REVIEWS THE WHITE ROAD Kirwan prone to traditional understate- By L. P. KIRWAN.London: Hollis and ment when the role of the Royal Navy Carter. 8% x 5% inches, 374 pages, is discussed. Much has been done re- frontispiece, 17 plates, 5 text maps and cently to show the real nature of the diagrams, 2 end-paper maps; distrib- achievements of men like M’Clintock, uted in Canada by Palm Publishers, Ross, and Parry, but Mr. Kirwan, in- Montreal, P.Q., $6.00. troducing the Royal Navy’spart inarctic exploration says the following. Published inthe United States as “But despite their stubborn adherence A HISTORY OF POLAR to traditional ways in most unsuitable EXPLORATION conditions,despite their inadequate New York: W. W. Norton and Com- equipment, their ignorance of how best pany. $5.95. to live, and how best to travel in the polar regions, the achievements of these Mr.Kirwan, Director of the Royal expeditions,now to be described, are Geographical Society, and a former di- among the mostremarkable in polar rector of the ScottPolar Research history. At seatheir supreme skill in the Institute, begins his history of polar ex- handling of cumbroussailing ships, plorationby disclaiming all personal turning and twisting through the pack experience of the Arctic and the Ant- at the mercy of the winds and the ice, arctic.Polar exploration is asubject was a miracle of navigation. On land, thatis opento controversy, and one their heroicjourneys hauling, officers that makes any reviewer prone to ped- and Jack Tars alike, heavy sledge boats antry. It is a tribute to the author that across the tumbling and shifting Arctic in his factual, crammed pages, covering floes, were for generations the inspira- the whole scopeof polar exploration, he tion of British polar explorers.” (p. 80). makes a few errors, stirs a few contro- When the fate of Franklin’s crews is versies, shows some biases, but on the recalled this assessmentmay sound a whole manages to do justice to prac- little exaggerated. tically every explorer who crossed the At times Mr. Kirwan is a little cur- Arctic or Antarctic Circle. sory in his judgements (“The expedition Mr. Kirwan had access to much origi- [De Long’s] wasin itself a total failure”, nal material from the files of the Royal p. 187), but he discusses fully the feats Geographical Society and of the Scott of such non-British explorers as Bel- Polar Research Institute, and this, with lingshausen, Wilkes, Nansen, and Sver- his stated intent of writing on “the evo- drup, and accordsthem full and fair lution of polar explorationin itshistori- credit for their discoveries and exploits. cal and social context” has biased him Writingfrom the viewpoint of men towards an emphasison the British whose ideas rather than whose actions approachto the poles.This approach stirred interest in the polar regions, the adds fascinating detail to the sagas of author sometimes spends too much time Scott and Shackleton, and provides con- onpeople such as Byron,Dalrymple, tinuity as the author shows the motives Wallis, andde Bougainville. But his dis- behind British expeditions fromthe time cussion of the influence of men like Sir of the Elizabethans to the present. At Clements Markham and Alfred Harms- times this weighting in favour of the worth is extremely valuable, and helps British endeavours leads to an unbal- to fill in the background on polar ex- anced picture. Constantine Phipps gets ploration.By paying less attention to one page; only four and a half are de- details of field work and techniques, and voted to the great Russian expeditions concentratingon the drivingforces in the eighteenth century. Nor is Mr. behindpolar exploration, the writer 57 58 REVIEWS presents a fascinating and original point Ireland. Barents diedafter falling of view on the reasons why men went “sicke” according toGerrit de Veer, and where they did in the Arctic and Ant- not of “cold and exposure”(p. 32). Mac- arctic. kenzie and Hearne are described as The author’s literary style, however, “men of the Hudson’s Bay Company” may prove a stumbling block tothe en- (p. 82); Mackenzieworked for the joyment of his book. At its best it is NorthWest Company. Wilkes’s ships, delightful and vivid.The sentence on the Vincennes andthe Peacock were not page 240, describing the experience of “sloops of 700 tons” (p. 130). One ship Scott’s men with sledge dogs- “At the displaced 780 tons, the other 650 tons. meresttouch of their inexperienced Halldied on the Polaris, not “before hands, it seemed, an apparently docile reaching the ship” (p. 183). All the crew dog-team would be transformed into a of the Jeannette did not reach the Lena welter of snarling animals and tangled estuary (p. 187); oneboatload disap- harness, exhausting their patience and peared after the ship had been crushed. defying their most ingenious efforts to Bronlund‘s body was foundin Lambert’s restore discipline and peace.”