Thirty Years in the Arctic Regions: The Narrative of a Polar Explorer

by John Franklin

In an age when polar exploration was akin to space exploration today, Sir John Franklin's journeys of discovery captured the popular imagination. Originally published in 1859, Thirty Years in the Arctic Regions is Franklin's own record of his two overland expeditions, begun in 1816 and 1825, which took him to what is now the Northwest Territory of Canada.But it was Franklin's final expedition, to discover the sea route connecting the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans, that cemented his place in the history of Arctic exploration. Franklin and his crew set out in two ships, the Erebus and the Terror. Their search for the Northwest Passage was doomed, and the fate of Franklin and his 129-man crew remained a mystery for many years, despite the fact that more than thirty missions were sent to look for survivors or remains. The bodies of several of its members were eventually found. By 2016, both ships had been discovered, bringing an end to a 168-year-old Arctic mystery.This book includes Franklin's record of the hardship and suffering his men endured from his earlier expeditions, during which he and his crew charted 1,700 miles of Artic coastline. Also, it includes Franklin's detailed descriptions of a region that in the 19th century must have seemed as alien as a lunar landscape. The book's final entries include a letter from Franklin dated July 12, 1845—the last communication from the expedition received in England—and letters sent by the leaders of subsequent search expeditions. Thirty Years in the Arctic Regions describes an era when British exploration of the Far North was at its peak, in the words of one its most prominent and ill-fated explorers.

Genres: Canada

492 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1824

About the author

Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) was a British sea captain and Arctic explorer whose final expedition disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The entire crew was lost and its fate remained a mystery for 14 years. His flagship, HMS Erebus, was discovered in 2014 and sister ship HMS Terror (commanded by Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier) was discovered in 2016.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting read, if you can get through Franklin's plodding narrative style. Franklin is unfortunately an awful writer, but the story is engrossing enough to make up for his literary faults. The story of his expedition down the Coppermine River is one of the greatest adventure stories I've come across. His crew wreck their canoes, are forced to travel overland across the barren tundra in winter, nearly starving to death, and have to contend with a murderous and cannibalistic voyageur.

Franklin's perspective is often amusing as he recounts nearly everything with the same stoic tone. He makes sure to tell us how much the compass needle is dipping each given day even when his crew is forced to boil lichen for dinner or even eat the leather from their boots.

It's very telling of the attitudes of the early European settlers of North America that Franklin in the same sentence will announce his discovery of an unexplored bay, giving names to all the islands in it, and note various Inuit encampments there and wonder if he might be able to get some supplies from them.

The book is instructive historically as an account of how people traversed across the wilderness of Northern Canada before the advent of roads and rail lines, and as an account of some early interactions between European 'explorers' and indigenous peoples. If you're interested in this history, this book is well worth reading, in spite of Franklin's limitations as a writer.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting account of the expeditions of Sir John Franklin to the Arctic region. The first expedition takes 80% of the book, with the second expedition being about 15% and 5% lent to the final one. The suffering and challenges of the expedition are discussed in through Franklin's journals primarily, and at other times through the journals of his compatriots. The book was tedious at times with page after page after page of going to this place or that, and not as much detail, but given their fatigue, near starvation, and him writing when chance afforded it, having any account is amazing. The book has definitely piqued my interest in reading more about polar explorers. and I plan to do so. My biggest reason for giving 3 stars was all the typos throughout the book. It really needs some editing to correct. I also would have liked to see maps and drawings that were mentioned in the text, which would have made it easier to follow all the place names. The maps included were impossible to read due to the small type and clarity of the map. Nonetheless, all in all an interesting book.