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 12: Several of the ship’s company would later recall that Stefansson had been reading about the Jeannetteexpedition just before he left [the Karlak], and they speculated that fear had driven him away.

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

Stefansson, Viljhamur. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

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.

Discovery: The Story of the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition.

Byrd, Richard Evelyn. New York: Putnam’s, 1935.
  • 1933-35 Byrd Second Antarctic Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Byrd’ second expedition (1933-1935), again settled at the still usable Little America, emphasizing science and technology at considerable expense for a wholly private expedition. The technology included four airplanes, various tractors, and snowmobiles. The trip included Byrd’s near-fatal solitary period at Bolling Advanced Weather Base recounted in Alone.

Captain Scott’s Desert Island Discs: A Favour of What Were the Happening Sounds in Antarctica 100 Years Ago.

Rees, Jasper. (Wednesday, 11 April 2012) [Online source unknown.].
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Centenaries are sizeable business in 2012. It just so happens that the Olympics are coming to the United Kingdom for the third time in a year which finds us thinking very hard about if being British still means the same thing as it did 100 years when two momentous calamities singed themselves into the national psyche: the Titanic sank, and Captain Scott and his four companions never made it back from the South Pole.

A Voyage Around the World 1826-1829.

Litke, Frederic. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Kingston, ONT: Limestone Press, 1987.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
 Preview 

Trip on Seniavin to survey coast of Kamchatka, the Okhotsk Sea, and the Shantar Islands. Travels from Kronstadt to Portsmouth, Rio, Valparaiso, Sitka, & Kamchatka. Stop in Sitka to observe the Russian colonies there under the Russian-American Company in New Archangel. Baron Wrangell was governor and the fort itself had been rebuilt after being destroyed by the Americans.

Birdie Bowers: Captain Scott’s Marvel.

Strathie, Anne. Stroud, UK: History Press, 2012.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Biography of the sailor who went to the South Pole and then died with Scott in 1912. Brought up an evangelical whose father was a Freemason, the biography shows a gradual ebbing of his faith through the early part of his career until he was summoned by Scott from the Royal Indian Marines.

First on the Antarctic Continent, Being an Account of the British Antarctic Expedition 1898-1900

Borchgrevink, Carsten E. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1980 [Reprint 1901].
  • 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Borchgrevink comes across as a sanctimonious sycophant, at least at the beginning, full of himself and his role in “the world’s history.” For contrast from an antagonist, see Louis Charles Bernacchi who detested Borchgrevink. Pretty clear that this is one of those self-serving travel accounts which conceals the depths of animosity that developed within his staff.

Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen: Ambition and Tragedy in the Antarctic.

Thomson, David. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002 [first published 1977].
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

A revision of a pre-Huntford critical work on Scott, though he says he didn’t know he was writing a “debunking” biography in 1977. Doesn’t have the acerbic bite of Huntford, but has something critical to say about all three explorers.

Polar Pioneers. John Ross and James Clark Ross.

Ross, J. M. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

A joint biography of uncle and nephew with much on other explorers of the time, e.g., Parry. There is an impressive body of contemporary literature surrounding the Rosses and Parry which is well-described here, including the acrimony between uncle and nephew, John and James.

A Voyage Around the World with the Romanzov Exploring Expedition in the years 1815-1818 in the Brig Rurik, Captain Otto von Kotzebue.

Chamisso, Adelbert von. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

p. 27, a paeon to the son of Kotzebue, the German-born, Russian sea captain on his circumnavigation: How often in the far ends of the earth, namely on O-Wahu [O’ahu], Guaján [Guam], etc., have I been praised for my small share in the enterprise of his son, in order to cast a hem of the mantle of his fame over me. Everywhere we heard his name mentioned. American newspapers reported that The Stranger had been performed to extraordinary applause. All the libraries in the Aleutian Islands, as far as I have investigated them, consisted of a single volume of the Russian translation of Kotzebue.

Toughing it Out: The Adventure of a Polar Explorer and Mountaineer.

Hempleman-Adams, David. London: Orion, 1992.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
    Arctic Reading: General
    Maritime Reading
    Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Includes solo trip to South Pole, yacht trip to South Magnetic Pole, and various North Pole attempts. Mills calls him a “pole-grabber” and his great disappointment is failure to achieve the North Pole.

Vitus Bering: The Discoverer of 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: Russia
 Preview 

A defense of Baring and his achievements verging on hagiography, taking on his early critics quite convincingly.

Kah´Da: Life of a North Greenland Eskimo Boy.

MacMillan, Donald Baxter. Garden City. NY: Doubleday, 1930.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A juvenile about the Smith Sound Eskimos, with whom MacMillan had lived for a total of six years.

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.