The Man Who Mapped the Arctic : The Intrepid Life of George Back - Hardcover
Telling the story of George Back, this book looks at one of nature's survivors. Perhaps having learnt the art of survival at the tender age of 12 when, as a Royal Navy volunteer, he spent five years in a Napoleonic prison. Exploration of the frozen north was then beset by almost insurmountable difficulties, especially the terrible hardship of over wintering. There were rows with the Hudson's Bay Company, rations that failed to get through, ambush by Eskimos and, in extremis, there was possibly even cannibalism. But Back came through such trials and his crowning achievement was the discovery and descent of the great fish river, now named after him, the Back River. His final expedition almost led him to a watery grave off Southampton Island, but he brought his leaking ship home and lived to a ripe old age. A gifted artist and map-maker, Back was a courageous and successful explorer of one of the world's least hospitable regions, and has long been denied the limelight he deserved and would undoubtedly have enjoyed.
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About the Author:
Peter Steele, mountaineer, skier and Yukon doctor, followed his ebullient hero around Europe and into the still remote barren lands that he put on the map. Author of the Medical Handbook for Walkers and Climbers, he also wrote Eric Shipton: Everest and Beyond, a life of the mountain explorer, which won the 1998 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature.
From Booklist:
Steele's literate, coherent biography introduces one of the undeservedly obscure figures in arctic exploration. George Back joined the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars; promptly captured, he spent five years as a POW. He became a lieutenant and went back to sea after the war, but the heart of his career lay in the search for the Northwest Passage. He was second-in-command to John Franklin, who had more enthusiasm than ability, on two overland expeditions from Canada, one of which ended in disaster. He commanded a third overland journey and also a peril-ridden voyage by sea. Throughout, he proved courageous, durable, and civilized in his dealings with voyageurs, soldiers, Indians, and Eskimos. He survived the inadequacy of nineteenth-century equipment and knowledge of the Arctic to retire to England, where he became a mentor to a later generation of arctic explorers and thereafter virtually disappeared from the pages of history--until now. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherConstable & Robinson Ltd
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 1841198102
- ISBN 13 9781841198101
- BindingHardcover
- Rating
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