On July 8, 1879 the USS Jeanñette, under the command of George W. De Long, sailed from San Francisco Harbor bound for the Bering Strait and the Polar Ocean north of the Arctic Circle. Her mission was to explore and chart the little known waters north the Siberian Coast in order to verify, or invalidate, the "Open Polar Sea" theory and to determine if the newly discovered Wrangle Island was, in fact, part of much larger land mass, an unknown continent, stretching all the way to the North Pole. I really enjoyed this amazing book, it was by turn; engrossing, terrifying and impossible to put down! "In The Kingdom Of Ice" is my first book by historian Hampton Sides and he does not disappoint. Not a History Text Book but an "Historical Narrative" that is both well written and well researched. Using newspaper accounts, personal logs, official documents and family letters, Sides gives the reader an intimate look into the lives and adventures of these intrepid explorers. The first part of the book is mostly background material on the principle characters and the society that they lived in. Besides De Long and his team you will meet the famous scientist and newspaper men of the mid 19th Century. While the expedition was under US Navy command it was mostly funded by the wealthy newspaper mogul Gordon Bennett who had previously backed the Stanley and Livingston rescues mission. You will also get to know De Long's wife and her point of view as expressed in her personal letters written to her husband during his harrowing expedition. More than a sea adventure this amazing book documents what men will go through just to survive in one of the harshest environments on Earth. The Jeanñette was trapped in frozen sea-ice for over two years and her supplies of food and fresh water were running out. Keeping warm was a never ending struggle as the stores of coal, heating oil and even wood to burn were slowly being exhausted. Then, an unexpected turn of events changed everything and suddenly the good Captain and crew were out of options. Now, to survive, they must somehow get away from the ice-pack, fight their way through treacherous sea-ice and navigate over a thousand miles of storm tossed Arctic Ocean before they could make landfall on one of the planet's coldest and most hostile coastlines: Siberia. For this final voyage they would need The Jeanñette's three surviving "life boats" and all the supplies they could carry. From here on out there would be no turning back, no second chances. But, even if they did somehow manage to make landfall, their prospects for survival would still be bleak. Just finding human settlements in this sparsely populated land would be hard enough and living "off the land" would also prove difficult. "In The Kingdom Of Ice" is a great read and a real "page turner". I think that anyone with an interest in American History and the early days of exploration should get a kick outta reading it. I know I did! I had no technical or downloading problems with this Kindle Edition. I also compared the print edition to the e-reader format and found them equitable. The book's maps and archival photos are included on the Kindle, in fact there are several "bonus" pictures added in. The only negative I could see was that both editions lacked a "cross reference index".
Last Ranger
In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
4.6 | 7,013 ratings
Price: 19.69
Last update: 01-11-2025
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