One hundred years ago the world was reeling from WWI. Every value and belief once the foundation of civilization was called into question by the war.But before the 'War to End All Wars' didn't end war, men were going on quests to conquer the unknown regions of ice. They faced gruesome suffering--loss of body parts that had frozen, physical exertion in extreme conditions, starvation, threats of crevasses that appeared out of nowhere and thin ice over frigid water.
For what? For glory.
The polar regions offered no gold or marketable flora or fauna, no open land for civilization to claim, no sunny beaches for tourism.
The men who raced to the poles or up the tallest mountains did it for fame and pride and for God and Country. They had something to prove and overwhelming ambition.
To The Edges of the Earth 1909, The Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age of Exploration recounts the explorers of 1909: Peary's expedition to reach the North Pole, Shackleton's expedition to reach the South Magnetic Pole, and the Duke of Abruzzo's reach for the 'Third Pole' in the Himalayas-- the dangerous K2.
I have loved exciting, thrilling, and horrifying adventure narratives since girlhood. One of my first heroes was Robert Falcon Scott after I read The Great White South about his failed expedition to the South Pole. I have also read books about mountain climbing and K2. I haven't a thread of adventure myself, preferring a comfy chair and a cup of tea while reading about someone else risking their life.
Edward J. Larson's account strips away myths about these men. Peary especially, who may have falsely claimed to have reached the North Pole and whose treatment of Inuit, including his teenage concubine, was by our standards appalling and predatory. And the poor Inuit dogs that Peary 'borrowed,' worked to death, then fed to the other dogs (or his men, as needed.)
Shackleton was better, but there was grumbling over his leadership skills, and he did decide to take ponies to the South Pole as well as an early gasoline engine car, both quite useless.
The rich, handsome Italian Duke seems to come off the best, with few negative stories about him, and his later siding with the Allied forces during WWII.
The explorers needed to raise money to fund the trips. Money was given by rich Gilded Age barons and in exchange, they could have landmarks named after them. Their stories were sold to newspapers and magazines and printed in books. They went on the Lyceum lecture circuit with magic lantern photographs.
Peary brought back Inuit for scientific study; when they died their bones were put on display! And he stole three, huge meteorites which the natives used for iron making.
Oh, the frozen toes! The shards of frozen snow that sliced through good English Gabardine! The suffering described is horrifying. (And to think, I don't read horror stories, or at least that is what I had thought. Turns out--I do!)
Shackleton failed to reach the pole, but he was knighted anyway. Scott was already planning his expedition to the South Pole, as was Admunson, and in 1911 Scott perished while Amundsen reached the pole. Shackleton was old news but still returned in 1914-16 on the Endurance. By then WWI had consumed the world and no one had interest in men fooling around in icy realms. Shackleton died of a heart attack on his way to try one more time to reach the pole.
No one really knows if it was Cook or Peary, or Peary's companion Henson, who reached the North Pole. Or if either reached it. With no solid land, the ice over open water offered huge challenges. There were ongoing battles over their claims and bad feelings which sullied Peary's reputation.
"The time was when the search for the North Pole stood for the very acme of uncommercialized heroism," wrote Dean Shailer Mathews of the University of Chicago divinity school. Those were the days, indeed. Today, the opening of the Arctic waters brings dreams of drilling for oil and dollar signs.
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| The Icebergs by Frederick Church |
Could anyone then have imagined the aqua lung enabling men to view the ocean's bottom or an Endeavor that went into space? Or that the Arctic glaciers would be melting, the Arctic Ocean open and iceless?
I received a free e-book from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
To the Edges of the Earth
by Edward J. Larson
William Morrow
$29.99 hardcover
ISBN: 9780062564474
For more books on Polar expeditions:
Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2017/03/ice-ghosts-200-years-searching-for-lost.html
Marooned in the Arctic: Ada Blackwell's Extraordinary Life
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/03/marooned-in-arctic-ada-blackjacks.html
White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/11/an-explorer-of-people-knud-rasmussens.html
The Great White South by Herbert Ponting
Fiction about the Arctic and Antarctica:
My Last Continent by Midge Raymond
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/06/my-last-continent-by-midge-raymond.html
The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-birthday-boys-by-beryl-bainbridge.html
To the Bright Edge of the World
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/to-bright-edge-of-world-by-eowyn-ivey.html
The Terror by Dan Simmons
