Based on a narrative manuscript of Johan Carl Christian Petersen, a member of Elisha Kent Kane's expedition to Greenland, 1853-55.

Based on a narrative manuscript of Johan Carl Christian Petersen, a member of Elisha Kent Kane's expedition to Greenland, 1853-55.

Muskox Land provides a meticulously researched and richly illustrated treatment of Canada's High Arctic as it interweaves insights from historiography, Native studies, ecology, anthropology, and polar exploration.

In the mid–1800s, geographers revived the ancient idea that at the top of the world, encircling the North Pole, lay a temperate "Open Polar Sea." Without doubt, the voyager who discovered this balmy basin would etch his name forever in the annals of exploration. Among those drawn to the challenge was Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, a handsome, charismatic figure from a leading Philadelphia family who was already a well–known adventurer and explorer. In 1853, Kane sailed to the Arctic to seek both the Open Polar Sea and the lost British explorer John Franklin. After sailing farther north than anyone yet, Kane and his men became trapped in the ice. Besides treacherous icebergs and violent currents, Kane battled starvation, disease, and a near mutiny before abandoning ship to lead a desperate escape in sleds and small boats. Race to the Polar Sea tells this story in heart–pounding detail. Drawing on documents never before seen, author Ken McGoogan brings to life a heroic figure famous in his day as America's greatest explorer and celebrates a shining example of American courage and survival.

The American Geographical Society was the pre-eminent geographical society in the nineteenth-century U.S. This book explores how geographical knowledge and practices took shape as a civic enterprise, under the leadership of Charles P. Daly, AGS president for 35 years (1864-1899). The ideals and programmatic interests of the AGS link to broad institutional, societal, and spatial contexts that drove interest in geography itself in the post-Civil War period, and also link to Charles Daly's personal role as New York civic leader, scholar, revered New York judge, and especially, popularizer of geography. Daly's leadership in a number of civic and social reform causes resonated closely with his work as geographer, such as his influence in tenement housing and street sanitation reform in New York City. Others of his projects served commercial interests, including in American railroad development and colonization of the African Congo. Daly was also New York's most influential access point to the Arctic in the latter nineteenth century. Through telling the story of the nineteenth-century AGS and Charles Daly, this book provides a critical appraisal of the role of particular actors, institutions, and practices involved in the development and promotion of geography in the mid-nineteenth century U.S. that is long overdue.

The Northwest Passage was repeatedly sought for over four centuries. From the first attempt in the late 15th century to Roald Amundsen's famous voyage of 1903-1906 where the feat was first accomplished to expeditions in the late 1940s by the Mounties to discover an even more northern route, author Alan Day covers all aspects of the ongoing quest that excited the imagination of the world. This compendium of explorers, navigators, and expeditions tackles this broad topic with a convenient, but extensive cross-referenced dictionary. A chronology traces the long succession of treks to find the passage, the introduction helps explain what motivated them, and the bibliography provides a means for those wishing to discover more information on this exciting subject.

Casting a wide net, this volume provides personal and professional information on some 445 American and Canadian naturalists and environmentalists, who lived from the late 15th century to the late 20th century. It includes explorers who published works on the natural history of North America, conservationists, ecologists, environmentalists, wildlife management specialists, park planners, national park administrators, zoologists, botanists, natural historians, geographers, geologists, academics, museum scientists and administrators, military personnel, travellers, government officials, political figures and writers and artists concerned with the environment. Some of the subjects are well known. The accomplishments of others are little known. Each entry contains a succinct but careful evaluation of the subject's career and contributions. Entries also include up-to-date bibliographies and information concerning manuscript sources.