Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole

by Fergus Fleming

The author of Barrow’s Boys offers a fascinating look at the exploration of the Arctic in the nineteenth century.
 
Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, the Seattle Times, Publishers Weekly, and Time
 
In the nineteenth century, theories about the North Pole ran rampant. Was it an open sea? Was it a portal to new worlds within the globe? Or was it just a wilderness of ice? When Sir John Franklin disappeared in the Arctic in 1845, explorers decided it was time to find out.
 
In scintillating detail, Ninety Degrees North tells of the vying governments (including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Austria-Hungary) and fantastic eccentrics (from Swedish balloonists to Italian aristocrats) who, despite their heroic failures, often achieved massive celebrity as they battled shipwreck, starvation, and sickness to reach the top of the world.
 
Drawing on unpublished archives and long-forgotten journals, Fergus Fleming recounts this riveting saga of humankind’s search for the ultimate goal with consummate craftsmanship and wit.
 
“Barely a page goes by without the loss of a crew member or a body part . . . Fleming [is] a marvelous teller of tales—and a superb thumbnail biographer.” —The Observer
 
“A fable of men driven to extremes by the lust for knowledge as epic as a Greek myth.” —Time
 

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Adventure, Canada, Travel

691 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Charlie Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

La conquista del Polo Norte

Tremendo libro que recoge uno por uno los intentos de alcanzar el Polo Norte desde mediados del siglo diecinueve.

Fue a partir de la famosa expedición de John Franklin en 1845 buscando el paso del noroeste, (hechos en los que se basa la novela de Dan Simmons, El Terror) la mujer de Franklin insistió mucho en buscar a su marido de ahí que se emprendieran varias expediciones. De entre ellas no todas fueron en busca del Erebus y el Terror. Alguna se dijo ¿por qué no nos damos una vuelta por el Polo?



Así empezó la carrera de verdad por llegar a los 90⁰ del Polo Norte.

Aparecieron aventureros que deseaban emprender ese viaje con nula preparación y sin experiencia. Todos tenían en común la valentía y un saco de ego por ser los primeros en conseguirlo.

Uno tras otro lo fueron intentando marcando un camino a base de prueba y error para los siguientes. Errores que no siempre se aprendían como el padecer de escorbuto, una enfermedad que aparece por carencias alimentarias. Claro que en esa expedición no te puedes llevar de todo. Otro error era creer que en el Ártico había aguas abiertas de forma que se podía llegar en barco hasta la meta. Cada cual deseaba llegar lo más lejos posible y no siempre la vista estaba clara. La vestimenta de los valientes que se atrevían también fue prueba y error. Al principio llevaban prendas de lana, ¿qué calentita la lana verdad? Pues la lana absorbe el sudor y a temperaturas de -50⁰ eso se congela y luego te lo tienes que quitar y descongelarlo, pero, ¿cómo?


Robert Peary

Un libro que presenta a cada líder que lo intentó contando su vida y personalidad, los motivos que le llevaron a emprender esa peligrosa aventura, (alguno no había visto la nieve en su vida) la mayoría de las veces de forma temeraria y siempre en base a sus propios diarios y los de sus compañeros de aventuras.

Se lee con mucho interés, cada relato del siguiente intento es como volver a empezar y, ¿otra vez encallados en el hielo?

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno de mis ensayos favoritos EVER. El mejor libro que se ha escrito sobre la exploración ártica.

[Berna Labourdette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre he sido fan de las exploraciones al polo (producto de mi amor por el capitán Hatteras) y creo que esta es una obra de referencia absoluta para clarificar quién, cómo y cuando se llegó el Polo Norte, además de revisar gestas épicas y desafortunadas como las de Hall o Peary. Muy entretenido y con muchísima información que desconocía. 

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of many books on Arctic exploration I've read this year. Good to read about other explorers who have tried the quest, not just Cook and Peary. I also enjoyed the writing style. Recommended for fellow Arctic-fans!

