"Fatal North" by Bruce Henderson

This book is both another harrowing account of arctic exploration and a true crime mystery.

 In 1871, a US expedition on board the Polaris, led by Captain Francis Hall, attempted to reach the North Pole. They had reached North Greenland when Captain Hall died, following a short mystery illness, amid accusations that he had been poisoned. Sidney Buddington, the sailing master, took over as Captain. He, however, had a drinking problem and was terrified of getting stuck in the ice if they attempted top go any further north; he repeatedly refused permission for expeditions northwards. The crew became disorgnaised and mutinous. The ship did get stuck in the ice and then, during a panic when it was believed that the skip was sinking, half the crew were separated from the ship and marooned on an ice flow. They were then abandoned by Buddington and those aboard the ship. Those on the ice flow were kept alive through the efforts of a couple of eskimoes who built igloos on the floe and hunted seals to eke out their meagre provisions. Over the next 197 days, hungry and cold and in constant danger of the ice floe breaking up, they drifted 1500 miles south before being rescued by a whaler. This book attempts to answer the question of why the ice-floe men were abandoned by the Polaris party (which was also rescued, having had a rather better time of it) and whether Captain Hall was murdered. 

Selected quotes:

• "There was a paraselene - an illusion of multiple moons showing beside the true one, arranged so as to form an eerie but beautiful cross. The true moon was a surrounded by a halo, which also embraced two of the false ones, while the other mock moons had a separate halo, making a large circle concentric with the first. The two false moons nearest to the true one showed the colours of the prism." (Ch 8)
• "There was no tell-tale whistling of the wind among trees, for none existed here. Once out on the open plain, the wind struck full force without notice. The wind was felt before it was heard." (Ch 8)
• "Each berg presented, in contour, the effects of battles with wind and water, rain and storm, and the rough jostling with other bergs it had experienced." (Ch 15)

December 2022; 259 pages

Other books about travel, exploration and explorers, including Ninety Degrees North by Fergus Fleming can be found by clicking here.

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God