Stories of adventure, exploration and endurance in the Polar regions of the world

Update 10.08.2013

Captain Scott by Ranulph Fiennes

I have been very aware that my reading on the Polar regions has been rather thin when it comes to the first men to reach the South Pole. With this in mind I picked up Ranulph Fiennes book "Captain Scott" so that I could tick that box. I was not expecting much. Shame on me. It was a wonderfully practical , analytical, unromantic  and fair account of (mainly) the expedition that ended his life. Scott now stands shoulder to shoulder with my other heroes Ernest Shacketon and Douglas Mawson. Amundsen has not risen at all in my estimation. He is still a bit of a bad sort in my mind. Sadly there is not much in his actions ( that I have read) that show him to be anything other than an adventurer who lacked integrity. Yes he reached the South Pole first but everything about the way he planned that trip was just underhand. I recommend Captain Scott as a balanced account from someone who knows and has experienced the extremes that are the Polar regions.

Through my involvement with The Old Library in Dubai (and in a moment of self-delusion and hubris) I agreed to be - what is known as - a Book Champion. This is someone who "champions" a book on a local Radio Station program that provides good stuff for grown up people to listen to. Dubai Eye’s  - Talking Books.

Instead of being sensible and being a "fan" of one book, I stupidly decided to go for a whole genre of book, foolishly thinking that in being more general about the books I would not look like a complete idiot. <Stories of adventure, exploration and endurance in the Polar regions of the world.> My cunning plan was to avoid showing that I lack the skills to review a single book with anything like the depth that would be required to take up about an hour of airtime.

Consequently I landed up talking about a few trees worth of books that I have read over a gazillion year period. Those of you who have been in book clubs with me will know that I can barely remember the name of a book or the author even while I am actually in the process of reading that same book. What chance did I think I would have trying to dredge up memories and opinions of many books on the same subject read over years?

A couple of weeks ago, as I was starting to panic, I scoured the shelves of the library for the books I had read on the topic and found to my increasing terror that most of the books I wanted were no longer in the library. Bugger and damnation. I was in a fix.

Please bear in mind that I have read, in some cases, several accounts of the same journey. It gets a bit difficult to remember who said what in which book. To make it worse, since I can rarely even remember the names of the books or the authors, I had to scour the Internet until I recognized a book cover to be sure of what my emotional response to a particular book was. Indeed, even to be sure that the particular title was in fact a book I had read and not another book on the same subject by someone else. I looked at a few book's jackets with authors and book titles that were eerily familiar but I did not recognize the covers. I just knew that I was slowly going mad.  "I can't have read this book” I would mutter to myself (peering short sightedly at my computer screen) as no matter how familiar the information I read was I definitely did not read a book that looked like that.  And then, suddenly, I would find a cover that matched the story and the author and realize that it is the same book but from a different publisher.

There is also the problem of getting side tracked. Whilst on a quest for one book I would find that there are loads of books out there that I have yet to get around to reading. Having "ah ha" moments of  "Oh my giddy aunt I read that book! Who knew that the same author wrote this book too!" Oh the joy of having the memory of someone in the middle stages of Alzheimer's, and not actually having the illness. I have a similar problem with my sense of direction. I can get lost in a straight line and it is a wonder (honestly, really, and truly) when I suddenly find myself in a spot that I recognize. I just can't believe how lucky I am to find my way. I think this is one of the reasons I am drawn to this polar explorer genre. I find it staggeringly adventurous that people would go anywhere in a blizzard and not have road signs or GPS to guide them and NOT GET LOST. Well sometimes they did. And that did not, generally, work out well in the frozen wastelands.

Bryan tells me (many of you know this already) that watching Reality TV, following a particular sport or team, watching soap operas, and being a Royal watcher, is all the same thing. It is about getting hooked on the characters and the plots and being engaged in the process. Now I do not do any of the previously mentioned because I get bored with the commitment needed. But, a couple of times a year, I do get a big kick out of reading a book about some of the world greatest adventures who were bitten with the polar travel bug at a time when the British Empire was starting to struggle with its hold on the world. Where there were interlopers in the field of adventure in the form of "Foreigners". What Briton could forgive these, including the American Peary (with his not credited black companion Nelson) or Cooke (or was he a fibber) for getting to the North Pole before them? And let us not forget that scoundrel of a Norwegian Amundsen who having said he was going to the North Pole turned his ship around (figuratively speaking) on discovering it had already been nabbed by the Americans, and sailed south to pip Scott (Robert Falcon Scott) at reaching the South Pole. Poor show if you ask me. Not that I would have chosen Scott to the first one there. Noooooooooo! My heroes are Ernest Shacketon and Douglas Mawson. I side with them over anything that happened down there.

Talking of being side tracked…….

