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Product Description
The search for the North West Passage to the Far East was the main driving force behind British arctic exploration from the 16th to the mid-19th century. It included the famous and ill-fated John Franklin expedition--the disappearance of which and resulting search is one of the great tragic stories in the history of exploration--and culminated with Roald Amundsen's successfully voyage in 1903-06. Ann Savours examines the British encounters with the Eskimo, how yearly ice variations affected expeditions, and the daily lives of the early explorers. This book will be compulsive reading for all those interested in the saga arctic exploration and for those who enjoy stories of human endeavor in the face of terrible odds.
Amazon.com Review
After Columbus sailed the ocean blue in search of a trading route to China but found his way blocked by North and South America, Britain and Europe's other colonial powers scrambled to find alternate paths to the Far East. Avoiding the south, dominated by Spain and Portugal after the Pope's 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the English and the Dutch searched for both a North East Passage, north of Eurasia, and a North West Passage, through the Arctic ice of what is now North America.
Although such a passage was to become commercially unimportant (and unviable, thanks to climate), the successful transit of the North West Passage became a Holy Grail and deadly siren for countless exploration teams, and it eluded explorers for nearly 400 years. Ann Savours, one of Britain's leading authorities on this tenacious pursuit, describes in a lively and sprawling account the extraordinary adventures of these courageous expeditions. Drawing heavily on primary sources, including diaries, letters to home, and sketches, Savours's Search makes for engrossing reading: from the Frobisher team's 1570s descriptions of the "countrey people" (later the "Esquimaux") "clad in coates made of the skinnes of beastes" and "sharp-witted, readie to conceive our meaning by signes, and to make answere" to accounts of Sir John Franklin's ultimately successful but completely decimated mission, Savours puts you on the heaving decks of the icebreakers and in the minds of these brave explorers. Excellent illustrations, end notes, and appendices round out the work. --Paul Hughes
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