[Eduardo Fernández ortuño · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cinco estrellas. Un ensayo magníficamente narrado, en absoluto pesado. Es una síntesis genial de la exploración ártica. Me atrapó leer las historias de superación, la cantidad de sufrimiento que soportaron en el frío por un objetivo realmente vacío, llegar a un punto geográfico. Verdaderamente emocionante. De lo mejor que he leído en los últimos años. Como nota negativa, y no tanto, el autor deja ver muchas veces su opinión acerca de algunos de los expedicionarios, pero a mí personalmente tampoco me importaba que lo hiciera y hacía la lectura más cercana. Es que uuuh tremendo libro

[Sugarpuss O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arctic Book #8 for me this Summer. While most of my readings have been about either the Cook and/or Peary (not counting the 3 additional books I read on the Jeannette / DeLong last year), this book is a nice overview of those who came before Cook & Peary--and a few who came after. However, in this book Cook is an afterthought--treated more like a joke rather than someone who had also tried to attain the Pole--garnering no more than a few paragraphs. While this does not take away from the contents of this book, glossing over Cook--who did attempt to conquer the Pole, whether Mr Fleming wants to admit it or not--is a disservice in his chronicling the history of the North Pole.

One thing I can say after reading this book..... These guys were nuts! They all had a screw loose. And in the end, those who survived felt the same once they managed to step back & take a look at this lunacy: The North Pole is nothing more than a point on a map. Was it worth the pain, loss of life, and expenditure of time & assets to get there? Only they can know for sure. And what did any of us gain by their exploits? Nothing really. But I still think these men are a breed apart. They are the equivalent of the Mercury 7--trailblazers who looked death in the face & decided to go forward anyway. I don't know how they did it.

[Jim Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have any interest in polar adventure, this book and its prequel, Barrow’s Boys, should be at the top of your TBR list. In the first book, Flemming presents the history of the search for the Northwest Passage. In this, the sequel, he gives us the history of the explorers who searched for the North Pole.

This might not sound particularly interesting. After all, the pole doesn’t exist in any physical sense. It’s the top of the earth, the point where every direction is south. In the early years of this quest, there were many different theories about what would be found at the Pole. Most believed the Polar ice would open into a giant sea. Some believed the Pole would be on an island in this sea, a Shangri-la beyond anything ever seen by man. Others thought that the Pole would be an opening into a never-before-seen underworld filled with scientific and biological marvels.
The explorers were driven beyond all imaginable physical limits in their drive to reach the Pole. Many would suffer horribly from frostbite, exposure, scurvy, and starvation. They would return home as mere skeletons missing toes, fingers, and noses. Yet they applied again to head north as soon as another ship was ready to go.

Expeditions were brutal. All involved some combination of sailing north until the ship froze in, camping through a winter, then heading out across the ice dragging sledge boats filled with supplies. Dragging these boat-sleds for sometimes hundreds of miles would be amazing enough if the ice was flat. It wasn’t! Huge sheets of ice constantly shifted as they walked. When they crashed together, huge ice mountains bucked up. The men had to pull their sledges over these mountains as well.

There was one man who tried to reach the Pole in a balloon. His story was particularly memorable.
Several of these expeditions set out from Spitzbergen, an island northwest off the coast of Norway. Last summer, my wife and I took a cruise up the coast of Spitsbergen. Our ship crossed eighty degrees north within 600 miles of the Pole. We even crashed across the polar ice for part of a day. As we went up the coast of Spitsbergen, we stopped at several of the points Flemming talks about, like broad beaches where whalers butchered their prey taken from calm bays and the site where the balloon launched.

Flemming does an excellent job describing the beauty these men met along with the horrors. I recommend this book, and I plan to find others by him.

[Bruce Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a lot of books discussing the quest for the North Pole. This book ranks high on my list. It's a thorough account of the history of the quest, and captures the bravery/ignorance/insanity of those who attempted to be the first to reach the Pole.

One issue I take with Fleming's writing is his treatment of Robert Peary's claim to be the first to the North Pole. Yes, there is still controversy about this claim, but Fleming takes an absolute position: Peary did not make it to the North Pole. Fleming did not even mention William Molett's "Robert Peary & Matthew Henson at the North Pole" - arguably the most thorough analysis ever done of Peary's navigation notes and his sledging speeds. By Molett's account, which was published 5 years before Fleming's book, Peary did make it to the North Pole, within the accuracy of the instruments available at that time.

All in all, a good read!

