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.

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.

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.

Starting with the final expedition of John Franklin, 19th-century England's most honored and respected Arctic explorer, the opening of the polar regions resulted in the establishment of the multitudes of research stations that produce observations, measurements, and data crucial to all areas of scientific inquiry. The first mariners to venture south signed on for voyages that lasted for years with no guarantee they would return. If they did come back from the frigid zones, it was with their health permanently damaged by bouts of scurvy and months of inadequate diet. Yet, there was never a shortage of eager, courageous men willing to replace the unfit. ""Exploring the Polar Regions, Revised Edition"" tells the story of polar exploration and the men who wittingly put themselves in danger to take on the unknown frozen straits. Coverage of this title includes: the mythical stories of a 'Great Southern Continent' and the numerous Spanish, French, and British explores who searched for it; a description of the race to the North Pole, including various explorers' theories on how to achieve this goal; Roald Amundsen's and Robert Scott's race to the South Pole in 1911 and 1912; how developments in equipment, machines, and communications changed exploration; and, Ernest Shackleton's epic voyage between 1914 and 1916 to Antarctica Aerial exploration of Antarctica.

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.

Autobiography.

Account of the thrilling race to the south pole. With an introduction by Fridtjof Nansen.