Anthology of Arctic Reading: United States GENERAL Allen, Everett S. Arctic Odyssey: The Life of Rear Admiral Donald B. MacMillan. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1962. A young-adult hagiography of MacMillan with some interesting insights. p. 114, at the end of Peary’s 1909 North Pole trip MacMillan went to Fort Conger and spent some time in Greely’s house where he found a Greely note on the floor of the living room and the following: A book lay on a small table, thick with dust. On the flyleaf, written in a boyish hand, it read: “To my dear father. From his affectionate son, Harry Kislingbury. May God be with you and return you safely to us.” MacMillan took the book and eventually returned it to the son. p. 139-40, in 1910 MacMillan met an Eskimo family near Nain in Labrador with whom he compared notes on Inuit books: They were a friendly family and the little girl showed him her books, including “Kristib Nipliajorutinga Nutaungitok” (Christy’s Old Organ), a volume printed by the Moravian Church, and “Takkorngartaub Arvertarninga” (John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress). In the evening the father handed MacMillan an Eskimo Bible, opened to the fourth chapter of St. Mark, and read to him, pointed out the words with his finger, [long Eskimo quote] which is to say, “And he began to teach by the seaside, and there was gathered unto Him a multitude, so that He entered into the ship, and sat on the sea, and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.” Then the mother sat down at the little organ and their three voices blended in Eskimo, singing, “God be with you till we meet again.” All this in a small cotton tent, by the descendants of a once-savage hoard of which both English and French fisherman had been mortally afraid. But since the day when the Moravian missionaries held out their hands to the natives of Labrador, saying “We are your friends,” life has been safe there. 1 p. 156, in 1912 on a summer trip to Labrador: They [MacMillan and Jot] headed next for the Moravian mission at Hopedale, called Aivilik (whaling place) by the Eskimos, arriving on a Saturday in time for church service, for devotions are Saturday evening and twice on Sunday. The church organ was played by an Eskimo, and the congregation sang the hymns with obvious pleasure, many of them in four-part harmony. One of the hymns contained in the book they were using referred to “Guduvaptingnepok” … and “Heilig, heilig, heilig, engelingiy imgerput.” The use of the German words for God and “Holy, holy, holy,” interspersed with the Eskimo, indicates that the Eskimo language contains no equivalents for these…. p. 157: The Lord’s Prayer was somewhat easier for Dan, although there is an interesting idiom in the Eskimo version. When the Moravians first arrived in Labrador, they failed to find a word for “bread” in the passage reading “Give us this day our daily bread.” The Eskimos had never had or known bread; they had no word for it. Thus some important article of food must be substituted, so that the essential meaning of the prayer would be clear. As agreed upon by the original Christianized Eskimos, the word must be pipsit, dried trout, found in nearly every Eskimo home. Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday. New York: Harper, 1931. p. 353, re Byrd: Yet the noble art of ballyhoo, which had flourished so successfully in the nineteen-twenties, had lost something of its vigor. Admiral Byrd’s flight to the South Pole made him a hero second only to Lindbergh in the eyes of the country at large, but in the larger centers of population there was manifest a slight tendency to yawn: his exploit had been over-publicized, and heroism, however gallant, lost something of its spontaneous charm when it was subjected to scientific management and syndicated in daily dispatches. [See also chapter 8, “The Ballyhoo Years,” p. 186ff.] Ames, Nathaniel. Mariner’s Sketches, Originally Published in the Manufacturers and Farmers Journal, Providence. Revised, Corrected 2 and Enlarged by the author. Providence: Cory, Marshall and Hammond, 1830. The author Nathaniel Ames was the son of the statesman, Fisher Ames (1758-1808), of Dedham, Massachusetts, and was a congressman from 1789 to 1797. Nathaniel was named for his grandfather, Nathaniel Ames, famous for the Ames Almanacs, which were the inspiration to Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac". Although sometimes described as a juvenile title, Ames’s book would need a very mature juvenile to appreciate his satiric style. p. 8, part of “Crossing the line” ceremony: As ringing the bell is now only practised by the Dutch, most modern editions