The Diary of Lieutenant Charles W R Royds. RN Expedition to the Arctic 1901-1904.

Royds, Charles W. R., Lieutenant. Bridwood, NSW, Australia, T. R. Royds, 2001.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Royds was the First Lieutenant on Scott’s Discovery expedition, and was involved in virtually all operations of the ship and the expedition, including ship’s discipline. It’s a rather ponderous (and heavy) tome but full of information about the expedition. He mentions the Cap’t. frequently but I didn’t seem to learn much about Scott from it. He frequently played the piano or pianola for a couple hours at a time. He was clearly a steady reader and names titles but gives little insight into his reactions to the books he read. Here are some examples of reading and related matters:

The Three Voyages of Edmond Halley in the Paramore 1698-1701.

Halley, Edmond. Edited by Norman J. W. Thrower. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1981. [Vol. II is a Portfolio of Maps].
  • 1699-1701 English Naval Expedition (Edmond Halley aboard Paramore).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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[Note]: Halley retained the confidence of the Admiralty, and his second cruise from September 1699 to September 1700 was successful. He went south as far as 52° into the ice field north of the site of the modern Halley Bay Geophysical Observatory and was in considerable danger, as he was later from a storm off the coast of Africa. (ODNB)

Arctic and Antarctic: A Prospect of the Polar Regions.

Bertram, Colin. Cambridge: Heffer, 1957.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 121: Outside the expedition’s little home the land is Nature’s own; there are no man-made contrivances issuing forth smoke and filth, no noise of wheels and engines, no newspapers lying and spreading scandals, and no ugliness of any kind. The land is as God made it, filled with peace and beauty.

Elisha Kent Kane and the Seafaring Frontier

Mirsky, Jeannette. . Edited by Oscar Handlin. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1954).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 55-56, on setting off on the first Grinnell expedition: I collected as I could some simple instruments for thermal and magnetic registration, which would have been of use if they had found their way on board. A very few books for the dark hours of winter, and a stock of coarse woolen clothing…constituted my entire outfit; and with these I made my report to Commodore Salter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

A Story of British Whaling in Antarctica

McLaughlin, W R D. London: White Lion Publications, 1962.
  • 1962 Pelagic Whaling Voyage to South Georgia.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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By a ship’s doctor, participant on a pelagic whaling expedition to South Georgia, etc. in 1962.

Saga of the White Horizon.

Olsen, Magnus L. Lymington, UK: Nautical Publishing Company, 1972.
  • 1901-04 Swedish Antarctic Expedition (Otto Nordenskjöld).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Olsen was a Norwegian aviator who participated in the Ellsworth/ Trans-Antarctic/Polar Star expedition between 1933 and 1936 as support on the three attempts to make the trip. On one occasion, during the later portion of these trips, the Wyatt Earp anchored at Snow Hill Island and the men visited the place where Otto Nordenskjöld wintered and built a winter house over thirty years earlier.

Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814, or the First American Settlement of the Pacific.

Franchère, Gabriel. Translated and Edited by J. V. Huntington. New York: Redfield, 1854. [See also the Champlain Society Edition of 1969].
  • 1811-1814 US Voyage to Northwest Coast of America and America’s First American Settlement.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 5-7, in Preface to Second Edition: Without disparagement of Mr. Irving ’s literary fame, I may venture to say that I found in his work inaccuracies, misstatements (unintentional of course), and a want of chronological order, which struck forcibly one so familiar with the events themselves. I thought I could show or rather that my simple narration, of itself, plainly discovered that some of the young men embarked in that expedition (which founded our Pacific empire), did not merit the ridicule and contempt which Captain T horn attempted to

Shackleton’s Boat Journey.

Worsley, Frank Arthur. London: Folio Society, 2015.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Another account by the navigator of the famous boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia, a new edition introduced by Ranulph Fiennes. There is nothing about reading and I suspect that navigation books and charts were the only printed matter aboard the James Caird. Worsley’s account of those materials, however, is compelling. [Somewhere towards the end of this short book Worsley gives a nickname to divine providence, “Old Provi,” with whom there seemed to be a close relationship in times of crisis.]

Journal of Transactions and Events, during a Residence of Nearly Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador; Containing Many Interesting Particulars, Both of the Country and Its Inhabitants, Not Hitherto Known

Townsend, George. Three Volumes. Newark, UK: Allin and Ridge, 1792.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Townsend took six voyages to Labrador over sixteen years and this is his personal account of his experiences. Throughout the journal are many references to reading prayers to his family, sometimes twice a day.

A Voyage to Spitzbergen. [The Gateway to the Polynia].

Wells, John Campion. From the Journal of John C. Wells. New and Cheaper Edition. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1876.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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Although the author, an “untraveled Englishman,” is motivated by sport, the main thrust of his book is that Spitsbergen is the best route to the north: for it’s whaling riches, for the benefits of geographical exploration, and for the most economical route of scientific inquiry. Wells himself is described as an old whaling captain in an introductory survey of Arctic exploration that doesn’t reveal its author. I assume the editor was a fellow traveler on a vessel captained by Wells, but I’ve not studied the matter. A most engaging volume.

Across West Antarctica

Pirrit, John. Glasgow: John Smith & Son, 1967.
  • 1959-60 US Overland Traverse Ellsworth Station to Byrd Station.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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An account of the post-IGY year traversing by Sno-Cat from Ellsworth Station to Byrd Station in 1959-60 by a Scottish glaciologist.

Icy Hell: Experiences of a News Real Cameraman in the Aleutian Islands, Eastern Siberia and the Arctic Fringe of Alaska.

Hudson, Will E. London: Constable & Company, 1937.
  • 1930s? US Hunting Trip to Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Siberia.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 59: A few hours out of Petropavlosk as we headed north we found the ice! Into the Arctic ice at last! What a thrill, to say the least. All of the polar stories that I had read came back to me. From the time I was a small boy and read my first stories of adventures in the ice I had dreamed and longed for the experience of being in this ice wilderness. Mental pictures of Deschev, Bering, Cook, Kane, Amundsen, Scott, Peary, Shackleton, Stefansson and the host of others who have written their names in the pages of North and South Polar exploration passed in review.

To the Ends of the Earth.

Pease, Francis K. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1935.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Begins with 1925 cruise to Antarctica aboard Discovery, Scott’s old ship, commanded by Stenhouse. First brought gifts to Tristan da Cunha, including many writing implements, essentially useless to that population, and “a large quantity of Bibles, in which, however, the Tristans displayed very little interest, for the reason…that during the course of the years so many Bibles had been sent to the island that there was now an average of seven copies per inhabitant” (p. 20).