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North
WINNER OF THE 2002 SPECIAL JURY AWARD AT THE BANFF FESTIVAL.
North is a historical tale of arctic adventure, political chicanery, the power of love, and abandonment at the ends of the earth.
Lieutenant Parish sails to the Arctic Ocean on the adventure of a lifetime as the leader of the American Arctic Expedition. It is a journey that will make his name in history – if he survives. Unfortunately for Parish, the ultimate survival of the expedition depends on corrupt and inept politicians. However, unknown to Parish in his arctic prison, his new wife, Martha, is a greater ally than he ever realized. As Martha casts off her innocence and overcomes the obstacles of the political machine, Parish struggles to hold his men together in a hostile landscape that pushes the human psyche into new and dangerous spaces.
North is set in the late nineteenth century and based on the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition – which has been called “one of the most shameful episodes in American Arctic history.” The novel explores the tragic story of the expedition’s terrible ordeal and its inevitable end.
North is a historical tale of arctic adventure, political chicanery, the power of love, and abandonment at the ends of the earth.
Lieutenant Parish sails to the Arctic Ocean on the adventure of a lifetime as the leader of the American Arctic Expedition. It is a journey that will make his name in history – if he survives. Unfortunately for Parish, the ultimate survival of the expedition depends on corrupt and inept politicians. However, unknown to Parish in his arctic prison, his new wife, Martha, is a greater ally than he ever realized. As Martha casts off her innocence and overcomes the obstacles of the political machine, Parish struggles to hold his men together in a hostile landscape that pushes the human psyche into new and dangerous spaces.
North is set in the late nineteenth century and based on the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition – which has been called “one of the most shameful episodes in American Arctic history.” The novel explores the tragic story of the expedition’s terrible ordeal and its inevitable end.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
314 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2002
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11 people want to read
About the author
Roger Hubank
6 books4 followersRoger Hubank is a novelist and mountaineer and also a winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain literature.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 30, 2025
As cold and bleak as an Arctic winter night
North is a bleak, difficult and unhappy yet compelling and sadly moving story of Artic exploration in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Lt William Parish has been chosen to be the leader of an American expedition to the North Pole, flawed from its inception and doomed by the vagaries and short-sighted decisions of American politicians thinking only of their ambitions and careers. The achievements and difficulties not to mention the danger faced by a team of men thousands of miles from home and three years out of mind leads to an abandonment of the expedition to their fate that is little short of criminal.
North is based in large part on the real-life story of Lt Adolphus Greely whose story is summarized in the following excerpt from Wikipedia:
"In 1881, First Lieutenant Greely was given command of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, whose purpose was to find the North Pole and establish one of a chain of international circumpolar meteorological stations. Greely was without previous Arctic experience, but he and his party were able to discover hitherto many unknown miles along the coast of northwest Greenland. The expedition also crossed Ellesmere Island from east to west and Lt. James B. Lockwood achieved a new northern record of 83°24'."
"Two relief ships failed to reach Greely's party encamped at Cape Sabine, on Ellesmere Island. Thanks to the persistence of Greely's wife, Henrietta, the search was never abandoned. The ship called Bear, built in Greenock, Scotland, first used as a whaler, was purchased by the U.S. to rescue the Greely party. By the time this third ship arrived in 1884 to rescue them, 21 of Greely's 27-man crew had perished from starvation, drowning, hypothermia, and in one case, gunshot wounds from an execution ordered by Greely. Greely and the other survivors were themselves near death; one of the survivors died on the homeward journey. The returning survivors were venerated as heroes, though the heroism was tainted by sensational accusations of cannibalism during the remaining days of low food."
Hubank's greatest achievement in writing North is also the root cause of its greatest failing. The details of the expedition, the litany of its failures stemming from a series of ill-considered incorrect decisions, the punishing pain of unremitting cold and darkness, the slow, agonizing death of many of the team's members from starvation and scurvy are all related, the inter-personal conflicts of men in close contact under difficult circumstances for extended periods of time all unfold with the almost excruciating stiffness of a quasi-military journal. Given the source material for the basic idea, this is hardly unexpected but, sadly, Hubank fails to lift the material off the page and convert it into the astonishing, exciting story that it might have been.
Enjoyable for those that like their historical fiction in general and, more specifically, arctic exploration but would not likely be enjoyed by a less motivated reader.
Paul Weiss
North is a bleak, difficult and unhappy yet compelling and sadly moving story of Artic exploration in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Lt William Parish has been chosen to be the leader of an American expedition to the North Pole, flawed from its inception and doomed by the vagaries and short-sighted decisions of American politicians thinking only of their ambitions and careers. The achievements and difficulties not to mention the danger faced by a team of men thousands of miles from home and three years out of mind leads to an abandonment of the expedition to their fate that is little short of criminal.
