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Laddar... Race to the Polar Sea: The Heroic Adventures of Elisha Kent Kaneav Ken McGoogan
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. Elisha Kent Kane was a daring explorer. He was the first non-Native to see the massive Humboldt glacier in Greenland. He survived 2 winters in the far north and when he realized that his boat would not be able to make the return trip he organized an escape by sledge and boat to a Danish settlement, travelling 1300 miles to do so. He and all his men were physically devastated by scurvy and many of them were unable to walk. Kane himself suffered from the complications of childhood rheumatic fever all his life but he managed to survive these trying conditions and keep up the spirits of his men. When he died at the young age of 37 in Havana, the train bearing his coffin was greeted by throngs of people all the way home to Philadelphia. There his body lay in state for 3 days while hundreds visited. Yet, his name is hardly known and there is no public monument to him in his birthplace of Philadelphia. Ken McGoogan obtained access to previously unpublished journals and has written a compelling story. Maybe after 150 years Kane is about to get some of the recognition he has missed out on. ( ) The story is about Elisha Kane, an American from Philadelphia, who embarked on an Arctic expedition purportedly to search for the lost British Franklin expedition and find the 'Open Polar Sea'. McGoogan sees Kane as an unsung hero; a point which he pushed to the point of annoyance, interjecting frequent references to Joseph Campbell's 'Hero of a Thousand Faces' and counter arguments to Kane's detractors. The man was an adventurer who used his family connections to advance himself; he did spend some harrowing months in the Arctic and published a well received book on his observations including a great deal of information on the weather conditions, state of the ice and the lives of the native peoples he encountered; however, he found neither Franklin (after a cursory search) nor the alleged Open Polar Sea (as it doesn't exist). Found him to be a very unsympathetic character typical of his time. About 75% of this book is about early Arctic exploration done by Elisha Kane and his crew and I found it extremely interesting. The story covers the two years that Kane and his crew are trapped by ice in the deep North and their daily struggle for survival. However, the other 25% of the book is about Elisha Kane's family and love affairs and I had to force my way through these chapters. Even though I loved sections of this book, I was still glad to get to the last chapter, especially since the last 60 pages of the book were about his domestic affairs and his death and they were very anti-climatic compared to his arctic voyage. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
In the mid-1800s, geographers revived the ancient idea that at the top of the world, encircling the North Pole, lay a temperate "Open Polar Sea." Without doubt, the voyager who discovered this balmy basin would etch his name forever in the annals of exploration. Among those drawn to the challenge was Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, a handsome, charismatic figure from a leading Philadelphia family who was already a well-known adventurer and explorer. In 1853, Kane sailed to the Arctic to seek both the Open Polar Sea and the lost British explorer John Franklin. After sailing farther north than anyone yet, Kane and his men became trapped in the ice. Besides treacherous icebergs and violent currents, Kane battled starvation, disease, and a near mutiny before abandoning ship to lead a desperate escape in sleds and small boats. Race to the Polar Sea tells this story in heart-pounding detail. Drawing on documents never before seen, author Ken McGoogan brings to life a heroic figure famous in his day as America's greatest explorer and celebrates a shining example of American courage and survival. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)910.92History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography and Travel History, geographic treatment, biography - Discovery. exploration Geographers, travellers, explorers regardless of country of originKlassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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