Release date: April 4, 2000 | Series: Modern Library Exploration
In 1860, fifteen years after Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition disappeared in the Arctic, a Cincinnati businessman named Charles Francis Hall set out to locate and rescue the expedition's survivors. He was an amateur explorer, without any scientific training or experience, but he was driven by a sense of personal destiny and of religious and patriotic mission. Despite the odds against him, he made three forays into the far North, the final--and fatal--one taking him farther north than any westerner had ever gone before. But Hall was suddenly taken ill on that voyage and died under mysterious circumstances.
Ninety-seven years later, Chauncey Loomis headed an expedition to Hall's grave in northwestern Greenland. He exhumed Hall's frozen body and performed an autopsy. His findings suggest that the investigators of Hall's death nervously sidestepped the damning evidence. Loomis has written a masterful biography-cum-mystery that brilliantly evokes the lure of the Arctic and the brutal contest between man and nature.
With a new Introduction by Andrea Barrett, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal
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"One of the best Arctic narratives ever written."--David Roberts
From the Inside Flap
In 1860, fifteen years after Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition disappeared in the Arctic, a Cincinnati businessman named Charles Francis Hall set out to locate and rescue the expedition's survivors. He was an amateur explorer, without any scientific training or experience, but he was driven by a sense of personal destiny and of religious and patriotic mission. Despite the odds against him, he made three forays into the far North, the final--and fatal--one taking him farther north than any westerner had ever gone before. But Hall was suddenly taken ill on that voyage and died under mysterious circumstances.
Ninety-seven years later, Chauncey Loomis headed an expedition to Hall's grave in northwestern Greenland. He exhumed Hall's frozen body and performed an autopsy. His findings suggest that the investigators of Hall's death nervously sidestepped the damning evidence. Loomis has written a masterful biography-cum-mystery that brilliantly evokes the lure of the Arctic and the brutal contest between man and nature.
With a new Introduction by Andrea Barrett, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal
Charles Francis Hall was an odd sort, but a man whose experiences grant us access to the information then preserved within the Inuit collective memory as regards encounters with the Franklin expedition -- and, significantly, other expeditions as well.
While Cook's experience with his Inuit contracts proved ultimately frustrating to him, subsequent analysis of what he heard may provide genuine information on what went on with the Franklin expedition (and what went wrong).
The book is well written, interesting, and contains high drama and Artic adventure all its own. I would emphatically read it in concert with David Woodman's "Strangers Among Us," a careful analysis of the Inuit testimony received by Hall that provides what may be the last word on the fate of the Franklin expedition from the descendants of people who made periodic contact with the men from the Erebus and Terror at various points during the painful deterioration of ships and crew.
This book, now back in print, should not be missed by people with an interest in nineteenth century British and U.S. experiences in the Arctic. It has drama and human interest all its own, and deserves its place in the literature of Polar exploration in general, John Franklin's last expedition in particular.
This biography of C.F. Hall and his three journeys to the Arctic is an exceptional work because of the interweaving of Loomis' careful research with a captivating narrative that keeps begging to be read. A fine annotated bibliography and unobtrusive and informative footnotes keeps the reader aware of the extensive examination of both primary (mostly contemporaneous Journals by Hall and his associates) and secondary sources that has gone into the spinning of this yarn. The many mid-19th Century characters who are woven into this tragic biography come to life in what a lesser author might have molded into a tedious and technical text. Two nicely done maps are very useful aids to those unfamiliar with the details of the Canadian Arctic region. I found myself referring to them frequently. A group of historic photographs serve to bring even more vitality to the tale. Two thumbs up!
Chauncey Loomis' Weird and Tragic Shores is indeed all that. It tells the story of businessman and amateur explorer Charles Francis Hall. He goes in search of traces (possibly survivors?) of Sir John Franklin's expedition. The third trip goes wrong and Charles Francis Hall dies and is buried in the North. This book is driven by the personality of Hall and it is quite the personality. He is obsessed, unlucky, amateurish at times, belligerent, and stubborn, but the best word that could be one used to describe him is one that is applied to the Arctic itself, weird. The author captures the personality vividly with contemporary accounts, particulary those of Hall himself. It is an interesting book of a footnote character in the great age of Arcitc exploration, and sometimes through these footnotes in history one can see the truth behind what drives the explorers in its rawest form. An entertaining addition to the annals of history of the North.
