Customer Reviews

The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A riveting read of the 19th century search for the Northwest Passage from Europe to the East, written with grace and mordant wit. After their defeat of Napoleon, the Brits thought they were invincible, even in the face of one failed expedition after another. They were British, right? Failure was not an option, and so into the frozen unknown they pushed in their quest for mastery of the world, urged on by one man who wielded great power in the Admiralty, John Barrow. Trouble is, until recently the Northwest Passage did not exist. Next trouble? They could not be bothered to learn from the people who lived there, the Inuits. They were savages, right? And listen to the whaling captains who were not "gentlemen?" Nah.

In the pursuit of glory, the men lost fingers, toes, tongues, and ultimately their lives. This is a gripping story of the folly of the British Admiralty, full of interesting characters, particularly Sir John Franklin, the man who ate his boots, and his wife, Lady Jane Franklin, ice galore, starvation, cold, and probable cannibalism. Highly recommended for history/exploration/sea story buffs.

Most popular histories of polar exploration focus on Antarctica, particularly the doomed mission of Robert Scott and the heroics of Earnest Shackleton. I grew up learning these names, yet I was largely ignorant about the North Pole. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to read Anthony Brandt's The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage, which provided both an exciting and comprehensive history of British exploration in the Arctic during the 19th century.

For centuries, the fabled Northwest Passage was the holy grail of both empire and commerce. Explorers estimated that a water passage through northern Canada would allow sailors to head straight for the Pacific rather than rounding Cape Horn, South America, which would save 3,000 miles off the trip. Alas, the northern waterways are too filled with ice to be navigable (although global warming may change that).

Brandt chronicles the journeys of John Franklin, Edward Parry, George Back, and John Ross and his nephew James in the Arctic during the first half of the 1800s. The title of the book, [ASIN:0307263924 The Man Who Ate His Boots]], comes from one of Franklin's earlier expeditions when, yes, the crew literally ate the leather on their boots in order to survive. However, that certainly isn't the only harrowing tale of survival. The ice floes could potentially crush or topple a ship. Perhaps surprisingly, boredom was a signifiant problem. According to Brandt, some officers like Parry made sure to entertain the crew by staging plays or playing guitars.

One of my favorite parts of the book is that Brandt discusses the behind the scenes politicking in the Navy over Arctic exploration. My favorite character was Sir John Barrow, who occupied the post of Second Secretary to the Admiralty for over 40 years. Barrow was the consummate bureaucrat who pushed his agenda through the Navy. That agenda focused on finding the Northwest Passage. Despite all the scientific evidence against it, and his own explorers suggesting the passage would be unnavigable if it existed, Barrow remained a true believer. He arranged for frequent expeditions. He also worked the public relations side by anonymously writing over 150 articles for academic and popular magazines. If you crossed this man or fell from his esteem, your chances of going to the Arctic - and reaping the glory of exploration - were over.

I would warn readers that this is a fairly long book. It took me about 2.5 days to finish. Also, I would recommend maybe making a list of the dates of the various expeditions and keeping a good map nearby - it can be tough to keep track of them all. That said, Brandt does an excellent job making the personalities of the characters vivid and memorable. Indeed, Brandt has an eye for detail and often livens the story up by describing the personality quirks of each man. Parry comes across as somewhat more confident and capable of providing for his crews. Franklin had a constant desire to prove himself, even if it meant death. Ross comes across as frequently wrong about the Arctic and public relations. The book includes other interesting characters, including Franklin's wife Jane who traveled the world and seems to have foreshadowed the women's liberation movement by a century.

The ending is also very well done. Even though we know that Franklin's last expedition failed, Brandt only slowly unveils the scope and horror of the failure. I won't spoil it for readers who aren't well versed on their Arctic history, but the last quarter of the book turns into a massive international mystery/exploration. Do yourself a favor and resist the temptation to read about Franklin on wikipedia before you reach the end.

I highly recommend this book for anybody interested in the history of exploration, particularly the great British sailors of the 18th and 19th century. I imagine this would be great reading if you have a chance to take a cruise along the Northwest Passage because, for the first time in recorded history, it is now possible to sail through during the summer.

For centuries, the fabled Northwest Passage has been the Holy Grail of many arctic explorers and adventurers. This book tells the history of the search for the Passage, focusing primarily on the 19th century British attempts.

This book has garnered quite a few lauding reviews, and I suppose it does deserve them. As a book on the 19th century British attempts to find the Passage, the book has a good deal of information. The problem I have with the book is twofold. First of all, I do think that the author should have spent more time on other attempts at the Passage, particularly Roald Amundsen's actual traversing of the Passage.

Second of all, and most damning, is that the author puts too little power behind his presentation. The subject is quite fascinating, and the book should bring that out. Instead, I found the too close to being a dull repetition of the facts, and don't get me started on the repetitiveness of the narrative.

