Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923.

Grant, Shelagh D. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
 Preview 

Fascinating book on the introduction of European-based law into a culture that had no reason to understand it, given its communitarian consensual approach to justice. Well-written and badly proofed, but worth the read.

Icebound in Antarctica

Lewis, David and Mimi George. London: Secker & Warburg, 1987.
  • 1982-84 Australian Yacht Cruises (aboard Dick Smith Explorer).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 81, on meeting the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Markov: There were sixteen women on their ship, most in their thirties and forties. Some were very good-looking. I noticed. Some were sailors; some laundry workers. We tied to a rope a copy of Voyage to the Ice, the story of my 1977-8 expedition. It was hauled up and we received in return a guide to Leningrad’s Hermitage Museum.

Among the Magi

Sponholz, Martin. https://www.antarctican.org/memoirs-diaries?rq=sponholz.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This memoir by Society member Martin Sponholz recounts his experiences at Plateau Station and the Japanese Showa Station in the 1960's. It has never been published, but has appeared on other websites in the past. We thought it deserved a home with the Antarctican Society, with Marty's permission.

Cruising in the Antarctic.

Solyanik, A. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956.
  • 1952-53 Russian Whaling Voyage.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Recounts a whaling journey from Odessa to Antarctica in 1952-53 in a flotilla of 16 ships. Rather typical Soviet narrative with great harmony, a few problems heroically overcome, and excellent discipline:

Alone to the South Pole.

Kagge, Erling. Oslo: Cappelens Forlag, 1993.
  • 1992-93 Norwegian Solo Expedition to South Pole.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An unsupported sledging and ski trip from the Ronne Ice Shelf near the Ellsworth Mountains to the South Pole, ca. 1300 km, with use of GPS and maps. He provides one of the best synopses of expedition reading, at a time when books and reading are being replaced in Antarctica by videos, albeit with a small group of titles.

Tammarniitt (mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63.

Tester, Frame James and Peter Kulchyski. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 1994.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
 Preview 

Examines government involvement in Northern Canada which led to relocation of Inuit from the east coast of Hudson's Bay to the high Arctic, the Henik Lake and Garry Lake famines, the establishment of Whale Cove in response to inland famines in the Keewatin, and the second wave of state expansion in the 1950's.

Roald Amundsen’s Belgica Diary: The first Scientific Expedition to the Antarctic.

Amundsen, Roald. Edited by Hugo Decleir. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1999.
  • 1897-99 Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Gerlache de Gomery aboard Belgica).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This first English publication of Amundsen’s daybook from the Belgica trip, together with connective commentary by the editor about each segment of the trip, is a surprising volume for a number of reasons. It presents a rather different picture of Amundsen than the more affectless hero of his later works. Here is the second mate, concerned about the welfare of ship and crew, even-headed except when learning of Gerlache’s deceit excluding him of the potential captaincy of the expedition. Much of the book goes along monotonously with routine weather reports that are interspersed with moments of real excitement and danger. His friendship with Doctor Cook comes across very clearly, but his rather frequent acknowledgment of God and his benign guidance is unexpected. There appears to be nothing about any reading he may have done during the trip, but he does describe briefly the pinup contest that Gerlache makes much of. The book gives some excerpts from diaries of other officers, including this from Henryk Arctowski:

A Brief Narrative of an Unsuccessful Attempt to Reach Repulse Bay, through Sir Thomas Rowe’s Welcome, in His Majesty’s Ship Griper, in the Year 1824

Lyon, George Francis. London: John Murray, 1825.
  • 1824 British Voyage to Repulse Bay (aboard Griper, commanded by Captain George F. Lyon).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 27: The agreeable visits from ship to ship, which so pleasingly break in on the monotony of a Polar voyage, were now denied us, but I was amply compensated for the want of a more extensive society, by having the happiness of knowing that I had officers and men with whom I was confident of continuing on the most friendly terms. We had already in our passage across the Atlantic arranged our little plans of improvement and amusement, and I looked forward with pleasure to the approach of winter.

Tom Cringle’s Log.

Scott, Michael. Two Volumes. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1833.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Early maritime fiction, sometimes compared to Marryat’s work. There is a good deal of material, not very respectful, about black sailors. Not much reading amidst the swashbuckling, except for burials. An example:

The Krassin.

Parijourire, Maurice. Trans. by Lawrence Brown. New York: Macaulay Co., 1929.
  • 1928 Russian Rescue Operation for Nobile.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
 Preview 

Russian ice-breaker involved in Nobile rescue in 1928. A romanticized and heavily pro-Soviet account.

The Light that Failed.

Kipling, Rudyard. Revised ed. New York 1899.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

The Memorial University in St Johns, Newfoundland, has a copy of Kipling’s The Light that Failed. (Revised ed. New York 1899). It has a note on the cover that “This book was on the “Roosevelt” 83 degrees North, the time Perry [Peary] discovered the North Pole 1909.” Question is whether this might have been a title from the American Seamen’s Friend Society portable library that went on that voyage and is now at Mystic Seaport library, but lacking the books from the box.

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.