The Frozen Ship: The Histories and Tales of Polar Exploration
Sarah Moss
BlueBridge Books
Hardcover, $24.95
Anyone with a budding interest in Arctic or Antarctic polar exploration will find Sarah Moss’s The Frozen Ship a fascinating read, cover to cover. Even those who are moderately or well versed on the subject should appreciate the book as it examines the non-fiction accounts of polar exploration, its effects in literature, women explorers and most interestingly, the insanity, isolation and, oftentimes, cannibalism, that comes with it.
The poles are desolate places where only the very skilled or, more realistically, very lucky can survive. Even knowing this, there was an almost frenzied rush of polar expeditions between 1700 and 1950, most of them undertaken by ill-prepared Englishmen while a few were launched by Americans and Norsemen. Whether or not the expedition survived was immaterial because the main goal was fame and fortune, though the fame often realized was likely not what the men had hoped for. Nearly all the sailors who could write kept detailed journals that described their trials and tribulations and their descriptions of dangerous and desolate landscapes sometimes right up until the hour of death. Those descriptions became a beacon for future exploration, a triumph of the human spirit and an endless source for literature and mythology about the men who dared explore the vast wastelands of the frigid poles.
Exceptionally well-researched, Moss has organized The Frozen Ship thematically rather than chronologically, with sections on colonies, extended voyages (more often than not they were accidental extensions), failed voyages, polar expeditions in literature and even women in polar exploration. The most morbidly fascinating chapters detail the ordeals of explorers who died on the poles. Moss’s greatest strength is that she lets the explorers tell their stories in their own words through diaries and hastily scrawled notes on scraps of paper, which add poignant reminders that many of these men knew it wasn’t a matter of if they died, but when.
Perhaps the main fault of the book is that Moss often falls into the trap of applying our present day ideas and mentality to Victorian-era situations. For example, she chastises Sir William Edward Parry for giving “no thought that the men themselves might be allowed to write their own accounts of the Arctic voyage” when most of the men, who were sailors in the British Navy, were probably all illiterate and couldn’t write either.
It’s hard for people living in modern times to even remotely contemplate that attempting to reach the North Pole in a hot air balloon with minimal food, inadequate clothing and no experience, is a good idea. Salomon August Andree, a Swede, tried to do just that in 1897 when he attempted to avoid the potential hazards of ice flows and having to walk over dangerous ground.
Unfortunately, he mistakenly left the balloon’s steering apparatus on the launch pad and sealed his fate. Stranded in the Arctic Circle and out of food, Andree and his partner were forced to eat their sealskin gloves and shoes to survive. Neither man was seen alive again, and it wasn’t until 1930 when their bodies were accidentally discovered on an island. Andree was found lying on his back in his tent while his partner’s chewed on bones was strewn around their campsite by animals.
The Frozen Ship covers a lot of ground: 500 years in a mere 235 pages. That’s a vast amount of history for so few pages, but it doesn’t just skim the surface as Moss manages a comprehensive account. A short introduction outlining the history of polar exploration does a fine job of giving readers their bearings and prevents the book’s immense scope from becoming too overwhelming. From there Moss captures you with the words of the explorers and holds you until the end.
Moss talks at length about several archaeological expeditions to retrace explorers’ steps, find out what went wrong and, in several cases, exhume bodies. The Frozen Ship references several books about polar exploration, such as Frozen in Time, the fascinating account of the discovery and exhumation of the body of John Torrington, and serves as a great guide for the whole genre in general.
Moss doesn’t devote too many pages to more widely known explorers like Ernest Shackleton or John Franklin who already have volumes of material covering almost every facet of their lives. This allows Moss to introduce lesser known explorers such as Letitia Hargrave and give the spotlight to these less-documented contributions to polar exploration.
The book may be small in size but the content is richly satisfying. The Frozen Ship puts readers right beside explorers trekking across ice-flows and awaiting a rescue that never comes as they lay dying or contemplate the necessity of eating another person’s flesh. It’s a great read on a long cold night or better yet, perhaps on a hot vacation.
