Cape Clay Diary, March 1 – June 21, 1884.

Brainard, David L. Dartmouth Digital Collections. https://collections.dartmouth.edu/teitexts/brainard-diary/diplomatic/brainard-2-diary-diplomatic.html.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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To an almost hallucinatory degree, this diary by one of the six survivors is remarkably full of recipes and lists of foods and ingredients. A veritable wish list for foods, and even desirable books, as in entry below:

Naval Stories.

Leggett, William. New-York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1834. [Byron quote on title page:.
  • Maritime Reading
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I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

The Great Frozen Land (Bolshaia Zemelskija Tundra). Narrative of a Winter Journey across the Tundras and a Sojourn among the Samoyads.

Jackson, Frederick George. Edited from his Journals by Arthur Montefiore. London: Macmillan and Co, 1896.
  • 1893-94 British Russian Journey between White Sea and Kara Sea.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Purpose to test newly developed equipment in severe conditions, but also to “visit and, for some months, to live with that primitive group of the human family, the Samoyads of the Great Frozen Tundra of Arctic Russia; to dwell in their tents, to eat of their food, to go and come with them in their daily life, to share their labour and their rest; to mark their ways and seek their motives, to note their relations to one another, and to learn, if possible, something of their sense of a higher influence” (p. ix).

The Log of the Scotia Expedition, 1902-4.

Bruce, William Speirs. Edited by Peter Speak. With a foreword by Sir Vivian Fuchs. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992.
  • 1902-04 Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (Bruce on Scotia).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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First Edition of the narrative of the 1902-04 Scotia Expedition to the Antarctic, published 90 years later, including Bruce's log, photographs, and plans as originally intended. Speak has added an introduction, explanatory notes, and a glossary of scientific terms.

South Polar Times

SPRI MS 505/4: Typescript.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Only copy, owned by Cherry-Garrard and largely produced by him. Introduction written later by Frank Debenham. No mention of Scott’s Polar party. “Ed., typed & illus. largely by me”—ACG. Drawings by Cherry have a remarkable delicacy.

Roald Amundsen.

Bomann-Larsen, Tor. Foreword by Pen Hadow. Translated by Ingrid Christophersen. Stroud, Glocs., UK: Sutton Publishing, 2006.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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Bomann attempts to do to Amundsen what Huntford did to Scott. Most of the time he refers to Amundsen as “the polar explorer” as if he thought himself the only one. Apart from a reference to Amundsen’s childhood reading of and fascination with Sir John Franklin, I found nothing about reading.

Master of Desolation: The Reminiscences of Capt. Joseph J. Fuller.

Fuller, Joseph J. Edited with introduction and notes by Briton Cooper Busch. Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1980.
  • 1873-75 American Kerguélen Sealing Expeditions.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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An informal account of a whaleman and two of his sealing voyages to the Kerguélen Islands, the first fairly routine [aboard Roswell King, 1873-75], the second a shipwreck [Pilot’s Bride, 1880-83] and a difficult period of survival there. He clearly was not a great reader but there are a few references.

Towards the Poles.

United States. Navy Department. Prepared for the Arctic and Cold Weather Cordinating Committee of the Office of Naval Operations. [Washington]: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A fascinating harbinger of U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (1957-58). One could only wish, sixty years later, that the Navy had distributed this work widely among its officers and men to help them understand what they were dealing with. The work consists of a series of timelines of polar expeditions, including in addition to the introductory chronologies, other sections on the Franklin Search, the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage. Part II includes two chapters on Antarctica, the second another timeline. Appendices include an Arctic index, a select bibliography, and a glossary.

Roughing It in the Bush; Or, Life in Canada.

Moodie, Susanna. Two volumes. New York: George P. Putnam, 1852.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Mrs. Moodie (nee Strickland) sailed on an immigrant ship of mainly Scots headed to Canada in 1832. She writes with a refreshing candour about the trials and tribulations of life in the Canadian bush, direct enough to warrant a Norton Critical Edition in 2007, with extensive supporting material about her life and work.

Antarctica Sixty Years Ago: A Re-appraisal of the British Expedition 1934-1937.

Bertram, Colin. Polar Record 32 (181) April 1996, p. 98-183.
  • 1934-37 British Graham Land Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 151: Our reading matter, our library, was limited and exiguous. We had a pleasing special bookplate that may be a collector’s item one day. We had a good collection of Antarctic exploratory histories of past expeditions, a few basic reference books, to which each of us had added a personal collection limited, I think it was, to 10 volumes each. The voyage of the Beagle and Anson’s voyage I read while we sailed the Southern Ocean, and we compared the size and shape of Beagle with that of Penola. Darwin was a gentleman scientist; for him no hauling on the ropes watch by watch, by day and by night. Nor did Darwin nor Anson cook for the entire ship’s company, baking bread and washing up: times had changed, and they have changed again since. Darwin in Beagle started out at age 22, whereas I was already 23. The incredible genius of Darwin must astonish us all. Would that one could say with him in his biography: ‘My industry has been nearly as great as it could have been in the observation and collection of facts. What is far more important, my love of natural science has been steady and devout.’

James Eights, 1798-1882: Antarctic Explorer, Albany Naturalist, His Life, His Times, His Works.

McKinley, Daniel L. Albany, NY: State Education Department, 2005. New York Museum Bulletin 505.
  • 1829-30 First Preliminary US Exploring Expedition (Annawan and Seraph with Captains Nathaniel Palmer and Benjamin Pendleton).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Eights was listed as “Naturalist and Surgeon” on the Annawan Antarctic voyage of 1829-1831 and there are fragmentary results of his work on natural history in the published record, but he is an enigmatic figure, excluded like Reynolds from the Wilkes ExEx in 1838. I see no signs of his readings in the impressive library he helped create for the preliminary expedition.