Exploring the Arctic at NYPL: A Reading List

Biographies & First-Hand Accounts

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  In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic

  by Valerian Albanov

  A Russian navigator describes an ill-fated 1912 Arctic expedition aboard the Saint Anna, and his grueling cross-country journey to get help in 1914.

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  The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen

  by Stephen R. Brown

  The Last Viking unravels the life of the man who stands head and shoulders above all those who raced to map the last corners of the world. In 1900, the four great geographical mysteries—the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole—remained blank spots on the globe. Within 20 years Roald Amundsen would claim all four prizes. Renowned for his determination and technical skills, both feared and beloved by his men, Amundsen is a legend of the heroic age of exploration, which shortly thereafter would be tamed by technology, commerce, and publicity. Féted in his lifetime as an international celebrity, pursued by women and creditors, he died in the Arctic on a rescue mission for an inept rival explorer.

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  White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic

  by Stephen R. Brown

  Documents explorer Knud Rasmussen's life-risking three-year dogsled journey from Greenland to Alaska to determine the common origins of circumpolar populations, commending his triumphant role in introducing previously impenetrable Arctic cultures to the rest of the world.

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  An African in Greenland

  by Tété-Michel Kpomassie

  Tété-Michel Kpomassie was a teenager in Togo when he discovered a book about Greenland—and knew that he must go there. Working his way north over nearly a decade, Kpomassie finally arrived in the country of his dreams. This brilliantly observed and superbly entertaining record of his adventures among the Inuit is a testament both to the wonderful strangeness of the human species and to the surprising sympathies that bind us all.

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  Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age

  by Reid Mitenbuler

  The mesmerizing, larger-than-life tale of an eccentric adventurer who traversed some of the greatest frontiers of the 20th century, from uncharted Arctic wastelands to the underground resistance networks of World War II.

Expedition Histories

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  Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media

  by Darrell Hartmann

  The story of American explorers Robert Peary and Frederick Cook, who both claimed to have discovered the North Pole and the two New York City newspapers that fanned the flames of the so-called polar controversy.

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  Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

  by Buddy Levy

  The harrowing story of the ill-fated 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition aboard the ship Karluk explains the events leading up to the deaths of over a dozen of the vessel’s crew and staff.

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  Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition

  by Buddy Levy

  Tells the gripping true story of Lt. A.W. Greely who, in July 1881, along with his crew of 24 scientists and explorers, embarked on a quest for fame and fortune that resulted in one of the most harrowing adventures in the annals of polar exploration.

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  Searching for Franklin: New Light on History's Worst Arctic Disaster

  by Ken McGoogan

  Two of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin's expeditions were monumental failures. Yet many still see the Royal Navy man as a heroic figure who sacrificed himself to discover the Northwest Passage. This book interweaves two narratives. The first treats the Royal Navy's Arctic Overland Expedition of 1819, as a harbinger-misadventure during which Franklin rejected the advice of Dene and Metis leaders and lost eleven of his twenty-one men. The second discovers a startling new answer to that greatest of Arctic mysteries: what was the root cause of the catastrophe that engulfed Franklin's last expedition? The well-preserved wrecks of Erebus and Terror promise to yield more clues about what cost the lives of the expedition members, some of whom were reduced to cannibalism. Franklin disappeared into the Arctic in 1845, yet people remain fascinated with his final doomed voyage: what happened?

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  N-4 Down: The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia

  by Mark Piesing

  Combining gripping true accounts and heroic rescues, this unforgettable true story tells of the desperate race to find the survivors of the glamorous Arctic airship Italia, which crashed near the North Pole in 1928.

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  Into the Great Emptiness: Peril and Survival on the Greenland Ice Cap

  by David Roberts

  The riveting story of one of the greatest but least-known sagas in the history of exploration from David Roberts, the “dean of adventure writing.”

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  In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

  by Hampton Sides

  Recounts the ill-fated 19th-century naval expedition to the North Pole under the leadership of George Washington De Long that resulted in the sinking of the USS Jeannette and the crew's epic struggle for survival in the harsh and unforgiving Arctic environment.

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  Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition

  by Paul Watson

  A journalist and member of the expedition that discovered the wreck of HMS Erebus in 2014 describes how an unlikely combination of marine science and Inuit knowledge helped solve the mystery of the Lost Franklin Expedition of 1845.

Arctic History

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  The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey into Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future

  by Jon Gertner

  The author of the best-selling The Idea Factory presents an urgent account of the explorers and scientists racing to understand the rapidly melting ice sheet in Greenland and what it reveals about climate change.

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  Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Fight to Protect the Arctic and Save the Planet from Climate Change

  by Sheila Watt-Cloutier

  For her work on climate change and the Arctic, author Sheila Watt-Cloutier was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In this memoir, she describes the first ten years of her life growing up in an indigenous Inuit community in northern Quebec in the 1950s, and shows how her early years influenced her later career as an environmental rights and human rights advocate. She describes her difficult transition to boarding school and the wider world, and chronicles her research on the impact of pollution and climate change on indigenous populations in the Arctic and her work with the UN and other organizations. 

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  Arctic Dreams

  by Barry Lopez

  In his National Book Award-winning masterwork about imagination and desire in a northern landscape, revered writer Barry Lopez carries readers on a breathtaking journey into the heart of one of the world's last frontiers In this award-winning classic, Barry Lopez explores the ways the human imagination engages with a landscape at once barren and beautiful, perilous and alluring, austere yet teeming with vibrant life, and shot through with human history.

Fiction

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  Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories

  compiled by Neil Christopher

  “Taaqtumi” is an Inuktitut word that means “in the dark”—and these spine-tingling horror stories by Northern writers show just how dangerous darkness can be. A family clinging to survival out on the tundra after a vicious zombie virus. A door that beckons, waiting to unleash the terror behind it. A post-apocalyptic community in the far North where things aren’t quite what they seem. With chilling tales from award-winning authors Richard Van Camp, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Aviaq Johnston, and others, this collection will thrill and entertain even the most seasoned horror fan.

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  The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

  by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Coleridge's greatest work, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", is utterly unique, unlike any other ballad. No narrative poem has rivaled it in combining scenes of terror with scenes of incomparable beauty. Although enormously popular in the nineteenth century, it is seldom read or studied today. This annotated version by Martin Gardner will help to renew the appreciation and deepen the understanding of Coleridge's unjustly neglected masterpiece.

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  The North Water

  by Ian McGuire

  The Volunteer, a nineteenth-century Yorkshire whaling ship, becomes the stage for a confrontation between brutal harpooner Henry Drax and ex-army surgeon Patrick Sumner, the ship's medic, during a violent, ill-fated voyage to the Arctic.

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  The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven

  by Nathaniel Ian Miller

  In 1916, disfigured after a polar bear attack, Sven Ormson leads a solitary life, testing himself against the elements in Svalbard, until an unlikely visitor salves his loneliness, drawing him into a family of fellow castoffs that determines the rest of his life.

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  Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus

  by Mary Shelley

  Few narratives can rival the way in which Shelley's gothic masterpiece captured the human imagination. In this book, the creature that has become the grotesque caricature we all know so well raises pertinent questions about science and responsibility that are more relevant today than ever before.

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  The Terror

  by Dan Simmons

  Captain Crozier must find a way for his crew to survive the deadly attacks of a sea monster, in a novel loosely based on the mid-19th-century Arctic expedition originally led by Sir John Franklin.

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  The Expedition: Solving the Mystery of a Polar Tragedy

  by Bea Usma

  On July 11th, 1897, three men set out in a hydrogen balloon bound for the North Pole. Led by engineer August Soloman Andree, they want to make history, but are frighteningly underprepared. Three days into their journey they make a crash landing and disappear into a white nightmare. They never return. 33 years later. The men's bodies and equipment are found buried beneath the snow and ice on a deserted glacier. They had enough food, clothing and ammunition to survive. Why did they die?

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  The Other Ones

  by Jamesie Fournier; illustrated by Toma Feizo Gas

  In two chilling stories that blend elements of traditional Inuit mythology with the modern horror genre, debut Inuk author Jamesie Fournier brings the hidden, ancient creatures of early Inuit folklore into a contemporary setting, with horrifying results.

