Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole

 

Fergus Fleming charts North Pole exploration, up to the point of its discovery, which is not as well defined as you may imagine.

Having read his previous book which dealt with British exploration under the guidance of Barrow (Barrow’s Boys) this seemed a natural next read.  This tome deals with a number of countries all wanting to claim the North Pole first while pretending science was the real winner.

I was rather concerned as my hardback edition only had praise for Barrow’s Boys and a distinct absence of comment for this book.

I need not have worried.  This book had more wit in it to my mind.  The same attention to research was evident.  Mr Fleming was never short of an obscure quote.  They were never pulled out of the hat with a flourish for applause but were usually illustrative, even if the language was painfully Victorian (dense, grimly wordy and strangely punctuated, no I am not Victorian).

Some of the schemes were imaginative to the point of plain bonkers.  While Britain laboured under the old fashioned methods of man-hauling, suffering privations and dying nobly, the rest of the world turn out to be more imaginative.

Peary’s achievements are given some close examination, which in the case of Peary’s documentation is usually fatal to his case.  So it goes here.

Mr Fleming maintains Frederick Cook is a totally different league to Peary.  Fleming does not quite suggest Cook never left his house while claiming the North Pole but I am sure it would have delighted him if he could have proved it was the case.

All the claims and counterclaims about who reached the North Pole first, Cook or Peary are discussed.

If not them does Amundsen in a hilarious airship expedition which seemed to have been hi-jacked by some comedy Italians count as conquering the North Pole?

Exploration was not helped by the various theories as to what would be found at the North Pole.  Favoured was the idea of a warm sea with a North Pole island handily placed for flag planting.  Less useful was the idea that it was in fact a whole which lead to various inner earths (Hollow Earth theory is still followed by a few people living on the outer edge of rationality).

So not only were you hindered by the fact you did not know what you were looking for, when you got there the instrumentation of the day was not really up to the job of telling you.

One explorer (I will not ruin the fun) claimed he would know when he reached the North Pole because he would be standing under the North Star.  He found the whole idea of it being difficult to locate absurd.

A rewarding book to read and anyone with a passing interest in the subject cannot help but be entertained and educated by this tome.