BlueBridge Books
Hardcover, $24.95
Anyone with a budding interest in Arctic or Antarctic polar exploration will find Sarah Moss’s The Frozen Ship a fascinating read, cover to cover. Even those who are moderately or well versed on the subject should appreciate the book as it examines the non-fiction accounts of polar exploration, its effects in literature, women explorers and most interestingly, the insanity, isolation and, oftentimes, cannibalism, that comes with it.
The poles are desolate places where only the very skilled or, more realistically, very lucky can survive. Even knowing this, there was an almost frenzied rush of polar expeditions between 1700 and 1950, most of them undertaken by ill-prepared Englishmen while a few were launched by Americans and Norsemen. Whether or not the expedition survived was immaterial because the main goal was fame and fortune, though the fame often realized was likely not what the men had hoped for. Nearly all the sailors who could write kept detailed journals that described their trials and tribulations and their descriptions of dangerous and desolate landscapes sometimes right up until the hour of death. Those descriptions became a beacon for future exploration, a triumph of the human spirit and an endless source for literature and mythology about the men who dared explore the vast wastelands of the frigid poles.
Exceptionally well-researched, Moss has organized The Frozen Ship thematically rather than chronologically, with sections on colonies, extended voyages (more often than not they were accidental extensions), failed voyages, polar expeditions in literature and even women in polar exploration. The most morbidly fascinating chapters detail the ordeals of explorers who died on the poles. Moss’s greatest strength is that she lets the explorers tell their stories in their own words through diaries and hastily scrawled notes on scraps of paper, which add poignant reminders that many of these men knew it wasn’t a matter of if they died, but when.
Perhaps the main fault of the book is that Moss often falls into the trap of applying our present day ideas and mentality to Victorian-era situations. For example, she chastises Sir William Edward Parry for giving “no thought that the men themselves might be allowed to write their own accounts of the Arctic voyage” when most of the men, who were sailors in the British Navy, were probably all illiterate and couldn’t write either.
It’s hard for people living in modern times to even remotely contemplate that attempting to reach the North Pole in a hot air balloon with minimal food, inadequate clothing and no experience, is a good idea. Salomon August Andree, a Swede, tried to do just that in 1897 when he attempted to avoid the potential hazards of ice flows and having to walk over dangerous ground.
Unfortunately, he mistakenly left the balloon’s steering apparatus on the launch pad and sealed his fate. Stranded in the Arctic Circle and out of food, Andree and his partner were forced to eat their sealskin gloves and shoes to survive. Neither man was seen alive again, and it wasn’t until 1930 when their bodies were accidentally discovered on an island. Andree was found lying on his back in his tent while his partner’s chewed on bones was strewn around their campsite by animals.
The Frozen Ship covers a lot of ground: 500 years in a mere 235 pages. That’s a vast amount of history for so few pages, but it doesn’t just skim the surface as Moss manages a comprehensive account. A short introduction outlining the history of polar exploration does a fine job of giving readers their bearings and prevents the book’s immense scope from becoming too overwhelming. From there Moss captures you with the words of the explorers and holds you until the end.
Moss talks at length about several archaeological expeditions to retrace explorers’ steps, find out what went wrong and, in several cases, exhume bodies. The Frozen Ship references several books about polar exploration, such as Frozen in Time, the fascinating account of the discovery and exhumation of the body of John Torrington, and serves as a great guide for the whole genre in general.
Moss doesn’t devote too many pages to more widely known explorers like Ernest Shackleton or John Franklin who already have volumes of material covering almost every facet of their lives. This allows Moss to introduce lesser known explorers such as Letitia Hargrave and give the spotlight to these less-documented contributions to polar exploration.
The book may be small in size but the content is richly satisfying. The Frozen Ship puts readers right beside explorers trekking across ice-flows and awaiting a rescue that never comes as they lay dying or contemplate the necessity of eating another person’s flesh. It’s a great read on a long cold night or better yet, perhaps on a hot vacation.
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