read, " heave the lead" for "ring the bell." Several able papers, both in support and confutation of this new reading, may be found in the "Philosophical transactions" for the last century. I forbear intruding my own opinions on a subject, which may hereafter become the source of jealousy and heartburnings between this country and Holland. Indeed, the whole Dutch nation have entered into the argument, with such zeal, that on board both men of war and merchant-men, the bell is rung, not only at "krout time," but not a single glass of "schnaps" "can be served out, without due tintinnabulary notice being given thereof. p. 126: …opposition is the very food that enterprize lives upon. History furnishes us with plenty of proof of this fact; the Christian religion, so persecuted by the Roman Emperors, seemed to acquire fresh vigor from being watered by the blood of saints; the Huguenots in France, and the Lollards and Wickliffites in Great Britain, were hunted down like wild beasts;—that ‘sweet ounce of man’s flesh,’ John Calvin, burned bishop Servetus, who was, if I mistake not, a Unitarian, still that ‘infidel’ sect continues to increase, election and faith without works notwithstanding. I omit the Salem witches, as every body knows that Molly Pitcher maintained her Delphic tripod to the last, in spite of persecution and broken windows. I will adduce one more instance to prove that opposition is the food of enterprize. Every modest man of pure and correct taste, every man, in 3 fact who prizes modesty in a female, has decided that Tom Moore’s poems and Don Juan, are not proper books for the eye of a passably modest woman. The consequence is, that there are hardly a dozen females throughout the United States, that have not a splendidly bound copy of Moore’s bawdiest poems, or Don Juan on her dressing table. p. 173: Rats and white ants aboard ships passing through the tropics ‘are the most destructive insects in the world, no wood is safe from their ravages; masts are eaten asunder, furniture reduced to dust, books, papers, clothes, any thing and every thing, that is not metal or stone is devoured by them in most incredibly short time.’ p. 241-42: Landsmen have generally very strange and very absurd notions of sailors. The look upon them as specimens of total depravity, they regard them as vessels of wrath, children of the devil. Some few indeed, on the principle that ‘the greater the sinner, the greater the Saint’ have volunteered a feeble crusade against the vices and sins of seamen and have accordingly stuffed ships full of tracts which have entirely defeated their own object, as they are of that gloomy species which represent the Almighty as a kind of ‘spiritual and everlasting’ being, whose thirst for human blood is gratified but not appeased by inflicting everlasting damnation upon infants who did not live long enough in this world to be able to commit sin, and heathen, ‘poor benighted brethren,’ who did not know any better than to commit it. The writers of these tracts not only inculcate the maxim “ignorantia legis neminem excusat,” ignorance of the law excuses nobody, but they take a peculiar delight in informing their terrified and despairing readers that the gates of mercy are forever shut against them. It is true they allow that out of the whole marine population of a country, free grace might pick out one or two to be saved, but they intimate that they will probably be captains or mates and sailors consider the chance not worth trying for, pay but little attention to the ‘serious calls’ of these ‘gospel trumpeters,’ as far as my own observation extends have quietly handed over to the cook all the tracts which a blind sectarian zeal had intruded; upon their notice. 4 Sailors universally are extremely fond of reading and are far better judges of books than they are allowed credit for. The bible, from the laudable exertions of the different bible societies, is to be found in almost every ship and the men are generally very fond of reading it. I have observed however that they are very much puzzled to reconcile the doctrine of election and free grace, as laid down in these tracts, with the promise to the dying thief upon the cross, or [of] there being ‘more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons,’ &c. I once undertook to explain the operations of free grace (no easy matter) to a well informed sailor, but he could not see through it. ‘Why d—n it,’ said the perplexed seamen [sic] turning his quid and hitching up his trowsers. ‘If we can do nothing of ourselves, why would it not be best to heave to, and let free grace come up with us?’ I must confess I did not see why the plan was not a good one.