Under Sail to Greenland, Being an Account of the Voyage of the Cutter “Direction”. 1929.

Allen, Arthur S., Jr. Philadelphia: Goodchild, 2002.
  • 1929 Private US Voyage to Greenland (aboard Direction with Arthur Allen and Rockwell Kent).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An easygoing and relaxed account of the Greenland trip by three twenty-year olds including Rockwell Kent (who took the trip for painting purposes primarily) in a small vessel which was wrecked near Godthaab in the summer of 1929. Tragic in that the author was killed in a car crash the month after returning to the US. A few reading and library references are included in this adventure:

The Lure of the Whaling Journal.

Johnson, Barbara. Manuscripts 23 (1971) 158-77.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

p. 162, Feb. 24, 1859: I am teaching Cooper Orthoepy and definitions for which he has generously offered me the large sum of one dollar.

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.

With Nansen in the North, A Record of the Fram Expedition in 1893-96.

Johansen, Hjalmar. New York: New Amsterdam Book Company [n.d., ca. 1897].
  • 1893-96 Norwegian North Pole Expedition (Fridthof Nansen aboard Fram).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

p. 40, Oct 1, 1893, Sunday and their first day of rest: In the forenoon we had some sacred music on the organ, and read books from our well-stocked library.

Silas: The Antarctic Diaries and Memoir of Charles S. Wright.

Wright, Charles S. (Silas). Edited by Colin Bull and Pat F. Wright. Illustrated by Pat F. Wright. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1996.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This is a rather thin diary of the Terra Nova expedition, fleshed out by the Editor’s commentary, and diary entries from other diaries for the corresponding dates, and illustrated by charming drawings of hundreds of topical subjects, mostly animals. We know that Wright was a very serious scientist as well as a reader; little of the reading is cited here but there are a few examples:

The Lord’s Librarians: The American Seamen’s Friend Society and their Loan Libraries 1837-1967

Stam, David H. Coriolis: Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime History III no. 1 (2012) 59 p. Online through Mystic Seaport.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

p. 1 Abstract: "The Lord's Librarians" describes in new detail the activities of the American Seamen's Friend Society in distributing loan libraries to merchant and naval ships for over 130 years. Based on the archives of the Society in the G.W. Blunt White Library at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the study examines the history of the Society in its efforts towards moral improvement of seamen, fostering temperance, reducing licentiousness, encouraging Sabbath worship and observation, countering swearing, and promoting thrift and financial responsibility among sailors. It examines the largely evangelical collection development policies for these compact 40-45 volume library boxes, and attempts to locate the surviving boxes and surviving books from these libraries. It ends with some unanswered questions which deserve further study.

Trial by Ice: The True Story of Murder and Survival on the 1871 Polaris Expedition.

Parry, Richard. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A rather pedestrian and purple account of the Polaris expedition of 1871, the death of Charles F. Hall, the separation of the ship from several of the crew, the stranded sailors’ remarkable survival, and the whitewash of the inquiry into the fate of Hall and the expedition.

A Selection of Papers on Arctic Geography and Ethnology/ Reprinted, and Presented to The Arctic Expedition of 1875….

Royal Geographical Society. By Robert Brown, Wrangell, Rink, Collinson, Markham, Simpson. (London: John Murray, 1875).
  • 1875-76 British Naval Expedition in Search of North Pole (Captain George Nares aboard Alert and Discovery).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Prior to the 1875 British Arctic Expedition to Greenland led by Nares, the RGS reissued articles published in its own Journal and Proceedings "for the use of the expedition". (Preface). Contents include: (1). On the Physical Structure of Greenland, by Robert Brown. (2). On the Best Means of Reaching the Pole, by Admiral Baron Von Wrangell. (3). On the Discoveries of Dr. Kane, U.S.A. (1853-55). by Dr. Rink. (4). The Arctic Current around Greenland, by Admiral C. Irminger. (5). Notes on the State of the Ice, and on the Indications of Open Water from Behring Strait to Bellot Strait, along the Coasts of the Arctic America and Siberia, including the Accounts of Anjou and Wrangell. by Vice-Admiral R. Collinson. - Ethnology - (1). Papers on the Greenland Eskimos. by Clements R. Markham. (2). On the Descent of the Eskimo. By Dr. Rink. (3). The Western Eskimo. by Dr. Simpson. (4). Report on the Anthropological Institute. Questions for Arctic Explorers.

Cold Comfort: My Love Affair with the Arctic.

Rowley, Graham W. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1996.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

This is a rather dry account of a mid-1930s expedition to map the coastline of Baffin Island and the Foxe Basin and also some archaeological work on Thule and Dorset cultures. There are scattered reading references:

Arctic Meeting at Chickering Hall. Plan for Exploration of the Arctic Regions,

Howgate, Henry W. Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 10 (1878) 276-98.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Includes meeting commentary by William Cullen Bryant, Bayard Taylor, Lord Dufferin, and Isaac Hayes. Hayes approved Howgate’s plan but recommended the mouth of Smith Sound rather than Lady Franklin Bay because he wasn’t confident that the later could be reached every year. He was right.

Sails over Ice.

Bartlett, Bob (Robert A.). New York: Scribner’s, 1934.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Bartlett’s slightly whimsical account of his cruises aboard his schooner, the Effie M. Morrisey. Although Bartlett was a prodigious reader (see accounts of him on the Karluk), there is little indication of his reading here, perhaps because most of the adventures recounted here took place during summer in the Arctic when he worked with his student sailors.

With Peary Near the Pole…

Astrup, Eivind. Translated from the Norwegian by H. J. Bull. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1898.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Astrup participated in two of Peary’s early Greenland expeditions.

Assault on Eternity: Richard Byrd and the Exploration of Antarctica, 1946-47.

Rose, Lisle Abbott. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980.
  • 1946-48 US Operation Highjump, Byrd’s Fourth Expedition to Little America (aboard USS Mount Olympus).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This is a true tale of daring and romance, of tedium and tragedy, of folly and heroism, of adventure enjoyed and adventure endured one-third of a century ago by some forty-seven hundred men in thirteen ships at the bottom of the earth.