So back to my rabbit caught in the headlights moment.  As I mentioned I was terrified. I could barely remember my own name let alone the names of the books that I was supposed to be talking about. HO HUM. The host John MacDonald co-host Isabel Abulhoul and reviewer Yvette Judge were very kind and put me at  ease. They are probably used to having to pacify guests into the state where they are able to hold a conversation on air.

I had a blast. I have no idea how I came across and it is probably a good thing that I don’t know as I can kid myself that I held my own. Sort of. Ignorance is bliss after all.

Now for those of you who are thinking that you might actually give reading books about this subject a go I have a few recommendations. I can only recommend books based on what I have read and as I have discovered there are many more books about on the very same adventures so I can’t say that the one I read are the best. But I loved them. The are many more better qualified reviewers out there who, I am sure, can give you very good advice on what to read, but hey you can't have everything and you have me, for the time being.

I have been sufficiently trite to lull you into a false sense of security. So here is my sincere warning. Know that if you read these books you will be moved. Your heart will beat faster, your heart will ache. These stories are of unimaginable suffering and triumph. Some contain firsthand accounts from the men involved. The authors have shown a tenacious commitment to their subjects with meticulous research and a raw honesty in their narration.

My favourite books (up to now) cover a period around the time of the First World War Between 1911 and 1917. I don't know why. It is part of a time referred to as “the Heroic Age”.

Books about the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

I would start on this particular journey with Caroline Alexander book The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition. There are great pictures in this one that help you to imagine the bleak desolation of the Antarctic. These men endured 20 months of cold hell before they were rescued. The most astonishing thing being that none of them died.

Alfred Lansing's book "Endurance" was written in 1959 and he interviewed some of the men involved. He also draws from the diaries of the teams as do most writers of this genre. The National Geographical Society has a vast collection of pictures and diaries of the time which make it a wonderful topic to write about with a high degree of accuracy. Access to diaries has the added bonus of being able to reflect the emotional tone of the people involved. This book was considered to be (and may well still be) the definitive book on the expedition.

For me the most gripping and thrilling book of this expedition is The Lost Men written by Kelly Tyler - Lewis. The Endurance team with leader Ernest Shackleton were to cross the Antarctic Continent. With all ventures of this sort a supply line is needed to support the main party .On this expedition the bulk of this fell to the men on the Aurora under the command of AEnes Mackintosh which made up the Ross Sea Party. Kelly Tyler-Lewis recounted this most harrowing ordeal with such skill that although you just don’t want to read another page of what these men endured you  simply have to. She captures the day to day struggles and the shifting allegiances within a small group of men under enormous pressure.  Through most of my reading you get a sense of the class barrier infusing their day to day lives.  “The Men” usually working class seamen types and the “Gentlemen” and usually the leaders. The class barrier assumptions and judgements that were simply a fact of life are astonishing to me. I am gabbling….The Men of the Aurora team accomplished their mission but lost three men in the process.

Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911)

Racing With Death – Beau Riffenburg

A year or so earlier the same brave little vessel that carried the  men of the Ross sea party (the Lost Men) took my hero Douglas Mawson and his Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE)  to Cape Denison from where Mawson planned to pursue scientific research. This book recount the distressing events which resulted in Mawson  being the only survivor following the death of  his companions Lt Belgrave Ninnis  who fell down a crevice (with the added desperate loss of most of the team's provisions) and after that, the  death of  Xavier Mertz  due to Vitamin A poisoning from eating the sledge dog's livers. Mawson struggled back to the winter quarters to find that the ship had sailed and he and his relief team were stranded for another year. Heart breaking stuff. Well written.

British Arctic Expedition. 1907-1909

Ernest Shackleton attempted to reach the South Pole during the 1907- 9 British Arctic Expedition. “Nimrod” also written by Beau Riffenburg is an account of this venture and that of Douglas Mawson's scientific expedition which achieved the reaching of the magnetic South Pole. Shackleton however, failed to reach the pole, turning back 97 miles before reaching his destination.  The South Pole (true south) is a geographic pole with a stationary location. A magnetic pole is based on the magnetosphere of the planet and its position is constantly changing so one must refer to what it was at a given time.

The Northern Polar region

The last book I am recommending is set in the northern Polar Regions. The Ice Master by Jennifer Niven is harrowing - yes, again. All these stories are harrowing. It is the nature of the Heroic Age of Adventure. In this encounter the wooden hulled Karluk became stuck in the ice and drifted for months before finally sinking. This left the ship’s captain Bob Bartlett and a band of inexperienced explorers, including an Inuit woman and her child to survive on the ice until conditions allowed for them to make their way to land and somehow to civilisation. The events surrounding the action of the expedition leader Stefansson leaving the ship and his crew are argued. I think he was a rat. But you can read the book and judge for yourself. I think the story of what happened to the two lost parties is heart-breaking and that Captain Bartlett was a true hero for his trek to reach Siberia and get a rescue party together to collect the survivors. It is truly astonishing what the human body can survive.

And on that note I really cannot write any more. I invite you to Read and Weep!