Charting the sea of darkness

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M.J. Ross

During the first half of the nineteenth century British explorers eagerly sought the Northwest Passage, making great advances in exploring and charting polar regions. Polar Pioneers is the story of John Ross and his nephew James Clark Ross, British naval officers who made important contributions to world exploration. In 1818 John Ross led an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage. He got as far as Baffin Bay, but when he reached the only practicable entrance to the passage he declared it to be no more than a bay enclosed by mountains. In subsequent years he was widely derided for that error and carried the scars of public and professional humiliation for the rest of his life. In 1829 he mounted a private expedition to search for the passage, during which he became trapped in the Canadian Arctic and survived a four-year ordeal of isolation and hardship. He proved that whatever his shortcomings as an explorer, he could never be accused of lacking courage. . James Clark Ross was one of the most experienced and respected explorers of his day. He led or took part in eight expeditions to the Arctic, including John Ross's 1818 and 1829 expeditions and three with the great explorer William Edward Parry. He also led a highly successful scientific expedition to the Antarctic in 1839-43. His many important discoveries included locating the North Magnetic Pole, and he ensured the presence of the Ross family name throughout both polar regions: Ross Island, Ross Ice Shelf, and Ross Sea in the Antarctic; James Ross Strait, Ross Bay, Ross Point, and Rossoya in the Arctic.

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Jay Milbrandt

David Livingstone's complete story: the story of a man of great faith, fallen in his humanity but driven by his belief in the sanctity of God's creation. The quest for the source of the Nile will forever be associated with Livingstone, along with his adventures in the name of scientific ambition, but not to be overlooked is the Christian faith that drove his efforts to abolish the slave trade in Africa.

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Arlene Bourgeois Molzahn

Discusses the life of Henry Hudson, the English sea captain who explored the Arctic Ocean and the river and bay later named for him while in search of a northern route to the Indies.

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Lynne Cox

A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen's career of adventure began at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners). Twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles. The author, an adventurer and swimmer, author of Swimming to Antarctica, gives us in this new work a full-scale account of Amundsen's life and expeditions. We see Amundsen, in 1903-06, the first to travel the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in his small ship Gjoa, a seventy-foot refitted former herring boat powered by sails and a thirteen-horsepower engine, making his way through the entire length of the treacherous ice bound route, between the northern Canadian mainland and Canada's Arctic islands, from Greenland across Baffin Bay, between the Canadian islands, across the top of Alaska into the Bering Strait. The dangerous journey took three years to complete, as Amundsen, his crew, and six sled dogs waited while the frozen sea around them thawed sufficiently to allow for navigation. We see him journey toward the North Pole in Fridtjof Nansen's famous Fram, until word reached his expedition party of Robert Peary's successful arrival at the North Pole. Amundsen then set out on a secret expedition to the Antarctic, and we follow him through his heroic capture of the South Pole. The author makes clear why Amundsen succeeded in his quests where other adventurer-explorers failed, and how his methodical preparation and willingness to take calculated risks revealed both the spirit of the man and the way to complete one triumphant journey after another. She also describes reading about Amundsen as a young girl and how his exploits inspired her to follow her dreams. We see how she unwittingly set out in Amundsen's path, swimming in open waters off Antarctica, then Greenland (always without a wetsuit), first as a challenge to her own abilities and then later as a way to understand Amundsen's life and the lessons learned from his vision, imagination, and daring.