But, for all that, the subject is so fascinating that the book does make an interesting read. It could have been a great book, but it is nonetheless a good one.

(Review of The Man Who Ate His Boots by Anthony Brandt)

If you are doing research and writing papers on the Northwest passage, then this book will be a great resource for you. If you are looking for historical adventure stories or engaging reading material on history, this is not for you. Keep looking. I have read a lot of history books and this one comes off as someone's glorified research project, maybe even an elaborated disertation. It is full of facts, dates, names, and brief descriptions of the search for the Northwest Passage. Let me save you some time and money here... Many people look, their boats/ships get stuck in ice, the ice melts, they go home empty handed. Once in a while someone eats candles or their crew mates to stay alive, but that's about all the detail you get. Again... great research book, boring read.

If you love history, adventure and exploring, this is the book for you! Anthony Brandt has done a remarkable job of taking us into the search for the Northwest Passage. Countless books have been written on this topic but few cover it as well as Brandt. From the early 1800's until John Franklin's infamous voyage of 1845 we read of many famous names such as William Parry, Frederick Beechey, John Ross, George Back and others who repeatedly tried their luck at finding the elusive passage across North America. The British had an obsession with this goal and tackled it by every means possible from overland trekking to ice-locked sea adventures. Brandt's stories of each one are interesting and very readable. The narration never slows down and the book is a real page turner! The sufferings and tragedy is unbelievable and you'll wonder how they ever endured it. Franklin's final attempt results in the ultimate disaster as his two ships disappear with all hands lost. The subsequent searches for him by the British Government, influenced greatly by his wife Lady Jane Franklin, are extensive but answer few questions as to just what happened. Over the years various information surfaces and there are conflicting accounts as to what actually took place. Interestingly, while this story is primarily about sea voyages the author details many instances of overland exploration attempting to map and chart the vast northern coast of Canada in order to assist those who eventually hoped to sail along those lands. It is one such early event that gives rise to the title of the book as Franklin on his initial land exploration actually did eat his boots!! This is truly a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

This well-researched book takes you through the period when the British were obsessed with finding the Northwest Passage, beginning with the first voyages in 1818 to the final voyages in 1880, which were mainly rescue operations searching for the Franklin expedition which had never returned. The story of these voyages is the story of incredible cold and dangerous ice, threading a path between huge ice floes that could crush a ship, and frequent frustration as ice plugged the waterways these adventurers sought to explore. A number of prominent men back in England, notably John Barrow, were convinced that the North Pole was free of ice. They believed "ice does not form in open waters" and this belief kept the British Admiralty sending ships to find the open waterway that would let ships pass from the Atlantic Ocean through the Arctic to the Pacific Ocean and bring glory to the British Empire.

But it was a fool's errand, fueled by the stubbornly held belief in the ice-free waters of the Arctic. Most of the expeditions involved spending at least one winter in these bitter conditions, and that led to one of the most interesting aspects of these trips North, their interaction with the native Inuit. Besides these native people who managed to live under such inhospitable conditions, the Arctic was also home to the French voyageurs, many of whom were mixed-race through living with the Inuit. The contrast between the comfort-loving, conservative British and the practical and pragmatic natives is a real culture clash and typical of that period when the natives, whose ability to survive harsh conditions was remarkable, were still referred to as "savages."

I'm sure I would have enjoyed this book more if I hadn't been given an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) that was missing all the illustrations, including maps that are crucial to understanding the various routes taken by the explorers. That sent me to the Internet to look for maps of the Arctic. I found maps, but most lacked the detail needed to understand the voyages described in the book. However, my Internet searches did alert me to a few interesting facts. Because of global warming, that ice-free arctic may become a reality and nations are actually interested again in the Northwest Passage, but Canada, which owns the maze of islands dotting the northern reaches of North America, claims ownership of the passage. The United States and other countries dispute this and say these are international waters. I also found there is a considerable tourist business in these far north areas, and some of the places where explorers froze and starved to death a century and a half ago now have lodges and tundra tours to view polar bears.

The desire to find a Northwest Passage goes back to a time before the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal, when getting to anywhere in the Pacific from Europe was a very long trip. Interest waned as these new routes became available and as the many voyages to the Arctic showed that the conditions were unpredictable and, while a passage does exist, the short Arctic summer did not provide enough time or enough assurance of ice-free conditions for it to be a practical route to the Pacific.

The Canadian Arctic islands are peppered with the names of British explorers and their patrons back in England. You meet these people in the book, with an emphasis on "The Man Who Ate His Boots," John Franklin, whose wife Lady Jane Franklin, was as famous as he was. Her consuming efforts to find him when he never returned from his last (1845) voyage, makes a poignant story. The author calls the attempts to find a Northwest Passage a "tragic history," but the British regard these men as heroes who did what they did in true British fashion, for the glory of their country. They held to that view, even when evidence showed the terrible, desperate last days of the final Franklin expedition.