North is based in large part on the real-life story of Lt Adolphus Greely whose story is summarized in the following excerpt from Wikipedia:
"In 1881, First Lieutenant Greely was given command of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, whose purpose was to find the North Pole and establish one of a chain of international circumpolar meteorological stations. Greely was without previous Arctic experience, but he and his party were able to discover hitherto many unknown miles along the coast of northwest Greenland. The expedition also crossed Ellesmere Island from east to west and Lt. James B. Lockwood achieved a new northern record of 83°24'."
"Two relief ships failed to reach Greely's party encamped at Cape Sabine, on Ellesmere Island. Thanks to the persistence of Greely's wife, Henrietta, the search was never abandoned. The ship called Bear, built in Greenock, Scotland, first used as a whaler, was purchased by the U.S. to rescue the Greely party. By the time this third ship arrived in 1884 to rescue them, 21 of Greely's 27-man crew had perished from starvation, drowning, hypothermia, and in one case, gunshot wounds from an execution ordered by Greely. Greely and the other survivors were themselves near death; one of the survivors died on the homeward journey. The returning survivors were venerated as heroes, though the heroism was tainted by sensational accusations of cannibalism during the remaining days of low food."
Hubank's greatest achievement in writing North is also the root cause of its greatest failing. The details of the expedition, the litany of its failures stemming from a series of ill-considered incorrect decisions, the punishing pain of unremitting cold and darkness, the slow, agonizing death of many of the team's members from starvation and scurvy are all related, the inter-personal conflicts of men in close contact under difficult circumstances for extended periods of time all unfold with the almost excruciating stiffness of a quasi-military journal. Given the source material for the basic idea, this is hardly unexpected but, sadly, Hubank fails to lift the material off the page and convert it into the astonishing, exciting story that it might have been.
Enjoyable for those that like their historical fiction in general and, more specifically, arctic exploration but would not likely be enjoyed by a less motivated reader.
Paul Weiss
June 6, 2023
Fiction or non-fiction? I've placed this in my non-fiction category, although it is really a fictionalised version of real events. However the parallels to the real events in the Arctic mean that I regard it as non-fiction with substituted names.
One slight omission for a man who has steeped himself in all that has been written about the Arctic, is John Rae's 1854 expedition that both established the North-west passage, and wrote of the canabalism that had afflicted Franklin's Arctic exoedition. Dickens' fulfilling his brief from Lady Franklin, sought to discredit Rae's findings, but I'm sure Greely's 1881 expedition would have been aware of Rae and his use of Inuits.
Readers have criticised the 'military journal' dryness of the writing, but the understated relating of these events seems to me the only way it could have been written to reflect the reality of the tragedy that unfolds. The tension builds through the story, and the handling of such a large cast of characters is dealt with in such a way that one's focus is firmly on a small and manageable core of those involved, with light sketches that bring other members of the expedition to life in cameo appearances throughout the progress of events.
Interspersed with this factual dealing with the things that happen are wonderful word paintings evoking the bleak otherworldliness of the arctic landscape and the long night of winter. The Arctic sections are interspersed with the hothouse atmosphere of Washington and the political scenes enacted out disregarding the lives hanging in the balance because of financial juggling, or public opinion.
Central to it all is the rather austere military William Parish, whose sense of duty and discipline ill-equip him for the vagaries of human nature when faced with such conditions as they encounter, and the self-effacing wife he has abandoned in pursuit of this cherished dream, and whose resolve finally launches a rescue attempt.
The Observer reviewer notes "Hubank's may be the first great historical novel of the century" and I tend to agree about that.
One slight omission for a man who has steeped himself in all that has been written about the Arctic, is John Rae's 1854 expedition that both established the North-west passage, and wrote of the canabalism that had afflicted Franklin's Arctic exoedition. Dickens' fulfilling his brief from Lady Franklin, sought to discredit Rae's findings, but I'm sure Greely's 1881 expedition would have been aware of Rae and his use of Inuits.
Readers have criticised the 'military journal' dryness of the writing, but the understated relating of these events seems to me the only way it could have been written to reflect the reality of the tragedy that unfolds. The tension builds through the story, and the handling of such a large cast of characters is dealt with in such a way that one's focus is firmly on a small and manageable core of those involved, with light sketches that bring other members of the expedition to life in cameo appearances throughout the progress of events.
Interspersed with this factual dealing with the things that happen are wonderful word paintings evoking the bleak otherworldliness of the arctic landscape and the long night of winter. The Arctic sections are interspersed with the hothouse atmosphere of Washington and the political scenes enacted out disregarding the lives hanging in the balance because of financial juggling, or public opinion.
Central to it all is the rather austere military William Parish, whose sense of duty and discipline ill-equip him for the vagaries of human nature when faced with such conditions as they encounter, and the self-effacing wife he has abandoned in pursuit of this cherished dream, and whose resolve finally launches a rescue attempt.
The Observer reviewer notes "Hubank's may be the first great historical novel of the century" and I tend to agree about that.
May 7, 2012
Polar exploration is one of my favorite historical topics. So, I found this fictional account of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition very moving. Parish, the fictional version of Adolphus Washington Greeley, and his men were brave as they faced struggles that could have been partly avoided except for some people back home not understanding what the expedition was going through.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews