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Midnight to the North: The Inuit Woman Who Saved the Polaris Expedition
In 1871, Charles Francis Hall's Polaris expedition set out to be the first official American party to reach the North Pole. Five months later, the Polaris had become locked in ice and Hall was dead-likely murdered. The expedition members were set adrift for six months on the icy seas: a fifteen-hundred-mile journey that all survived, thanks to the skills of Hall's translat...more
Hardcover, 224 pages
Published
March 4th 2002
by Tarcher
(first published 2002)
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I really enjoy true adventure/survival stories, and this one is pretty incredible. After the captain of a polar expedition is mysteriously poisoned, his ship wrecks and 19 people are stranded on an ice floe in the arctic for 6 1/2 months, among them two Inuit families whose resourcefulness and local knowledge keep the group alive.
The first three chapters are really dense with place names and people that for me at least, tended to blur together. I would recommend starting the book on chapter 4....more
The first three chapters are really dense with place names and people that for me at least, tended to blur together. I would recommend starting the book on chapter 4....more
It was a slog to finish this book, which is full of gross facts about Arctic exploration, from cannibalistic dogs to seal blood as a key source of water when all other liquids are frozen.
The alleged goal of the book was to tell the tale of an Inuit woman who helped the explorers, but the author had so little information to go on that she had to tell the tale completely from the white man's point of view.
The only sections I enjoyed were the brief passages when the author compared her mother's pro...more
The alleged goal of the book was to tell the tale of an Inuit woman who helped the explorers, but the author had so little information to go on that she had to tell the tale completely from the white man's point of view.
The only sections I enjoyed were the brief passages when the author compared her mother's pro...more
Artic tale of survival and subsistence living of the Inuit. An expedition in the 1880's trying to reach the North Pole became ice bound, then when the ship sank and the ice parted, half of the crew were adrift on an ice flow with an Inuit woman and her husband and 1 other Inuit hunter. They kept the crew alive as they drifted out of Baffin Bay and the Davis straight into the open sea. They survived for 5 months until pickup by chance by a whaler as the ice flow disintegrated under them. Great st...more
The author thoroughly researched and retold the story of a fascinating expedition. But it was a peculiar marriage of documentation and embroiderous speculation towards what the author wished had happened. The occasional peculiar sentence indicated the need for more editing. There was not much evidence that the Inuit woman saved the Polaris!
Three and a half stars, rounded up to four. Very interesting, but the author kept wandering off the path. It's surprising that her editor did not cut the bits about the author's aged mother, which did not add to or relate to the story in any away.
Dec 14, 2008
Roxy
added it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Historians
Recommended to Roxy by:
my mom
This remarkable story describes the struggles, both physically and mentally, of a crew of explorers surviving the cruel elements on an ice flow.
Jun 01, 2013
Marianne
marked it as to-read
May 19, 2013
Toni Moore
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May 23, 2013
Kara
marked it as unfinished
Mar 10, 2013
Cynthia
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Oct 08, 2011
Julie
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Jul 26, 2011
Amy
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Apr 19, 2011
Barbara
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