p. lix-lxii: The introduction has an inventory of the many relics found at the final site of Barents fatal expedition. No 75 includes the following items: A great number of prints from copper engravings, completely frozen together, including some of Goltzius; Pallas, Juno, and Venus, with Bosscher excudit; scenes from the Bible. “The manner of engraving the names of the engravers proves that all these must have been the work of the sixteenth century. It may seem strange that Arctic navigators had prints or engravings on board, but it is not at all so, for Heemskerck and Barendsz intended to go as far as China, when they sailed to the North-East. For that purpose they had merchandise on board, and prints or engravings were often used as such.
A True Description of Three Voyages by the North-East towards Cathay and China, Undertaken by the Dutch in the Years 1594, 1595, and 1596. …
- Arctic Reading: Russia
Watkins’ Last Expedition.
- 1932-33 British East Greenland Expedition (Gino Watkins aboard Quest).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
p. xii, Introduction: Time may pass, but the memory will never fade of that little tent we shared, the thoughts we shared, the fears we shared; how, during those dark fierce days of blizzard, when travel was impossible, he [Chapman] used to read in a clear tenor from one of our few small books, while the tent shook to the bass of the storm’s accompaniment.
A Whaling Cruise to Baffin’s Bay and the Gulf of Boothia. And an Account of the Rescue of the Crew of the “Polaris.”.
- Whalemen's Reading
Interesting book by Admiral Markham who had an extended Royal Navy career as well as serving the Royal Geographical Society as its long-time President. Surprisingly, I found little on reading here.
Ship’s Libraries; Their Need and Usefulness.
- Whalemen's Reading
p. no page: After you’ve done everything to assure the physical and spiritual welfare of the sailor, “the only way left to reach him is by the printed truth—The Bible, the tract, the good book. Just here then comes in the ship’s library with its indispensable offices,--the last important advance made in the line of religious work among seamen,--the ‘missing link,’ I think we may call it, in the chain of evangelical agencies for their benefit.”
Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, with Notes of a Sojourn on the Island of Zanzibar. To Which is Appended a Brief History of the Whale Fishery, its Past and Present Condition.
- Whalemen's Reading
The cruise lasted from 1842 to 1845.
Redburn: His First Voyage, being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service
- Maritime Reading
p. 47-8: And I remembered reading in a magazine, called the Sailors’ Magazine, with a sea-blue cover, and a ship painted on the back, about pious seamen who never swore, and paid over all their wages to the poor heathen in India; and how that when they were too old to go to sea, these pious old sailors found a delightful home for life in the Hospital, where they had nothing to do, but prepare themselves for their latter end. And I wondered whether there were any such good sailors among my ship-mates; and observing that one of them laid on deck apart from the rest, I thought to be sure that he was one of them: so I did not disturb his devotions: but I was afterwards shocked at discovering that he was only fast asleep, with one of the brown jugs by his side.
Memoirs and Travels of Mauritius August, Count de Benyowsky. Consisting of his Military Operations in Poland, His Exile into Kamchatka….
- 1768-70 Beniowsky Journey and Exile in Kamchatka.
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
Exciting story of exile in Kamchatka and the conspiracy to escape. [See also August von Kotzebue’s dramatization of this story: Count Benyowsky; Or, the Conspiracy of Kamschatka, a Tragic-Comedy, in Five Acts.Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane. Translated from the German by R. W. Render. London: New York: Naphtali Judah, 1799.
Voyage of the Prince Albert in Search of Sir John Franklin: A Narrative of Every-day Life in the Arctic Seas
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
The author was ship’s doctor under Captain Forsyth on this expedition sponsored by Lady Franklin.
Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas, and Round the World: Being Personal Narratives of Attempts to Reach the North and South Poles; and of an Open-boat Expedition up the Wellington Channel in Search of Sir John Franklin and Her Majesty’s ships “Erebus” and “Terror,” in Her Majesty’s Boat “Forlorn Hope,” under the Command of the Author. To which are added an Autobiography….
- Arctic Reading: General
These volumes cover three separate expeditions with an autobiography, and can be found on the Hathi Trust. McCormick was the surgeon on Ross’s Erebus (1839-1843), also something of a zoologist who also was involved in the Franklin Search in the 1850s.
Wanderings and Adventures of Reuben Delano, Being a Narrative of Twelve Years Life in a Whale Ship!
- Whalemen's Reading
Born in Nantucket and moved to New Bedford, both whaling communities. Father died in a shipwreck near Fairhaven when Reuben was 11. He soon took to sea with his elder brother. His style is aphoristic and cliché-ridden. Whatever the nature of his final conversion, it seems clear that he was never a member of a reading community.
South with Mawson
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
First published in 1947, Laseron’s account of Mawson’s AAE is a gentle and generally optimistic account, even when describing Mawson’s perilous journey.
Last Places: A Journey in the North
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
p. 132-4, on Johann Petursson, keeper of the lighthouse at Hornbjarg: Johann took the Hornbjarg job in 1961 because he figured it would buy time for, and even fuel, the novel he was writing. It was unheard of, he said, for an Icelandic writer to combine teaching with the labor of his pen…. His literary colleagues tended lighthouses, from which they still managed to carry on a lively dialogue with their public, like the Skálavik keeper Oscar Adalstein Gudjónsson, who read sections of his works in progress over shortwave to the fishing fleet. Yet between navigating boats around icebergs, gathering errant fishing floats, and enduring assistants who couldn’t read the cloud charts…, he, Jóhann, had scarcely written a single word in twenty-six years.
The Polar Regions.
- Arctic Reading: General
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).
Antarctica: Both Heaven and Hell.
- 1989-90 Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Messner and Arved Fuchs).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
On the two-person Transantarctic expedition of 1989-90, including visit to South Pole, and which included a number of days stranded in their tent. The trek was 2,800km on foot.
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.
- Arctic Reading: General
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: