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Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic
How and why did 9,000 Norse settlers in Greenland in the Middle Ages dissapear? How was Sir John Franklin's expedition lost? What lay behind the strange death from gunshot wounds of Thomas Simpson, the Canadian explorer, in 1840? What really hapenned to Andrée and his companions, who disappeared on a balloon voyage in 1897 and whose bodies were found on one of the Spitsbergen islands in 1930? And how did Levanevsky and his crew of five come to grief on their aeroplane flight from Moscow to America via the North Pole in 1937?These are the problems that Stefansson, the greatest living authority on the Arctic (author of The Friendly Arctic, The Northward Course of Empire, etc.) discusses here. He has always maintained that life in the Arctic is easy enough, if explorers will only learn the rules and abide by them.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1938
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About the author
Vilhjálmur Stefánsson
113 books24 followersVilhjálmur Stefánsson (1879-1962) was a Canadian Arctic explorer and ethnologist.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 25, 2010
I have long been fascinated by tragedy brought about by ignorance or stupidity - the Scott/Amundsen race to the South Pole being a prime example. Berton, author of Arctic Grail recommended a book by Vilhjalmur Stefansson that deals with several examples of Arctic foolishness, including Franklin's mysterious disappearance.
Many "riddles" evolve simply out of ignorance, if not outright fraud, (witness Charles Berlitz's Bermuda Triangle nonsense). Usually, a careful researcher can find solutions to these puzzles by objectively analyzing all the data. Such is the case in Stefansson's book. He meticulously destroyed the Franklin enigma.
Franklin left Britain in 1845 with 129 men on his second expedition to search for a northwest passage. He had written after his first excursion how important native hunters were to locate food, but in true imperialist style, he made no effort to learn their skills. The British took only shotguns and muskets for hunting. (In Britain it was fashionable to use only shotguns to hunt fowl, so the explorers could not conceive of hunting in any other manner.) Two months after they left, letters from them were received in England; then Franklin's party, ship and all, vanished, seemingly without a trace.
Stefansson illustrates how the evidence overwhelmingly reveals they died of malnutrition and scurvy in a region that had supported hundreds of Eskimos for centuries. It was inexcusable. Franklin had the lessons of his first expedition. He had access to the writings of Ross who, in 1829-1833, had learned that a diet of raw seal and fish would prevent scurvy and that the Eskimo diet kept them healthy and fat. Franklin had insisted on taking the traditional salted meat and hardtack.
There were other weaknesses. A Hudson Bay Company trapper, after observing conditions of the first expedition, wrote: "the officer who commands the party [Franklin:] has not the physical powers required for the labor of moderate voyaging; he must have three meals per diem, tea is indispensable, and with the utmost exertion he cannot walk above eight miles in one day, so that it does not follow if those Gentlemen are unsuccessful that the difficulties are insurmountable."
Another mystery was the disappearance of 9,000 Greenlanders? Stefansson traces the settlement of Greenland from its discovery in 986 A.D. by Erik the Red, who arrived with some 400 settlers and many animals. During the next few centuries a regular trade was established between Europe and the fledgling republic in Greenland, and archaeological evidence has since revealed settlements as far north as 400 miles beyond the Arctic Circle.. After 1448, trade ceased, much of it because of plagues sweeping Europe. When Scandinavians reoccupied Greenland in 1721 only ruins were found, no descendants of Erik the Red. Stefansson convincingly shows that the "disappearance" of these people could only be considered such if interpreted from a nationalistic point of view. What had happened was amalgamation. The ex-Europeans had adopted the ways of the natives and had intermarried with the Eskimos.
Many "riddles" evolve simply out of ignorance, if not outright fraud, (witness Charles Berlitz's Bermuda Triangle nonsense). Usually, a careful researcher can find solutions to these puzzles by objectively analyzing all the data. Such is the case in Stefansson's book. He meticulously destroyed the Franklin enigma.
Franklin left Britain in 1845 with 129 men on his second expedition to search for a northwest passage. He had written after his first excursion how important native hunters were to locate food, but in true imperialist style, he made no effort to learn their skills. The British took only shotguns and muskets for hunting. (In Britain it was fashionable to use only shotguns to hunt fowl, so the explorers could not conceive of hunting in any other manner.) Two months after they left, letters from them were received in England; then Franklin's party, ship and all, vanished, seemingly without a trace.
Stefansson illustrates how the evidence overwhelmingly reveals they died of malnutrition and scurvy in a region that had supported hundreds of Eskimos for centuries. It was inexcusable. Franklin had the lessons of his first expedition. He had access to the writings of Ross who, in 1829-1833, had learned that a diet of raw seal and fish would prevent scurvy and that the Eskimo diet kept them healthy and fat. Franklin had insisted on taking the traditional salted meat and hardtack.
There were other weaknesses. A Hudson Bay Company trapper, after observing conditions of the first expedition, wrote: "the officer who commands the party [Franklin:] has not the physical powers required for the labor of moderate voyaging; he must have three meals per diem, tea is indispensable, and with the utmost exertion he cannot walk above eight miles in one day, so that it does not follow if those Gentlemen are unsuccessful that the difficulties are insurmountable."
Another mystery was the disappearance of 9,000 Greenlanders? Stefansson traces the settlement of Greenland from its discovery in 986 A.D. by Erik the Red, who arrived with some 400 settlers and many animals. During the next few centuries a regular trade was established between Europe and the fledgling republic in Greenland, and archaeological evidence has since revealed settlements as far north as 400 miles beyond the Arctic Circle.. After 1448, trade ceased, much of it because of plagues sweeping Europe. When Scandinavians reoccupied Greenland in 1721 only ruins were found, no descendants of Erik the Red. Stefansson convincingly shows that the "disappearance" of these people could only be considered such if interpreted from a nationalistic point of view. What had happened was amalgamation. The ex-Europeans had adopted the ways of the natives and had intermarried with the Eskimos.
February 22, 2012
I really liked the first few stories in the book, but it started to peter out somewhat with the final story of the missing soviet flyers.
Stefannson was at times repetitive and overly exhaustive with details when making his cases.
However, there is a good deal to be learned about the costs of arctic exploration and light is shed on what likely happened to Franklin and others.
If you're interested in the Franklin expedition or arctic discovery you would enjoy this book.
Stefannson was at times repetitive and overly exhaustive with details when making his cases.
However, there is a good deal to be learned about the costs of arctic exploration and light is shed on what likely happened to Franklin and others.
If you're interested in the Franklin expedition or arctic discovery you would enjoy this book.
June 17, 2023
Icelandic author Stefansson chronicles five different historical mysteries set in the Arctic, sifting through the evidence and offering his own theories as to their solution. He begins with the disappearance of European settlers in Greenland, which is mostly conjecture, before moving into a full account of the famous Franklin expedition that most of us know about these days because of the book and TV version of THE TERROR and Michael Palin's EREBUS. The latter chapters explore more recent disappearances, including Russian explorers and a balloonist. While the mysteries are certainly, well, mysterious, I found that this one got bogged down in detail which makes for a dry read.
March 23, 2014
Stefansson spent much of his adult life in the Canadian Arctic at a time before it was motorized. He brings that experience and a pragmatic point of view to a set of problems that were unsolved at the time of writing and sheds light on them. One example might give an idea of his thinking. He mentions that Sir John Franklin and his crew starved to death in a portion of the Arctic that the Eskimo regarded as unusually rich in food. I didn't much like his writing style but his thinking was worth paying attention to.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews