Journey to the Polar Sea

by John Franklin

First published in 1823, this book narrates the disastrous expedition undertaken by Naval officer and Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin up the Coppermine River in North America. Franklin (1786-1847) and nineteen others set out in 1819, initially with guides from the Hudson Bay Company until the journey continued overland, when they relied on Native Americans as guides. The party ran short of supplies and, lacking adequate knowledge for survival, were reduced to eating lichens. One of the party was suspected of eating the bodies of the nine men who had died of exposure and starvation, and two more were killed in a subsequent skirmish. The book was immediately popular on publication and quickly became a travel literature classic. Franklin undertook a second, more successful Arctic journey (the account of which is also published in this series) before setting out on his final expedition of 1845, which ended in tragedy and enduring mystery.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Travel, Nature, Biography

434 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1824

About the author

Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) was a British sea captain and Arctic explorer whose final expedition disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The entire crew was lost and its fate remained a mystery for 14 years. His flagship, HMS Erebus, was discovered in 2014 and sister ship HMS Terror (commanded by Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier) was discovered in 2016.

Reviews

[Hal Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first volume of this explorer's memoir is fine, typical exploring stuff, looking for the Northwest Passage, la de dah. Partway through the second volume, though, when they run low on supplies and turn back, things get awesome.

There are few animals around for them to hunt, and even when the party does get meat, there's no wood around to cook it with; so they're subsisting mainly on weeds. As they grow weaker and weaker they need to drop their equipment, and some jackanapes throws away their fishing gear, so even after they reach a river they can't fish. Finally, some grow too weak to travel on, so they form a desperate plan: to split the party. They're only 40 miles from a trading post they know of, so the plan is for Dr. Richardson to stay behind in the tent with the weakest while John Franklin pushes on with the rest, lightly encumbered (no tent!) and at rapid clip, to the trading post. From there they'll be able to send a relief expedition back to Richardson's party.

Franklin sets off, but after a quarter mile or so two of his party prove to be so enfeebled by hunger that they can’t keep up, Franklin send them back to Richardson. No sooner are the pair out of sight than one of them, Michel, kills his comrade and eats his flesh. While he’s doing this, a third weak straggler, who has also been sent back to by Franklin, comes across Michel at his repast: so Michel kills him too. He then goes back to Richardson, and offer some meat, which he says he obtained from a wolf carcass he found. Everyone eats; but Michel's story starts to unravel. Another who returns bears the story of how many should have come back; where are the others? Michael hints they may have lost their way. But no one believes him. And so Michel, by far the most robust in Richardson's party (he’s eaten the best recently!) starts SECRETLY KILLING THEM ONE BY ONE.

Meanwhile, Franklin's party, weak and dying, stumbles into the trading post, and is horrified to find it abandoned and stripped clean. Barely able to move, they start ripping up the floorboards of the building to burn. When they can crawl outside, they go and dig through garbage heaps, looking for bones they can burn and then grind up and eat as powder. They've already eaten their shoes. As they lie there, waiting to die, they are racked with guilt, because they know that they are the only hope for Richardson's party, just as weak and far colder than they – unaware that Richardson's party is in far greater peril than from hunger.

I won't spoil the ending. What a great book!

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the history of the Franklin expedition of 1819 to 1822 to explore and map the northern coastline of Canada, bordering the Polar Sea. The more famous and fatal last journey of Captain Franklin occurred later, from 1825 to 1827. This history is based on the daily journal of Franklin himself, and also added to from the journals of various officers of the expedition, as Franklin's original journal was lost with the overturning of a canoe, perhaps a harbinger of things to come.

The overall result of the expedition was a failure, almost half of his men died due to starvation and the severity of the Arctic winter. The introduction of Captain Robert Scott to this later edition of Franklin's journal actually adds to the feeling of macabre irony, as both these men were officers of the Royal Navy who led fatal expeditions to the opposite Poles. Somewhere it was said that heroic failure had its own unique attraction to the collective mind of the British public, who strangely accepted, or ignored, the fact that the Norwegian explorers, led by Nansen and Amundsen, repeatedly demonstrated the superiority of dog teams, ski's and fewer men.

Nevertheless, Franklin's journal was a fascinating read. To learn more of the fur trade in the far north of Canada, and the French voyagers who commanded the navigation of the rivers, just added to the pleasure. An unfortunate but glaring omission is the lack of high quality maps. The few maps provided are totally ineffectual. I had to subtract a full star for that. I had to read the book with the help of an old National Geographic Atlas.

[Cole Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modern edition of Captain John Franklin's accounts of his first (overland) expedition following the Coppermine River to the Arctic Sea, which would famously earn him the title of "the man who ate his own boots." While slow at first, the excitement picks up following their departure from Fort Enterprise, especially with the hindsight of what trials would befall these men. As other readers have suggested, a map is a useful supplement to the text to allow one to follow Franklin's trek through the Canadian interior.

[yórgos]

με θυμάμαι μικρό να παρακολουθώ μια τηλεοπτική σειρά - θαρρώ πως ήτανε - για τον σάκλετον και διαβάζοντας την αφήγηση του φράνκλιν σκέφτηκα πόσο κρίμα είναι να μην αφιερώνονται κάποια μέτρα φιλμ για ετούτους τους ανθρώπους. προς το τέλος του βιβλίου υπάρχουν κάμποσες σελίδες που τις έκανα εικόνες σκηνοθετημένες από ταραντίνο.