A Short History of Polar Exploration
A Short History of Polar Exploration

Author: Nick Rennison

Publisher: Oldacastle Books

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 1843440911

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An absorbing history, bringing explorers' tales vividly to life Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the men who went to Antarctica with Captain Scott, said "Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time that has ever been devised." Yet there has never been a shortage of volunteers willing to endure the bad times in pursuit of the glory that polar exploration sometimes brings. This compelling book tells the memorable stories of the men and women who have risked their lives by entering the white wastelands of the Arctic and the Antarctic, from the compelling tales of Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen, to lesser known heroes such as Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Peary. This history also looks at the hold that the polar regions have often had on the imaginations of artists and writers in the last 200 years examining the paintings, films, and literature that they have inspired.

A History of Arctic Exploration
A History of Arctic Exploration

Author: Matti Laineman

Publisher: Anova Books

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9781844860692

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With the character of the Arctic in a dramatic state of flux, and arguments over sovereignty once again rising to the surface, it is timely that a history of the exploration of this remote region be published. Wide-reaching in its scope and beautifully presented with artworks, maps and charts from the Nurminen Foundation and numerous European museums, private collections and archives, this is a full account of the many explorers from both East and West who attempted to find the North-West and North-East Passages, and to chart and document the region to enable the mythical North to gradually take shape and become part of the world picture. The story of man's skill and initiative in bringing an understanding to such an inhospitable part of the globe is described through the daring adventures of Viking sailors such as Erik the Red, navigators Barents and Bering, and explorers of the wilds such as Chelyuskin and Franklin. Equally, the stories of those disasterous voyages in search of the North-West and North-East Passages are presented in detail. The journeys of the great scientific explorers – Cook, Nordenskiold and Amundsen – remind the reader of the bravery of those who set their sights towards the uncharted North. Bravery and endurance were not sufficient for the almost incredible feats of Nansen and Peary. Success in extreme conditions was only achieved by those expeditions that appreciated the ferocity of nature and took example from the indigenous peoples – those who had lived in the North long before the coming of the Europeans.

The Spectral Arctic
The Spectral Arctic

Author: Shane McCorristine

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1787352455

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Visitors to the Arctic enter places that have been traditionally imagined as otherworldly. This strangeness fascinated audiences in nineteenth-century Britain when the idea of the heroic explorer voyaging through unmapped zones reached its zenith. The Spectral Arctic re-thinks our understanding of Arctic exploration by paying attention to the importance of dreams and ghosts in the quest for the Northwest Passage. The narratives of Arctic exploration that we are all familiar with today are just the tip of the iceberg: they disguise a great mass of mysterious and dimly lit stories beneath the surface. In contrast to oft-told tales of heroism and disaster, this book reveals the hidden stories of dreaming and haunted explorers, of frozen mummies, of rescue balloons, visits to Inuit shamans, and of the entranced female clairvoyants who travelled to the Arctic in search of John Franklin’s lost expedition. Through new readings of archival documents, exploration narratives, and fictional texts, these spectral stories reflect the complex ways that men and women actually thought about the far North in the past. This revisionist historical account allows us to make sense of current cultural and political concerns in the Canadian Arctic about the location of Franklin’s ships.

The News at the Ends of the Earth
The News at the Ends of the Earth

Author: Hester Blum

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2019-04-04

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1478004487

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From Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 search for the Northwest Passage to early twentieth-century sprints to the South Pole, polar expeditions produced an extravagant archive of documents that are as varied as they are engaging. As the polar ice sheets melt, fragments of this archive are newly emergent. In The News at the Ends of the Earth Hester Blum examines the rich, offbeat collection of printed ephemera created by polar explorers. Ranging from ship newspapers and messages left in bottles to menus and playbills, polar writing reveals the seamen wrestling with questions of time, space, community, and the environment. Whether chronicling weather patterns or satirically reporting on penguin mischief, this writing provided expedition members with a set of practices to help them survive the perpetual darkness and harshness of polar winters. The extreme climates these explorers experienced is continuous with climate change today. Polar exploration writing, Blum contends, offers strategies for confronting and reckoning with the extreme environment of the present.

A History of the Arctic
A History of the Arctic

Author: John McCannon

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2013-02-15

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1780230761

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Bitter cold and constant snow. Polar bears, seals, and killer whales. Victor Frankenstein chasing his monstrous creation across icy terrain in a dogsled. The arctic calls to mind a myriad different images. Consisting of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, the United States, Russia, Greenland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, the arctic possesses a unique ecosystem—temperatures average negative 29 degrees Fahrenheit in winter and rarely rise above freezing in summer—and the indigenous peoples and cultures that live in the region have had to adapt to the harsh weather conditions. As global temperatures rise, the arctic is facing an environmental crisis, with melting glaciers causing grave concern around the world. But for all the renown of this frozen region, the arctic remains far from perfectly understood. In A History of the Arctic, award-winning polar historian John McCannon provides an engaging overview of the region that spans from the Stone Age to the present. McCannon discusses polar exploration and science, nation-building, diplomacy, environmental issues, and climate change, and the role indigenous populations have played in the arctic’s story. Chronicling the history of each arctic nation, he details the many failed searches for a Northwest Passage and the territorial claims that hamper use of these waterways. He also explores the resources found in the arctic—oil, natural gas, minerals, fresh water, and fish—and describes the importance they hold as these resources are depleted elsewhere, as well as the challenges we face in extracting them. A timely assessment of current diplomatic and environmental realities, as well as the dire risks the region now faces, A History of the Arctic is a thoroughly engrossing book on the past—and future—of the top of the world.

Polar Exploration
Polar Exploration

Author: Beau Riffenburgh

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13:

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Take a voyage of discovery into the ¿Heroic Age¿ of polar exploration. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth, explorers from around the world navigated the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage, attained the North and South Poles, crossed the Arctic Basin and first flew airships andairplanes in the Arctic and Antarctic, conquering one of nature¿s last, closely guarded bastions. Through facsimile items, Polar Exploration narrates the famous stories of Earnest Shackleton, Douglas M awson and Captain Oates and those less well-known, such as poisonings, mysterious disappearances, false claims, near misses controversies,accusations of cannibalism and the first Antarctic wintering (which drove men to madness).

Safe Return Doubtful
Safe Return Doubtful

Author: John Maxtone-Graham

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13:

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Farthest north, farthest south - in the heroic age of polar exploration at the beginning of the twentieth century, the race was ferociously contested. British, American, Swedish and Norwegian expeditions all vied for the greatest prize of all - the poles - knowing that they might forfeit their lives in the attempt. On the way they faced horrific conditions, frostbite and starvation rations, exhaustion and too often also the bitter clashes of personality that beset men under extreme stress. In these days of modern technology, it is almost impossible for us to imagine the hardship these explorers endured. Sledgers camped overnight in subzero agony, their sweat-soaked furs frozen into icy suits of armour as soon as they stopped moving. With no vitamins and no easily preserved food they faced scurvy and worse. This hair-raising account covers every aspect of the polar great game, the renowned names such as Robert Peary, Roald Amundsen, Salomon Andree, Fridtjof Nansen, Ernest Shackleton, and Robert Scott are all here, their ponies, dogs and sledges, their daily experiences, and always, the addictive quest for polar immortality.

Red Arctic
Red Arctic

Author: John McCannon

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0195114361

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McCannon also exposes the reality behind these exploits: chaotic blunders, bureaucratic competition, and the eventual rise of the GULAG as the dominant force in the North.

The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions
The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions

Author: Adrian Howkins

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-05-11

Total Pages: 976

ISBN-13: 1108627951

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The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions is a landmark collection drawing together the history of the Arctic and Antarctica from the earliest times to the present. Structured as a series of thematic chapters, an international team of scholars offer a range of perspectives from environmental history, the history of science and exploration, cultural history, and the more traditional approaches of political, social, economic, and imperial history. The volume considers the centrality of Indigenous experience and the urgent need to build action in the present on a thorough understanding of the past. Using historical research based on methods ranging from archives and print culture to archaeology and oral histories, these essays provide fresh analyses of the discovery of Antarctica, the disappearance of Sir John Franklin, the fate of the Norse colony in Greenland, the origins of the Antarctic Treaty, and much more. This is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of our planet.