Diary, 1881 July 7—l883 Aug 2.

Rice, George W. Stefansson MSS. 186, Dartmouth College Library.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A record of Rice’s experiences as photographer on the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, 1881-1884. Unpaged but carefully dated throughout.

Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries.

Mawson, Douglas. Edited by Fred Jacka & Eleanor Jacka. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
  • 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Introduction emphasizes Mawson’s faith in “Providence,” and notes that his very survival reduced the emotional impact that Scott’s death had on the public: World War I, followed by world depression, diverted public interest from the achievements of Douglas Mawson and other scientists and explorers in the Antarctic, and formed a break between the ‘heroic era’ and the ‘mechanical era’ in the history of Antarctic exploration. (p. xlii).

The Ice Child.

McGregor, Elizabeth. [Novel]. (New York, Dutton, 2001).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Fictional account of the Franklin search and an obsessive Franklin searcher.

Antarctica, 1958,

Stone, Robert. New Yorker (June 12, 2006), p. 52-54 [Talk of the Town].
  • 1957- Operation Deep Freeze.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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In 1958, I was a duty helmsman on the bridge of the U.S.S. Arneb, an ungainly naval transport ship with the lines of a tramp steamer…. When I went below to crash, taking to my rack, which was at the top of a four-high tier. I lay down to read with my pocket flashlight. I had “Ulysses” checked out from the Norfolk, Virginia, public library, and plenty of time to be patient with it. When we started sliding to port, I’d stay with Leopold Bloom for as long as I could tough it out, waiting for the big lumbering ship to arrest its roll and come back to starboard…. Then I’d set my book aside and ponder my fortune….

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.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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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.

Scout to Explorer: Back with Byrd in the Antarctic.

Siple, Paul. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1936.
  • 1933-35 Byrd Second Antarctic Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Here is Siple’s account of his return to Antarctica on the Second Byrd Expedition. He’s lost a little of his Boy Scott adolescence but is still a young man filled with wonderment at his good fortune of being asked to return, and at the lack of wonder among some of his new colleagues.

Shackleton’s Captain: A Biography of Frank Worsley.

Thomson, John. Toronto: Mosaic Press, 1999.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A biography of the navigator of the James Caird on the famous boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia, this is a poorly written work about a fascinating character that the author somehow dulls. There are very few references to books here (apart from Worsley’s own later works), but there is this passage on p. 85 in the chapter on the boat journey:

Arctic Odyssey: The Diary of Diamond Jenness 1913-1916.

Jenness, Diamond. Hull, QU: Canada Museum of Civilization, 1991.
  • 1913-16 Canadian Arctic Expedition (Led by Stefansson with Captain Bob Bartlett commanding the Karluk).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. xxi: The author [Jenness] was unusually fond of Homer’s The Odyssey. In the summer of 1906, as one of only two students in a Greek class with Professor William von Zedlitz at Victoria University College, Wellington, New Zealand, he was invited to read The Odyssey each Friday evening in Greek at his professor’s home…. during the seven months he wandered about southwestern Victoria Island with his Copper Eskimo friends, in 1915, my father often found moments for reading passages in and obtaining spiritual comfort from a small copy of The Odyssey he carried with him. This book evidently had a special meaning to him, and he continued to extract both pleasure and comfort from it on later occasions, including a time two years later when he was in the muddy wartime trenches in France.

A New Voyage Round the World Describing Particularly the Isthmus of America, Several Coasts and Islands in the West Indies, the Isles of Cape Verd, the passage by Terra del Fuego, the South Sea Coasts of Chili, Peru and Mexico, the Isle of Guam One of the Ladrones, Mindanao, and Other Philippine and East-India Islands near Cambodia, China, Formosa, Luconia, Celebes, &c., New Holland, Sumatra, Nicobar Isles, the Cape of Good Hope, and Santa Hellena: Their Soil, Rivers, Harbours, Plants, Fruits, Animals, and Inhabitants: Their Customs, Religion, Government, Trade, &c.

Dampier, William. Illustrated with Maps and Draughts. Three Volumes. (London: Printed for James Knapton ..., 1697-1703). [The following notes are taken from a new edition: New York: Dover, 1968].
  • 1679-91 British Buccaneer Journey (William Dampier aboard Cygnet et al).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
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p.252-3, in Mindanao: We did all earnestly expect to hear what Captain Swan would propose and therefore were very willing to go aboard. But unluckily for him, two days before this Meeting was to be, Captain Swan sent aboard his Gunner, to fetch something ashore out of his Cabbin. The Gunner rummaging to find what he was sent for, among other things took out the Captain’s Journal from America to the island Guam, and laid down by him.This Journal was taken up by one John Read, a Bristol Man, whom I have mentioned in my 4th Chapter. He was a pretty Ingenious young Man, and of a very civil carriage and behavior. He was also accounted a good Artist, and kept a Journal, and was now prompted by his curiosity, to peep into Captain Swan’s Journal, to see how it agreed with his own; a thing very usual among the Seamen that keep Journals, when they have an opportunity, and especially young Men, who have no great experience. At the first opening of the Book he light on a place in which Captain Swan had inveighed bitterly against most of his Men, especially against another John Reed a Jamaica Man. This was such stuff as he did not seek after: But hitting so pat on this Subject, his curiosity led him to pry further, to look over at his leisure. The Gunner having dispatch’d his business, lock’d up the Cabbin-door, not missing the Book, and went ashore. Then John Reed showed it to his namesake, and to the rest that were aboard, who were by this time the biggest part of them ripe for mischief; only wanting some fair pretence to set themselves to work about it. Therefore looking on what was written in this Journal to be matter sufficient for them to accomplish their Ends, Captain Teat, who as I said before, had been abused by Captain Swan, laid hold on this opportunity to be revenged for his Injuries, and aggravated the matter to Commander, in hopes to have commanded the Ship himself. As for the Sea-men they were easily perswaded to any thing; for they were quite tired with this long and tedious Voyage, and most of them despaired of ever getting home, and therefore did not care what they did, or whither they went. …therefore they consented to what Teat proposed, and immediately all that were aboard bound themselves by Oath to turn Captain Swan out, and to conceal this Design from those that were ashore, until the ship was under Sail…. [Goes onto recount a successful mutiny that left 36 of the richer men of the ship ashore, many to be poisoned by the natives.]

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
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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.