The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the Northwest Passage and The North Pole, 1818-1909 (Paperback)

by Pierre Berton (Author)
Key Phrases: sledge crews, sledging parties, sledge travelling, Lady Franklin, New York, John Ross (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This spirited history probes the 15-year search for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition in the mid-19th century and the Frederick Cook-Robert Peary controversy. "Readers who think the ultimate adventure took place at the South Pole should rediscover the Arctic explorations," said PW. Illustrated. Author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Culled from extensive research of handwritten diaries and private journals, Arctic Grail is the definitive book on the age of arctic exploration and adventure.

Journey across the ice with a Who's Who of polar explorers, men of every temperament, including the pious and ambitious Edward Perry, the first explorer to probe deep into the Arctic labyrinth; Adolphus Greely, a Civil War veteran who had to watch his men starve to death on Ellesmere Island; Robert McClure, who claimed that he was the first to find the fabled Northwest Passage; and the flawed hero John Franklin, a meek naval officer whose expeditions were responsible for the deaths of more men than those of any other Arctic explorer. Travel with the adventurer Roald Amundsen, the cool Norwegian who completed a voyage in a tiny sloop that the British Navy failed to accomplish with its great three-masted ships; Frederick Cook, who lied about reaching the North Pole; and finally, the ruthless and paranoid Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1909.

As much about the explorers who braved impossible odds as it is about each expedition, Arctic Grail is an epic account of the Golden Age of Exploration at the top of the world.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585741167
• ISBN-13: 978-1585741168
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #301,535 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Comprehensive and Interesting Book, January 2, 2001

By	Arctic Voice Earl - See all my reviews

As a resident of Barrow, Alaska, high in the Arctic, I have found Berton's book both accurate and easy to read. I'm so glad it has been reprinted. My only concern is that my old paperback version is falling apart, maybe because I have read and re-read it so much. Berton pulls together a wide variety of topics and quests, especially the quest for the North Pole and Northwest Passage. And he correctly adds a skepticism about many of these expeditions being funded in the name of science, but focusing on reaching the pole, or completing the passage, and fame instead.

The section on Edward Parry's near-completion of the Passage in 1819 is superb, as are those on the tragic Franklin Expedition, and the very flawed quest for the North Pole on the part of Cook and Peary (which was the most corrupt? A good question.)

The Arctic is a fascinating place. My wife Chris and I have lived in Barrow for over two decades, and we still get a thrill when we see the Arctic Ocean on our drives or walks around town. but the Arctic is often misunderstood. Berton sets the record straight, about the explorers, the Native people who had so much to teach the outsiders, and the fascinating, but fragile, part of our globe. buy this new edition before it gets out of print. Earl Finkler

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vale Pierre Berton, December 23, 2004

By	Robert Taylor "antman" (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This excellent book, first published in 1988, stands as a fitting memorial to the prolific and accomplished writer Pierre Berton, who passed away at age 84 as recently as November 31, 2004. It details the events and personalities of Arctic exploration over nearly a century, beginning in 1818 with the first British naval expedition of John Ross and Edward Parry, and the related disastrous first naval land expedition led by the oddly ineffectual John Franklin. It concludes with the strange twentieth century tales of Robert Peary and Frederick Cook, both of whom claimed to have reached the North Pole, though neither could prove actually to have done so (nor had they). Along the way we meet a host of players, including the indomitable Lady Jane Franklin, Admiralty puppeteer John Barrow, the underestimated arctic masters Edward Penny and John Rae; Robert McClure, M'Clintock, Charles Francis Hall, Sabine, Nares, Greely, Elisha Kent Kane, Nansen, Amundsen, a number of memorable Inuit personalities and a host of others.

The great strength of this account is the repeated demonstration that the outcome of almost every event in the drama depended ultimately on the characters and personalities of the major players, their strengths, weaknesses, flaws and ambitions, and their capacities to learn from the experiences of their predecessors and their Inuit contacts. This gives a Shakespearian, if not biblical, dimension to the history, which is ably exploited by Berton. The book is as much about explorers as exploration.

Berton's well-detailed sources include the numerous accounts of the explorers themselves, their biographers and ghost writers, and much archival material - letters, original field notes, official reports etc, all woven together in a skilful and compelling synopsis. The book can be heartily recommended!

A few matters are missed among the vast number of items covered, for example James Cook in HMS Discovery, shortly before his death in Hawaii, reached Barrow Point, Alaska, from Bering Strait in 1780, setting the target for Franklin and others exploring from the east. One would like to have read the story of the Oval Office "Resolute desk", donated to the American Presidency by Queen Victoria in 1880, and constructed from timber salvaged from HMS Resolute, a ship mentioned frequently by Berton. The icebound Resolute was abandoned at Bathurst Island, Melville Sound by the British in 1854. She released the following summer and was later found adrift in Baffin Bay by a US whaler, sold on to the US government, refitted and returned to the British with a gorgeously attired naval band, much panoply and splendid one-upmanship. Also that Amundsen eventually disappeared in the arctic in 1928 while on an aerial search for the wonderfully zany General Umberto Nobile and his downed dirigible Italia (watch those late-night movie listings for the excellent film Red Tent (Krashnaya palatka), in which Peter Finch plays Nobile and Sean Connery Amundsen). Most of all perhaps, that the first expatriate to fully traverse the north west passage (on McClure's Investigator to Banks Island in the west and Intrepid from Barrow Strait in the east, with much walking and sledging between the two) was Lieut. Samuel Gurney Cresswell, in 1853 (he departed for Britain ahead of the other former Investigator crewmen with the news that McClure and his men had traversed the elusive passage).

Many original works of relevance have appeared in recent years. Notable are the excellent commentaries and reprints of the first Franklin expedition journals and paintings of John Richardson, George Back and Robert Hood edited by C. Stuart Houston (Arctic Ordeal, Arctic Artist and To the Arctic by Canoe), and David C. Woodman's studies on the Inuit memories of Franklin and his lost crews (Unravelling the Franklin Mystery - Inuit Testimony and Strangers Among Us ( all published by McGill Queens UP). Also the hard-to-find and indispensable arctic chronology of Alan Cooke and Clive Holland (The Exploration of Northern Canada - Arctic History Press), a first version of which was used by Berton. Many others are well covered in Amazon.com documentation.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely well-researched, warts-and-all, May 29, 2001

By	Scott Swindle (Iraq) - See all my reviews

This is a great, all-encompassing view of Arctic exploration from 1818-1909. It is a book about explorers as much as exploration, and about the people behind the scenes, such as Lady Franklin, the people who funded the expeditions, the politicians. Berton tells their stories warts and all; the heroism and sacrifice, the back stabbing and human failings and weaknesses. All of this makes the explorers, even the heroes, seem more human. I liked the parts about the early British Naval explorers--Franklin, the Rosses, Parry. They refused to learn anything from the 'uncivilized' Eskimoes who were obviously living off the land and sea; they refused to learn from the whalers who had been sailing the Arctic for decades, they refused to learn from the fur traders and voyageurs who had been living in this hostile land. The Navy insisted on going in with large crews with tons of provisions. They could not pick up on even simple things, such as eating blubber could stave off scurvy, which should have been evident as the Eskimoes never suffered from this disease. Some of the anecdotes of the officers trying to make the natives understand their 'civilized' ways are hilarious. This book is filled with both heroism and tragedy, neither of which were in short supply in the quest for the North Pole and the Northwest Passage. Highly recommended.