The Official Report of the Recent Arctic Expedition

Published in 1876, this riveting journal describes the 1875–6 British Arctic Expedition, which pushed further north than any earlier expeditions.

George S. Nares (Author)

9781108041539, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 December 2011

106 pages, 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 0.6 cm, 0.2 kg

In 1875, Sir George Strong Nares (1831–1915) set out for the Arctic in command of the ships Alert and Discovery, hoping to reach the North Pole and find the rumoured Open Polar Sea that surrounded it. The Official Report, published in 1876, recounts his fifteenth-month journey in lively and often harrowing detail, describing freezing temperatures, frostbite and scurvy, vast, uncharted landscapes and treacherous, ice-choked waterways. It records the progress of the British Arctic Expedition with the scrupulous detail of a ship's log, providing valuable insights into the logistical complexities and human costs of Polar exploration. 'We had arrived on the shore of the Arctic Ocean finding it exactly the opposite of an Open Polar Sea', Nares notes ruefully. A two-volume popular account of the voyage, published in 1878, is also reissued in this series.

Report of the Arctic Expedition, 27th October 1876.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]