[Alaina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Fergus Fleming knows how to tell a good story with just enough detail to explain what happened and the personalities involved, while still moving the story along. This is kind of a survey of primary sources from many different expeditions, and the ones that particularly interested me (Charles Francis Hall, the Greely Expedition to Cape Sabine, etc.) I'll be going on to find more detailed accounts of. Thanks for the gift Erin!

[Mike Futcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Barrow's Boys before it, the most impressive thing about Ninety Degrees North, Fergus Fleming's chronicle of the explorers of the Arctic and the quest for the North Pole, is that the author manages to have his cake and eat it. He doesn't shy away from the horrors and rigours of exploration in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world (as early as page 37, we get this about an epidemic of scurvy: "Morton was so appallingly afflicted that the flesh dropped from his ankle, exposing the bones and tendons. Kane dared not amputate lest tetanus take hold.") And yet at the same time he also manages to capture the aspiration and the majesty of it all.

Fleming is an excellent writer who can include plenty of detail and anecdote in his prose without disturbing the flow. So it is appropriate that it is he himself who best summarizes the diversity of his approach to the book in his concluding pages:

"The quest for the North Pole… It had provoked acts of heroism and folly, had led its protagonists through scenes of beauty and vistas of despair, had tantalized scientists and inflamed the imaginations of artists and adventurers alike. Governments and individuals had been drawn into its dream-like depths, spurred in equal measure by sound theories and myths of wildest fancy." (pg. 415)

Fleming packs all this variety into his single-volume heavyweight history. Initially, I felt the book suffered from the lack of a central theme: Barrow's Boys seemed to draw spice from the almost-universally foolhardy bravery of the explorers sent out by Sir John Barrow, something lacking in the more internationalist Ninety Degrees North, with its mix of foolhardy expeditions and more sober ones. But whilst this means the book doesn't tear along like its predecessor, it retains all the dogged research and skilful weaving of narrative, anecdote and analysis. It is a fascinating period and place of history, delivered impeccably by one of the finest narrative historians.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

496 pages

5 stars

Some of them were brave, some foolhardy, some lazy, some liars, some bombastic, some braggarts, but all were infused with the idea of reaching the North Pole for their respective countries. And reaching it first.

Along the way, many myths about the Arctic were dispelled. Such as the open/warm water theory and the hollow earth theory (one of my absolute favorites).

This book is very well written. It takes the history of those explorers who undertook the challenge of traveling – or attempting to travel – to 90 degrees North. The North Pole !

Mr. Fleming takes them in chronological order. There were a couple of expeditions that overlapped somewhat.

We meet the personalities who attempted the trek – and those who made it. Or, did they? There has been much debate on a couple of the explorers' claims. Those who made superhuman claims, but came up short. The triumphs and tragedies are discussed and the reasons for those situations.

What a wonderful book! I have read many, many books on the quests to reach both poles and I truly enjoyed this one. I am anxious to read Mr. Fleming's previous book, “Barrow's Boys.”

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and interestingly written book on the history of the attempts at getting to the North Pole. The most striking thing is the tenacity and courage of the people who undertook this challenge. Many lost their lives and the ones who survived often by luck they avoided calamity. Each attempt was a story in itself. The people who went on these expeditions had a lot of faith in their own abilities and a lot of arrogance about the locals who were treated as backward and not as intelligent as those from the west. This was not an unusual attitude for the times but it was only by adopting the survival techniques developed by the eskimos that success was achieved. An indication of the sort of people who went on these expeditions is revealed in the epilogue as very few of them were able to settle down in every day life.

[Eric Goede · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ik heb heel wat boeken over de polen gelezen maar dit is toch wel de minste. Een dikke pil, en erg onoverzichtelijk. Wat wil de schrijver nu eigenlijk vertellen? Welk verhaal? Elke keer worden nieuwe figuren ten tonele gebracht, waarvan je denkt, wie is dit nu weer. De verhalen worden niet spannend verteld, het gaat geen moment leven.

[Cullen Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning account of what the Arctic expeditions meant to expeditionaries, the societies they hailed from, and the indigenous lives they touched. It is full of drama, perseverance, folly, evil, innovation, and discovery.

