Arctic History

Pack your bags for the adventure of a lifetime… From the #1 bestselling author of The Cruise, embark on an unforgettable journey and sail through Norway’s winter wonderland to see the spectacular Northern Lights. 'A wonderful, emotional and heartwarming story of lost love and second chances...

Prime Arctic predator and nomad of the sea ice and tundra, the polar bear endures as a source of wonder, terror, and fascination. Humans have seen it as spirit guide and fanged enemy, as trade good and moral metaphor, as food source and symbol of ecological crisis. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. Ice Bear traces and illuminates this intertwined history.

Between 1941 and 1945, more than eight hundred shiploads of supplies were delivered to the Soviet Union protected by allied naval forces. Each journey was a battle against the elements, with turbulent seas, extreme cold, and the constant dread of torpedoes. These Arctic convoys have been mythologized as defenseless vessels at the mercy of deadly U-boats—but was this really the case?

Winner of the National Book Award This bestselling, groundbreaking exploration of the Far North is a classic of natural history, anthropology, and travel writing. The Arctic is a perilous place. Only a few species of wild animals can survive its harsh climate. In this modern classic, Barry Lopez...

"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...

As World War II raged across the Russian steppes, in Africa and especially in the skies over Europe, elite German and Soviet forces fought a bitter battle in an isolated northern corner of Europe. Here, the battle was for control of the ice-free port of Murmansk, where the Soviet Union received convoy after convoy loaded with British and American tanks, guns, fuel, small arms, food and aircraft. Supplies from the Allied convoys kept the Soviet Union alive at a critical time during the early stages of the war, and Hitler therefore tried every means to stop the convoys.

With shades of Water for Elephants and True Grit, a stunning debut novel set in the Australian outback about a female horse thief, her bid for freedom, and the two men trying to capture her. It is 1921. In a mountain-locked valley, Jessie is on the run. Born wild and brave, by twenty-six she...

In the aftermath of a world war with China, Admiral Dan Lenson is assigned to set up a US Navy base on the rugged North Slope of Alaska, in response to Russian seabed claims that reach nearly to the US coast. Yet the current administration seems oddly reluctant to confront Russian aggression. At the same time, the International Criminal Court is accusing Dan of a war crime.  

Perpetually covered in ice and snow, the mountainous Antarctic Peninsula stretches southward toward the South Pole where it merges with the largest and coldest mass of ice anywhere on the planet. Yet far from being an otherworldly "Pole Apart", the region has the most contested political history of any part of the Antarctic Continent. In Frozen Empires, Adrian Howkins argues that there has been a fundamental continuity in the ways in which imperial powers have used the environment to support their political claims in the Antarctic Peninsula region.

He’s built a quiet life for himself in Alaska. But it doesn’t stand a chance against the unrelenting pull of a man who’s everything he shouldn’t want. “Whether making my heart melt or my head burst into flames, Annabeth Albert draws the reader in and keeps them captivated.” —Gay...

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.

Global warming has transformed the Earth, and it's about to get even hotter. The Arctic Ice Cap has all but melted, and the international community is racing desperately to claim the massive amounts of oil beneath the newly accessible ocean. Enter the Gaia Corporation. Its two founders have come up with a plan to roll back global warming. Thousands of tiny mirrors floating in the air can create a giant sunshade, capable of redirecting heat and cooling the earth's surface.

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.

For readers of Karen Russell, Maggie Shipstead, and Eowyn Ivey, an exuberant, highly imaginative epic about a family that settles, against all odds, in the far reaches of the Arctic and the unexpected industry that keeps them afloat for generations. In the far reaches of the Territory of the...

“[Kathleen Jamie’s] essays guide you softly along coastlines of varying continents, exploring caves, and pondering ice ages until the narrator stumbles over — not a rock on the trail, but mortality, maybe the earth’s, maybe our own, pointing to new paths forward through the forest.”...

November 1928 finds Dorothy “Doc” Starr and "Captain Stratosphere" Jack McGraw raising their daughter when the local AEGIS bureau chief taps them for a new assignment—investigate the source of a strange radio signal originating from somewhere off the northern coast of Greenland. When their home is attacked by agents of the Silver Star, they know Aleister Crowley has gone on the offensive. With wounded crew members, a disabled airship, and the Silver Star in the vicinity, Jack and Doc must race to find the source of the signal and prevent a ghoulish apocalypse.

This classic essay from Jon Krakauer is now available as an unabridged audiobook download. This essay is also included in the Classic Krakauer collection. From the bestselling author of Missoula and Into the Wild: a selection of the singular investigative journalism that made Krakauer famous...

By the early decades of the 20th century, the fur trade had tapered off some from its heyday in the 19th century, but it still proved profitable enough for hunters to live for months at a time in remote regions of Alaska. Their only contact with the outside world consisted of the company ships that came to buy their furs and bring them supplies. One of these vessels was the steamer Baychimo, a Hudson's Bay Company ship that plied the treacherous waters off Alaska, Arctic Canada, and Siberia for many years.

Travel north - beyond the Arctic Circle - to Barrow, Alaska, and meet the proud Iñupiaq people. For thousands of years they have hunted whales on the open sea, but now global climate change threatens their way of life. The whale hunt is about to begin, and you're invited to come along! Just as soon as the ice covering the ocean cracks apart, the whales will appear. Set out with the Iñupiaqs in their bearded-sealskin boats to hunt bowhead whales, and witness a tradition that has been followed for 3,000 years.