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  The Adventures of Captain Hatteras

  by Jules Verne 

  First Mate Shandon receives a mysterious letter asking him to construct a reinforced steamship in Liverpool. As he heads out for Melville Bay and the Arctic labyrinth, a crewman reveals himself to be John Hatteras, and his lifelong obsession, the Pole. Despite experiencing appalling cold and hunger, the captain treks across the frozen wastes in search of fuel. Abandoned by his crew, Hatteras remains without resources at the coldest spot on earth. How can he find food and explore the Polar Sea? And what will he find at the top of the world?

Children’s Literature

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  The Origin of Day and Night

   by Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt; illustrated by Lenny Lishchenko

  In very early times, there was no night or day and words spoken by chance could become real. When a hare and a fox meet and express their longing for light and darkness, their words are too powerful to be denied. Passed orally from storyteller to storyteller for hundreds of years, this beautifully illustrated story weaves together elements of an origin story and a traditional animal tale, giving young readers a window into Inuit mythology.

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  The Longest Journey: An Arctic Tern's Migration

  by Amy Hevron

  Follows the epic migration of an Arctic Tern as it spreads its wings and sets out to make the 60,000-mile journey to the South Pole and back again—the longest such migration in the animal kingdom.

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  The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish

  by Chloe Savage

  Dr. Morley and her team arrive in the Arctic Circle where they encounter such wonders as playful orcas, the glowing aurora borealis and formidable ice shelves while searching for the giant Arctic jellyfish, a legendary creature no one has ever seen.

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  Sweetest Kulu

   by Celina Calluk; illustrated by Alexandria Neonakis

  An Inuit mother sings to her Kulu—or baby—about animals and other elements in their Arctic world and the gifts they bring to the child, from the summer sun's warm light to Arctic hare's love, muskox's power, and caribou's patience.

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  Mission Arctic: A Scientific Adventure to a Changing North Pole

  by Katharina Weiss-Tuider; illustrated by Christian Schneider; translated by Shelley Tanaka

  Compiled with the help of more than 500 scientists from around the world, this science-based guide follows the 2019 MOSAIC expedition to the Arctic that reveals how one of the world's crucial ecosystems is changing and how these changes will affect our world.

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  Polar Bear

  by Candace Fleming; illustrated by Eric Rohmann

  When it is time to go back into hibernation, a mother polar bear takes her two cubs on a 40-mile journey across the Arctic landscape, fending off wolves, hunting for food and swimming miles and miles along the way.

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  In My Anaana's Amautik

  by Nadia Sammurtok; illustrated by Lenny Lishchenko

  Nadia Sammurtok lovingly invites the reader into the amautik—the pouch in the back of a mother’s parka used to carry a child—to experience everything through the eyes of the baby nestled inside, from the cloudlike softness of the pouch to the glistening sound of Anaana’s laughter. Sweet and soothing, this book offers a unique perspective that will charm readers of all ages.

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  The Most Amazing Bird

  by Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak; illustrated by Andrew Qappik

  When Aggataa goes for a cold winter walk with her grandmother, she’s surprised by a sudden CRAH! All the birds have flown south for the winter except one kind—the tulugarguat, the ravens. They’re the ugliest birds that Aggaataa has ever seen. However, as the winter slowly moves towards spring, Aggataa connects with one small raven in particular. As the seasons change in full, the ravens leave and are replaced by seagulls, cranes, geese, ducks, and swans. But where Aggataa once thought the ravens odd for visiting during the harshest part of the year, she now finds herself watching the horizon, waiting for the return of the most amazing bird.

Artist’s Monographs

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  Hyperborea: Stories from the Arctic

  by Evgenia Arbugaeva

  A career-to-date retrospective of a unique creative talent. A journey to the most inaccessible Arctic regions of Siberia, showing dreamlike encounters with its people, landscapes, and fauna.

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  Melting Away: A Ten-Year Journey Through Our Endangered Polar Regions

  by Camille Seaman

  For 10 years Camille Seaman has documented the rapidly changing landscapes of Earth's polar regions. As an expedition photographer aboard small ships in the Arctic and Antarctic, she has chronicled the accelerating effects of global warming on the jagged face of nearly 50,000 icebergs. Seaman's unique perspective of the landscape is entwined with her Native American upbringing: she sees no two icebergs as alike; each responds to its environment uniquely, almost as if they were living beings. Through Seaman's lens, each towering chunk of ice 'breathtakingly beautiful in layers of smoky gray and turquoise blue' takes on a distinct personality, giving her work the feel of majestic portraiture.