Labrador, The Country and the People.

Grenfell, Wilfred T., et al. New York: Macmillan, 1909.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 175: The best educated people in the country at present are the Eskimo. Almost without exception they can read and write. Many can play musical instruments, share in part singing, and are well able to keep accounts, and know the value of thins. These accomplishments, entirely and solely due to the Moravian missionaries, have largely helped them to hold their own in trade, a faculty for want of which almost every aboriginal race is apt to suffer so severely.

Three Years of Arctic Service, An Account of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881-84 and the Attainment of the Farthest North.

Greely, Adolphus Washington. Two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

These volumes are Greely’s personal, not official, somewhat sanitized version of his expedition and its aftermath. Much of the work is taken from Greely’s journals, and those passages are given within quotation marks, as in the original publication.

At Sea with the Scientifics: The Challenger Letters of Joseph Matkin.

Matkin, Joseph. Edited by Philip F. Rehbock. (Honolulu, HA: University of Hawaii Press, 1992).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

An unusual contribution to our reader’s list from below decks. Matkin was a seaman, though a fairly well-educated one, on the Challenger, and uncharacteristically for lower deck men kept a journal, the basis of these personal letters about the trip.

North Pole Legacy: Black, White & Eskimo.

Counter, S. Allen. 2017.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Introduction by Deirdre C. Stam: By the 1980’s, when S. Allen Counter began to take an interest in the contact of Arctic explorer Robert Peary and his assistant Matthew Henson with the Greenland Inuit, it may have seemed to most readers that the story of the North Pole conquest was largely played out. The old debate of who got to the magic spot first seemed to have stalled with supporters of Peary and Frederick Cook at loggerheads. New insights into the exploration of the polar region were slow in coming, despite the partisan and non-partisan efforts of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, historians, latter-day explorers, and nautical experts to find the definitive answer to the Peary-Cook debates over who got there first, or indeed whether either made it at all. There were outposts of research such as The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center at Bowdoin College, of course, where curators diligently combed through hard evidence of all kinds to piece together a detailed and objective narrative of Peary’s years in the Arctic. By and large, however, by then public attention to exploration was focused elsewhere, such as continental Antarctica, outer space, and more mundane but promising regions of scientific research. The human element was certainly considered by researchers in Peary/Henson studies, but more through the lens of the hard rather than soft sciences. There were some exceptions. There had been published anthropological observations of the Inuit culture – most notably by explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson and even Peary himself. And interest in Henson largely invoked contemporary racial issues by the 1980’s. But in general public interest in exploration seemed to have turned elsewhere. Neurophysiologist and social historian Counter introduced a unique blend of methodologies to the understanding of the Peary/Henson experience in the far North with his book North Pole Legacy; Black, White and Eskimo (1991). Acting as participant observer and ultimately as actor in the lives of the explorers’ Inuit progeny, Counter overcame many physical and administrative barriers to develop personal relationships with the indigenous descendants of Peary and Henson, to elicit community memories of their forebears, and ultimately to bring about meetings in the U.S. of the explorers’ U.S. and Inuit descendants. Sharing the fact of African-American ancestry with Henson, Counter was particularly interested in the life experiences of Henson and his Inuit descendents and the possible role of racial prejudice in their lives.

The Seamen’s Friend: a Sketch of the American Seamen’s Friend Society by its Secretary.

Webster, George Sidney. New York: American Seamen’s Friend Society, 1932.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 9: NY Bethel Union formed June 4, 1821, modeled on the Bethel Union of London. Mariners’ Magazine in April 1825 advocated for a similar society in NY. By then, the Magazine said, there were seventy Bethel Unions, 33 Marine Bible societies, and 15 seamen’s churches and floating Bethels.

On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds,

Whitney, Caspar W. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine XCII (1896) in Five Parts with separate paginations for each.
  • 1894-95 US Overland Journey of Casper Whitney in the Barren Lands.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 360, on the Chipewyans on Athabaska Lake: It is headquarters of one of the four districts into which this vast fur-bearing land of one million square miles is divided by the Hudson Bay Company; the chief forwarding point for the merchandise which the company sends in for trade, and the fur the Indians send out as pay; a general distributing post-office of the four yearly mails which reach this land, where man is but a mere track upon the snow, and not above one hundred of the roughly approximated ten thousand read English writing. It is the most important North-land mission of the Roman Catholic Oblates Fathers, and it is practically the northern boundary of the Cree and the southern boundary of the Montagnaise Indian family, which in its various branches spreads toward the Arctic Ocean.

The Polar Regions.

Debenham, Frank. London: E. Benn, 1930.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 32ff. Chapter III on Polar Travel is a brief history of polar exploration, citing Frobisher, Hudson, Barents, Spitsbergen Dutch whalers, Franklin, “Parry, McClintock, Kane, Greely, Nansen, Peary, and Koch, while the Antarctic has its own list including the names of Ross, Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen, Mawson, and Nordenskiöld” (p. 36).

