Showing titles in Arctic & Antarctica

The greatest undersea adventure of the 20th century.The Ice Diaries tells the incredible true story of Captain William R. Anderson and his crew's harrowing top-secret mission aboard the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Bristling with newly classified...

Vilhjálmur Stefánsson left New York in April 1908 to begin his journey northwards and into the Arctic Circle. For the next two years, he made his way northwards to Victoria Island to study an isolated group of Inuit who still used primitive tools and had strong Caucasian features, and whom some believed were descended from Vikings. The journey into these remote areas was incredibly tough and being delayed by blizzards Stefánsson, along with his companions, were forced to eat the tongue of a beached whale that had been dead for at least four years.

Here is the story of the infamous 1910 race to the South Pole, as told by its fearless yet desperate leader, Robert Falcon Scott. The New York Times called Scott's Last Expedition "A splendid record of heroism not soon to be forgotten."

The enthralling and often harrowing history of the adventurers who searched for the Northwest Passage, the holy grail of nineteenth-century British exploration. After the triumphant end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British took it upon themselves to complete something they had been trying...

Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it's the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others in a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context.

Life Among the Qallunaat is the story of Mini Aodla Freeman’s experiences growing up in the Inuit communities of James Bay and her journey in the 1950s from her home to the strange land and stranger customs of the Qallunaat, those living south of the Arctic. Her extraordinary story, sometimes humourous and sometimes heartbreaking, illustrates an Inuit woman’s movement between worlds and ways of understanding. It also provides a clear-eyed record of the changes that swept through Inuit communities in the 1940s and 1950s.

They called it "The Arctic Circle War." It was a forty-eight-day manhunt across the harshest terrain in the world, the likes of which we will never see again. The quarry, Albert Johnson, was a loner working a string of traps in the far reaches of Canada's Northwest Territories, where winter temperatures average forty degrees below zero. The chase began when two Mounties came to ask Johnson about allegations that he had interfered with a neighbor's trap. No questions were asked. Johnson discharged the first shot through a hole in the wall of his log cabin.

Ernest Shackleton was not just a great explorer - he was also a great commander. When the chips were down, he could always be depended upon to put others ahead of himself. Shackleton knew how to push the limits until he was able to exceed well above even the most generous of expectations that had been laid out for him. Yet time and time again, he also proved to be a compassionate leader who made sure that he never left a single man behind on his expeditions.

Under the guidance of James Calvert this nuclear submarine had navigated through polar ice packs, braved atrociously cold conditions, and broken through layers of thick ice to arrive at their destination; the northernmost point of the world. This mission, however, was not just about completing a seemingly impossibly feat of Arctic exploration. It also had huge implications for military strategy during the height of the Cold War. 

It is the dreamland of most children in Europe and the Americas, and the mysterious home of the mythical Santa Claus, his devoted wife Mrs. Claus, the reindeer, and the many elves who make Christmas toys each year. In many ways, the North Pole is the first geographical location many kids learn, if only because children over the age of three can manage to tell any interested adult that Santa Claus lives there.

The Lost Continent, a new HarperNorth book, full description to follow when available...

Through the years, the challenge of powered transportation in the snow has been met with ideas from explorers, creative inventors and small companies, all with new ideas - often unique and sometimes successful. The name "snowmobile" was trademarked in 1917, but there were snow travel ideas before that date and certainly thousands more since. Winter explorers and trailblazers sought to replace their dogsleds and snowshoes as they explored difficult locations, including remote locations, on the north and south poles.

Battle for the Ends of the Earth, a new HarperCollins book, full description to follow when available...

"Damron's subtle pacing manages the tension perfectly." —AudioFile on Empire of Ice and Stone "Listen to this if you want to hear a narrator at the top of his game recount a fascinating—and at times disturbing—true story of adventure, disaster, discovery, cannibalism, and more. Will Damron...

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, an entwined narrative of the most adventurous year of all time, when three expeditions simultaneously raced to the top, bottom, and heights of the world. As 1909 dawned, the greatest jewels of exploration—set at the world’s frozen extremes—lay...

""GRIPPING. ... One of the greatest polar rescue efforts ever mounted."" —Wall Street Journal The riveting true story of the largest polar rescue mission in history: the desperate race to find the survivors of the glamorous Arctic airship Italia, which crashed near the North Pole in 1928...

Bloomsbury presents A Cold Spell by Max Leonard, read by Tom Lawrence. Taking us from the beginning of our story to the present day, A Cold Spell examines how ice has shaped our thoughts, actions and societies – and what it means for us that it is rapidly disappearing from our planet 'A...

A remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal, and survival set in one of the world's most inhospitable places. In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, hundreds of miles from another human being, Commander Robert E. Peary spotted a line of mysterious peaks looming in the distance. He called this unexplored realm "Crocker Land". Scientists and explorers agreed that the world-famous explorer had discovered a new continent rising from the frozen Arctic Ocean.

Here Jonathan and Angela Scott tell the story of their modern day exploration of this extreme continent, a journey through the magnificent icy landscape, to explore the wildlife of this rare sanctuary, and reflect on the experiences of early explorers like Shackelton, Amundsen, Scott and Mawson, and on the relationship between man and wildlife in this remote and spectacular environment.

The first-ever comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic land and waters stretching from Russia to Canada, Floating Coast breaks away from familiar narratives to provide a fresh and fascinating perspective on an overlooked landscape. The unforgiving territory along the Bering Strait had long been home to humans - the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia - before Americans and Europeans arrived with revolutionary ideas for progress.