[Punk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non-Fiction. People were interested in the North Pole long before the Franklin Expedition went in search of the Northwest Passage, but once it became clear Franklin wasn't going to return and the search efforts started up, several enterprising fellows had the following thought: "Hey, while I'm in the neighborhood, why not look for Franklin up Smith Sound, even though there's really no reason why he'd be up there, but what if he is, and what if I happen to discover the Open Polar Sea and find the North Pole while I'm there? And also rescue Franklin. Obviously."

The Open Polar Sea was a thing back then. Like the top of the world, one of the coldest places on Earth, was going to be all aslosh with a temperate sea. Other popular North Pole theories included: a hole that led down into the center of the hollow Earth, a giant mountain made of iron, an actual pole, a landmass complete with an advanced race of humans, or possibly angels. No one knew what to expect. It was the top of the world for gosh sake.

The massive search for Franklin covered most of the Canadian Arctic, filling in a lot of previously mysterious spaces on the map, and created a renewed interest in finding the Pole. It's this time period that Ninety Degrees North covers, from 1853 to 1926. Unlike the search for the Northwest Passage, which was primarily a British undertaking, the Pole drew all kinds. America, Russia, Norway, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Sweden all had at least one horse in this race. Some with actual horses. Expeditions took ships, kayaks, sledges, dogs, skis, snowshoes, balloons, dirigibles, and finally airplanes to the Pole, and Fleming lays out the history with nimble, exciting prose. He can get a little carried away with his hyperbole, but it doesn't happen too often, and mostly takes the form of extended metaphors where the ice is trying to kill someone, which, to be fair, it probably felt like it was. He uses direct quotes to good effect, naturally leading into them so they don't disrupt the text, places events in a larger context with relevant commentary, and never tries to pass off authorial speculation as undisputed fact. He's also really funny, and if I didn't feel like a nerd before, snickering over my Arctic history book definitely requalified me.

In his introduction, Fleming explains some of the terminology choices he makes, like using Eskimo instead of Inuit, which I appreciated. I didn't agree with some of it, like using Eskimo instead of Inuit, but it was good to know where he was coming from and that he'd considered the issue. Units of measure are another thing he addresses. But despite his choosing to use Fahrenheit, it's clear what he really wanted was Celsius, as throughout the book he constantly refers to temperatures of, for example, "70F below freezing." That is not a way we indicate Fahrenheit values. That is actually -38F. Which is still damn cold, but not, apparently, as impressive as "70F below freezing." Please. Fahrenheit is a ridiculous system to begin with. There's no reason to make it any sillier or more arbitrary than it already is.

The fifty-one black and white plates of explorers and ships stuck in ice are great, but they aren't in any kind of order, nor are they ever referenced in the text. Their sources are hidden at the back of the book, as well, so it's not always clear what we're looking at or where it came from. And the book itself has several typographical errors, like a bunch of missing end punctuation, or that time on page 337 where Franke is suddenly "Frank."

There are some things he glosses over, as well. His treatment of Frederick Cook isn't very balanced. Fleming presents all the evidence that made people doubt Cook's claims to Mt. McKinley and the North Pole, but without thoroughly explaining the circumstances behind that evidence. Fleming writes that Cook, on his return from the Pole, left all his instruments and most of his journals behind in Greenland. Sounds fishy! Except what Fleming doesn't tell us is that Cook left them with Harry Whitney, a trusted friend who tried his best to bring Cook's things back to him; it was Peary who refused to have a single item of Cook's on his ship and would have denied Whitney passage if he brought them, meaning Whitney would have to spend another year in Greenland, and that's why Cook's journals were left hidden on the coast of Greenland and why they've never been found. If there was an instance of Cook being suspected of falsehood or wrong doing, Peary and his cronies were usually behind it, and it'd be that way for the rest of Cook's life.

Even with its flaws, I can't resist giving this book all of the stars because I just really enjoyed reading it. I liked it so much I'm even thinking of picking up Barrow's Boys, Fleming's book about the Northwest Passage, even though I swore I was done with that subject.

Five stars. A highly readable account of the search for the North Pole, written with intelligence and humor. Has a brief outline of relevant events, three maps, bibliography, index, and end notes where the author attributes every direct quote he used.

[Repix Pix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro muy ameno y lleno de anécdotas curiosas que nos aclaran lo duro que es una expedición de ese tipo. No escatima en detalles duros e interesantes. Me ha gustado mucho.

