The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole

I've got a job
I explore
I follow every little whiff
And I want my life to smell like this
To find a place
An ancient race
The kind you'd like to gamble with
--Tragically Hip

I just finished reading "The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole" by Pierre Burton. By it here.

As the title suggests, the book details the various missions to the North West Passage for the most part, from 1818 - to the 1870's, and then concentrates on the missions to the North Pole to 1909. It focuses on not only the events of the voyages, but also gives substantial background on the people who were on these missions. There is considerable detail into the mindset of the Northern explorers like Peary, Cook and Franklin. There is also a good primer on the mindset of the Victorian attitude toward exploration in the north, which I paraphrase as "Without risk, where is the glory?".

I read the biography of Livingstone, the African explorer who concentrated on finding with the source of Nile, in addition to other ventures. Like Livingstone, there is a obsession of these self-selecting Northern adventurers, who would like nothing more than to see part of the world no one else (read: no white man) had seen before and would suffer enourmous consequences for their obsession.

And the public loved them. During the 1800's, Livingstone in Africa and Franklin in the North were toasted as celebrities, and were rewarded with public adulation, fame, and riches. And like Livingstone, these ventures into the (literal) Heart of Darkness of the North meant that those who accompanied the explorer/messiahs would suffer extreme hardships, mental breakdowns, harsh physical conditions, disease and paranoia.

Berton, the master of Canadian history, is able to read the various journals, periodicals and other takes on these journeys and synthesize a few salient ideas that are still relevant today.

First of all, Berton excoriates the British Navy for not learning some of the most basic lessons of northern exploration, even after decades of trial and error follies. For instance, instead of learning to wear fur lined clothing as the Inuit did, the explorers, on strict Naval discipline, wore standard and tight fitting wool, rather than loose dear skin. This meant that decades of suffering for literally thousands of northern explorers, and death for a good portion of those. Despite the years of journals from a multitude of sources indicating that the Inuit were on to something after millenia of living in the harshest conditions on earth, the British Navy remained too elitist and bigoted to take the these lessons to heart.

Berton also specifically notes how those explorers, such as Hall and King, who incorporated the methods of the Northern inhabitants were actually able to not just "survive" the north, but were able to thrive as the Inuit had. Hall, for instance, spent years in Frobisher Bay, learning how the Inuit lived, learned their language, and was able to incorporate their diet, meaning that he was able to keep scurvy to a minimum on his treks (the key was to eat seal blubber which is rich in Vitamin C!).

As I mentioned, Berton also delves deep into the private lives of the explorers like Peary, which gives the narrative colour and the characters in these fascinating stories motivations and background. Peary obsessed over being first to the Pole, partly because of personal finances, but also a life long obsession to beat anyone else to the top. This explains his fanatical attacks on Cook, and his campaign to discredit Cook's claim to the title of being first to the pole. It also explains why Peary, an otherwise fairly honest man, would doctor his journals and calculations to appear to have be first to the top of the world.

I would suggest that anyone with an interest in British exploration, the arctic, or the Victorian age would enjoy this book. Berton is a fascinating writer and this book covers extraordinary ground, solving and explaining the mysteries surrounding our vast Northern regions.

-------------------------
Here are the Hip with a song I associate with Canada's vast, open spaces... but Gord Downie has his own ideas:


Why does Gord always act a fool on stage? I don't know but...Jeez, they have have a great live act.