I love this book! It's rich in detail, and places the events of John Franklin's expedition in a deep historical context. This includes the histiorical explorations, and the political history of Great Britain. An excellent and thorough job! There is one factoid missing concerning the earlier British explorations, and that is the effect of the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora, and the 1816 "year without summer" in the northern hemisphere. This surely was the cause of many of the difficulties in entering northern waters in summer for the next 3 or more years. (Tambora was the biggest volcanic eruption over the previous 1000+ years. It was not well known at the time due to the lack of any timely means of communication.) Yes... very nit-picky.

I would also take exception to other reviewers comments on global warming; these are pretty much out of line with current science, which in fact is regarded by many as too conservative. The effects of climate change are already upon us, the degree of ice formation in the Atrtic being a key piece of evidence. If anything the disparities of today's weather and the experiences of John Frankiln ought to be convincing.

This is a great book for those interested in early arctic exploration and British hubris.

I couldn't put this book down. It details the story of the (primarily British) search for the Norhwest Passage, the fabled link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that exists north of Canada. The passage does exist, but is not navigable; it is covered with ice in the middle.

The story title refers to John Franklin, who lead an overland expedition to try and find parts of the passage in the 2nd decade of the 19th century. His expedition starved, lost a lot of men, ended up eating their shoe leather, and generally floundered (although it did reach most of it's objectives). Two decades later he led two ships into the north and disappeared, which launched a number of "rescue" voyages over the next decade.

The story is chock full of fascinating details, and makes very clear that one needs to be prepared for the severe conditions found in the arctic. The British failed to realize that it would have been much simpler to just dress and function the same way as the native Inuit and other Native Americans did; people who had survived for hundreds of years in the cold north.

A subtopic of this book is the British culture of the time, which was laden with superiority over all other nations. The entire nation assumed that the passage must exist, and of course it must be discovered by the British people!

The book itself is very well written. The details do not detract from the story, and the overall style of writing and flow of material between chapters is very well done indeed. The author also provides many obscure details of the time that do not detract from the story, but rather enhance the tale - even though the details are not directly relevant. These sort of background details on the characters and events are what make a history book interesting instead of boring. Great writing.

I recommend this book for any age except younger children; the details of the struggles in the arctic are too intense for anyone other than teenagers and older. Otherwise, go for it - you won't regret it!

For a couple of centuries peaking in the early reign of Queen Victoria, Britain was consumed with the search for the Northwest Passage. This putative route to the north of Canada would connect the Atlantic and Pacific and eliminate the long trip around South America. In the beginning it was a necessary consideration: Spain and Portugal controlled the southerly route. At the end, it was more a function of pride. During the first half of the nineteenth-century it was a consuming quest. This is the period covered most fully in Anthony Brandt's book.

The northern part of Canada is a world of inlets and bays, islands and straits--and of overwhelming ice: ice that may stay in place for years and ice that may disappear without notice. This was the world attacked with typical British resolution by men like John Franklin and Edward Parry. It's a compelling mix of heroism, vainglory and absolute foolishness. This land had been inhabited by the Inuit for perhaps thousands of years. Yet the lessons these people could teach were routinely ignored by the British. After all, the Inuit were simple savages. Expedition after expedition froze and starved as a result of this arrogance. From our vantage point, it is hard to imagine being trapped in a small wooden ship, frozen into the ice, for a year at a time. It is hard to imagine the debilitation of scurvy and of manhandling boats across miles of rough ice with frozen feet. But this was the fate of every expedition. For some like the final voyage of John Franklin, it was far worse.

The British Admiralty showed an amazing inability to learn throughout this period. Consumed by a fantasy of warmer, ice-free polar seas, they were unmoved by every shred of evidence pointing in the other direction. The vast experience of whalers, French-Canadian voyageurs, Inuit and trappers was ignored because they weren't military or British. Even when it became clear that any passage wouldn't be commercially navigable, they persisted. This is not an exclusively British trait. By drawing analogies with 'Frankenstein', Brandt shows this to be a more general human character.

As the world warms and as technology extends our reach into the inhospitable, this part of the world is losing its fierce teeth. Brandt opens a window into an older world that is both strange and familiar. At times there is perhaps too much detail in the book. We're unnecessarily given the name of every cape and stone, as well as the history of the naming. We're given the name of a family traveling with Franklin's wife (they never appear again). While thorough, details like this sometimes interfere with the flow of the book. It's a small quibble with an otherwise fascinating tale.

This books turned out to be a interesting read. The Man Who Ate His Boots is John Franklin, the explorer who finally disappeared into the Arctic for years. His first expedition led to a tragedy where the men had to eat his boots and since that time was known by that nickname. The British wanted to find the Northwest Passage and spent nearly a century looking for it after many other countries gave up. The story is an interesting one and I hope that others will read it. Still it is amazing that the explorers would pursue such a torturous journey to death. I am glad that the book includes accounts of the natives who live in that region.