- not only Land, not “on the ice sheet” (p. 298). helps to explain the tragedy of the South Courtauld was isolated in a tent, not in Pole party, but also strikes a responsive hut (p. 324). “Bob” Bartlett isdescribed chord in anyone whohas ever attempted on page259 as “the British captain of the to handle sledge dogs. At times, how- Roosevelt” - true in a way, but not a ever, the prose becomes too heavy and statement that would endear the writer involved. Long, cumbersome sentences to a native of Newfoundland. with many clauses tend to confuse the The most seriouserror of fact is found reader. On page 42 one sentence reads on page 257. “In July 1905 Peary, now “Meanwhile,on land, the men of the fifty, sailed from New York City in the Hudson’sBay Company, trappers and Roosevelt which, after some damage to hunters, guidesand voyageurs, who her bows, reached Cape Colombia (sic) lived off the country and were learning on the north-east coast of Grant Land from the Eskimo and the Indianhow within ninety miles of the advance base best to travel and survive, had already at CapeHecla.” One error of opinion started, as they laid the foundations of a lies in Mr. Kirwan’s statement “Norhas great industry,to push the Canadian the Canadian claim to ownership of the frontiers towards the north”.The writer Arcticmainland and the islandsbe- has been badly served by hisprinters on tween Greenland and 141”W. longitude occasion when punctuation marks have ever been disputed.” On p. 185 a sen- been missedout. Page 100 has a sentence tence begins “Becauseof a branching of that reads “In MontevideoSmith was the warmwaters of the Gulf Stream tracked down by a group of American north of the Bering Strait. .” merchants who proved a good deal less Mr. Kirwan is at times vague in his sceptical of his discovery thanJohn details of distance and location.It would Miers and the British merchantsin Val- have been better to use either statuteof paraiso and Smith gives an entertaining nauticalmiles throughout thetext picture of his meeting with them in a rather thanto mix them. Fort Conger is report he sent to the British Admiralty not “at thenorth-east coastof Ellesmere of 31st December 1821”. It would be a Island” (p. 254), though very near it. great pity if this invaluable book were Misprints include “1871” for “1891” as to be used onlyas a reference source;it the year of Peary’s journey across the deserves to be read through from cover Greenlandicecap (p. 197), “CapeCo- to cover. lombia” for the northernmost point in There are some errors - almost inevi- Canada (p. 259), “CrokerLand” for table in a work of this scope and range. Peary’smythical island (p. 326), and Robert Juet, mate of Hudson’s ship the “Canada’s northwest territory” (p. 340). Hopewell, was not tried for mutiny (p. There is an excellentbibliography, 34); he diedbefore the shipreached and the work is carefully indexed. The REVIEWS 59 map showing the Northwest Passage is The proper names of at least seven outstanding, but the endpaper maps are explorers (Cunninhame-Graham, Saint inadequate and badly out-of-date. IsaacJoques, Thorfinn Karlsefri, Sir The White Road as it stands has con- Francis MacClintock, Sir Robert Mac- siderable merit, bothas a reference book Clure, Baron Adolf Nordenskjold, Jo- and as an exciting narrative. It throws sephBush Tyrrell; which should be new, interesting and unusual light on Cunninghame-Graham,Jogues, Karl- the problems of polarexploration. If sefni,M’Clintock, M’Clure, Nordens- Mr. Kirwan can eradicate on the occa- kiold,and Joseph Burr Tyrrell) for sion of preparing a second edition the whom entries are made have been mis- annoying errors and shorten his over- spelled, as well as a dozen or so more long comma-strewn sentences, the re- names occurringin thetext. A few com- sult will be the best book by far on the ments on what is said concerning some history of polarexploration. of the polar explorers may beof interest JIMLOTZ to readers of Arctic. Those connected with the Northwest DICTIONARY OF DISCOVERIES Passage are particularlytroublesome for Mr. Langnas. Roald Amundsen, he By J. A. LANGNAS.Preface by J. Sal- claims, “was the second to manage the wyn Schapiro.New York:Philosophi- NorthwestPassage”, whereas most cal Library, 1959. 91/4 x 6 inches, vi + schoolchildren know that Amundsen 201 pages. $5.00. was the first to negotiatethe entirepas- Mr. I. A. Langnas has undertaken a sage. He credits Sir William Parry, in commendable task, but he has per- 1819, with“discovering - after more formed it badly. So many inconsistencies than 300 years of vain attempts-the in dates and spellings can be found that Northwest Passage”.