Report of the Operations of the U.S. Revenue Steamer Nunivak on the Yukon River Station, Alaska, 1899-1901.

Cantwell, John C. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902.
  • 1899-1901 US Revenue Operations in Alaska (commanded John C. Cantwell aboard Revenue Steamer Nunivak).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 49: Grouse and ptarmigan were fairly abundant throughout the winter and not only afforded excellent sport, but also furnished an agreeable change from our rather monotonous fare of canned meats. Two days of the week were set aside as holidays for the crew and permission was granted them to go hunting and trapping in the vicinity of Fort Shoemaker. With one or two exceptions, however, the men preferred to remain on board reading, smoking, or sleeping, rather than to go on hunting trips through the woods after game. As the regular drills and other duties gave them plenty of out-of-door exercise, I did not interfere with their method of spending the time given them for recreation and amusement.

Shackleton Discovery Diaries. Vol. 1 Dec. 1901-1902.

Shackleton, Ernest. SPRI Ms 1537/3/4/1 and 2.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 5, Thursday [Dec] 26th: One of the officers of the “Ringarooraa” sent me Swinburne’s “Songs before Sunrise” and two volumes of the Poems and Ballads, but I don’t think there will be much time to read these during the summer; during the long winter far away from the teeming life of the great world one may calmly criticize his rather erotic lines.

Blizzard and Fire: A Year at Mawson, Antarctica.

Béchervaise, John. London: Angus and Robertson, 1964.
  • 1959-60 Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This book concerns the ANARE trip to Mawson in 1959. A somehwat odd book in that it is an epistolary account of a year at an Australian base by letters to a variety of friends and relatives, interspersed with a series of newsletters ostensibly for a public audience. He does tell some exciting stories as the base commander, but his references to reading are more utiitarian than inspirational, for example the use of The Australian Pilot to find repair facilities in various places (p. 24). A discussion of Plato and death is more speculative and a rarity for this book (p. 135). However, there are some quietly meditative passages that make the book valuable and are reproduced here even though unrelated to Antarctic reading.

An Arctic Whaling Diary: The Journal of Captain George Comer in Hudson Bay, 1903-1905.

Comer, George. Edited by W. Gillies Ross. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1984.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

A straightforward and not too revealing journal of Hudson Bay whaling at the beginning of the 20th century, just as Amundsen was coming through on his NW Passage. Comer was commanding the American whaler Era at the end of the whaling era. Has a few interesting book notes:

Twenty Years before the Mast, Or Life in the Forecastle. … Contain an Account of His Escapes from Wild Beasts; from the Dangers of War; from British Press-Gangs; from Frequent Shipwrecks; Together with Several Remarkable Dreams… and His Conversion to God.

Isaacs, Nicholas Peter. Written by Himself, and Revised by the Editor of “Thirty Years from Home.” New York: J. P. Beckwith, 1845.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Memoir of a sailor born in Norway, removed to England after his father’s death, and shipped as cabin boy at age ten. Sailed the world on sealers and New Bedford ships. He became one of many nineteenth-century sailors turned pious proselytizer in the name of the Holy Spirit and Providence. His rather elaborate dream sequences are redolent of John Bunyan, but apart from his dogged spiritual views there is little evidence of education or reading here. There are a few interesting passages:

With the Battle Fleet: Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, December, 1907—May, 1908.

Matthews, Franklin. Illus. by Henry Reuterdahl. New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1909.
  • 1907-09 US Circumnavigation by the Great White Fleet.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 103, on the bluejackets in Rio: The first thing that greeted the eye of every man who landed at the beautiful park that used to be an eyesore in the central part of the waterfront was a big sign reading : "Information Bureau for American Seamen." It was an information bureau, a real one. It was the most useful kind of a welcome ever provided in a foreign port for the sailors of any people. The American and English residents, aided by those of other countries, had been busy preparing for weeks for the visit of Jack ashore. Every safeguard, every assistance that was possible to make his liberty comfortable, profitable, enjoyable was looked after. It took hard cash to do it, but the money was raised and it amounted to thousands of dollars. In the first place, the ferry company to Nictheroy set apart a large room in its commodious new building. Counters were put up for information booths, postal card booths, exchange of money, sale of various kinds of tickets for things with guides by the score and attendants anxious to answer all kinds of questions. Men and women worked there from twelve to fourteen hours a day for ten days in the stifling heat, all eager to be of assistance to Jack ashore. A pamphlet was provided giving a map of the city and displaying all the chief places of interest. Full information was printed about everything that a man bent on rational enjoyment could desire. The pamphlets told all about transportation, about the places to see, about postage and the many general and special excursions that had been planned.