[Xolrax · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Shobhit Dalal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book!! Fergus Fleming describes all the major expeditions in minute details as a neutral writer. It is a must read for any adventure enthusiast.

[David Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a bunch of nutters bent on fame at any price. Well Peary and Cook anyway.

[Terry J Podoloff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent history o the men who searched for the northwest passage. Honest portrayal of who based decisions. Would recommend to those who like a different kind of biography.

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong narrative throughout and good balance between well known and more obscure information.

[Sole Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro muy completo que habla sobre las distintas expediciones hacia el Polo Norte de los siglos XIX y XX. Lo acompañado fotos interesantes de los principales exploradores

[Sally Yerger]

I give it an 80% rating. Lists of medical conditions suffered by explorers became dreary.

[Mae · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good even though he called kathleen katherine . I liked how all the stories flowed into eachother and I LOVE freddy cook

[Youssef ben Salah]

aburrido es poco

[Guillermo Valls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda uno de los mejores libros que he leído. Un ensayo perfecto sobre la historia del descubrimiento del Polo Norte geográfico. Fleming sabe combinar perfectamente la información recopilada de los diarios de los exploradores, los datos históricos y una narrativa sencilla, elegante y fluida. Cualquiera que lea este libro se preguntará por qué Hollywood o Netflix todavía no han creado producciones de calidad sobre la historia del Polo Norte. Motines, asesinatos, canibalismo y todo tipo de desastres naturales propios de la banquisa polar se cuentan tal y como sucedieron. Con personajes de los dos últimos siglos impulsados por el afán de descubrimiento, el reconocimiento, y la búsqueda de otros exploradores y respuestas a preguntas científicas que todavía no tenían explicación hace 100 años. Un must-read que te tentará a profundizar en el helado, desolado y extrañamente cautivador mundo del ártico.

[Lucaxx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solo dopo l'acquisto ho scoperto che questo libro è dell'autore de "I ragazzi di Barrow" che tanto mi aveva divertito l'anno scorso, e ne è una sorta di seguito. Dopo l'epopea degli inglesi alla caccia del passaggio a Nord Ovest, ora si guarda verso il Polo Nord, ma non è più un'esclusiva dei britannici: ora si mettono in mezzo americani, norvegesi, tedeschi, russi e...italiani!
Non diversamente dal libro precedente di Fleming, il racconto dell'epopea della caccia al Polo Nord è raccontata con leggerezza e un tocco di ironia. Ma se quest'ironia in precedenza era spietata nei confronti degli esploratori imbecilli che muoiono come mosche, in questo caso è più leggera e anche velata di ammirazione quando la prospettiva cambia, finiscono le grandi spedizioni con centinaia di uomini e inizia l'"epoca degli eroi", gente che con pochi uomini percorre migliaia di km in slitta: tra cui Peary, Amundsen e financo un Savoia (!).
Il libro per me è stato piacevolissimo, ma mi rendo conto che può essere noiosetto leggere di una spedizione dietro l'altra, di scorbuto, iceberg, cani da slitta e inverni artici. Ma se ne avete il minimo interesse, è proprio un libro delizioso.

[Marceline Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I am eternally grateful that one of the very few things I had in my bag when I ended up in hospital was my Kindle, there was no wifi so I was stuck with a very random selection of unread books. You’d think polar exploration would be a bit of a depressing read in the circumstances, but it actually made me feel a bit better. At least I wasn’t spending two years freezing on an ice floe, eating my boots and dying of scurvy. The race to the South Pole is a much more well known story and I was very surprised how little I actually knew about the North Pole. People tried to get there in hot air balloons and zeppelins! No-one was really ever very sure if they’d gotten anywhere near the North Pole! Peary was a pretty horrible person! Despite all the scurvy and freezing to death, this is a really interesting book – I recommend it.

[Montecristo · Rating 3 out of 5]

La storia delle esplorazioni artiche scritta in modo molto dettagliato e completo, anche troppo per chi magari legge sull'argomento solo per curiosità. Le varie esplorazioni si assomigliano un po' tutte, perché come spesso accade nella storia gli uomini continuano a commettere gli stessi errori dei loro predecessori. In alcuni tratti un po' pesantino, in altri abbastanza appassionante.

[Jennifer Turnock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book just took me into another world it was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it