In April 1873, 19 people are found stranded on ice after floating for 196 days. Their ship, the Polaris, had become trapped and Lieut. George De Long leads a rescue mission to find the remaining 14 members. Although he was unsuccessful, he caught the Arctic itch, a passion for the desolate unknown. Back in NYC, a new expedition was designed to find the Open Polar Sea with De Long at the helm and no less than James Gordon Bennett Jr - editor in chief of The Herald - to fund it. A route through the Bering Strait had never been tried before, and conveniently, Alaska was recently purchased from Russia. The officers are recommended - 33 crew total - with the Navy's sanction, and the latest tech. All the pieces were in place! In 1878, the USS Jeannette, named for James' sister, set out for San Francisco, and from there for Alaska. Beyond the Bering Strait was completely uncharted territory, which, tragically, proved to be even more dangerous than any of them could have anticipated.

This was an excellent read, no notes. I became invested in the crew, secretly hoping it will somehow end differently than reality. They were diverse - mostly immigrants - and respectful of their captain. No one was responsible for the expedition's failure. It's a case of scientific folly, an unfounded risk encouraged by the privileged few. Well supplied, efficient, and cooperative, they did everything "right." It's a pity, but comforting to know that De Long's name was not dragged through the mud after the expedition's failure. They could not have predicted or foreseen what eventually unfolded, when the greatest minds of their generation encouraged them to go in the first place. ( )

Very enjoyable and having read books about other arctic and antarctic explorations I wondered if this would hold me. It more than did and I think most anyone who likes to read non fiction adventure stories will appreciate reading this one. ( )

There is nothing quite like a thoroughly researched, well-paced, well written non-fiction account of some jaw-dropping event that it seems hardly possible actually happened. Such books are inevitably difficult to put down and ā€˜The Kingdom of Iceā€™ is an exemplar of the genre. Hampton Sides (who has an Arctic explorer-esque name himself) recounts the extraordinary voyage of the USS Jeannette, whose crew intended to reach the North Pole. But wait, you might ask, how were they supposed to get there in a boat? It seems that in the 1870s a popular theory, espoused by some otherwise well-regarded scientists, held that there was a warm ocean at the North Pole surrounded by a circle of ice. The rationale for this bizarre hypothesis was that warm currents such as the gulf stream converged there. The experiences of the USS Jeanette were to comprehensively debunk this idea. The crew aimed to break through the supposed circle of ice via the Bering Strait, rather than trying to reach the pole via Greenland as previous unsuccessful expeditions had.

Sides carefully puts the reader on tenterhooks by extended scene-setting and background for the voyage, its funder, and its crew. As generally seemed to be the case for polar explorers, everyone involved was at least a little eccentric. The newspaper millionaire who funded the expedition was such a memorably odd person that his name is apparently the origin of the exclamation, ā€œGordon Bennett!ā€ I always wondered where that came from ā€“ it was something I picked up from my Nana. Such fascinating tidbits are to be found throughout the text, to the point that I wondered why Iā€™d never heard of the Jeanette expedition before. (Probable explanations include: Iā€™d come across mentions but forgotten about them, successful expeditions loom largest in history, and British museums like to imply that British men did all the exploring.) The writing style is a great mixture of journalistic and historical, conveying the risk and danger of events without hyperbole or sensationalism. The use of letters from the expedition captainā€™s wife to her absent husband throughout the narrative is well-judged and moving. I also appreciated the liberal inclusion of maps. It gets on my nerves when accounts of long journeys limit the reader to a single map, sometimes even relegated to the endpapers. Maps provide a welcome sense of perspective to the distances described.

Iā€™ve got two paragraphs in without mentioning the outcome of the expedition itself, nor the fates of the men on it. This is a deliberate choice: I began the book without knowing anything about what happened and thus found it a thrilling, enthralling tale. I will mention that the Jeannette doesnā€™t manage to sail to the North Pole, which is hardly a surprise. The actual outcome of the expedition is chastening as an example of Western hubris during the exploration age, as well as exciting as a tale of humans pushed to their limits. There is an edge of dark humour also, particularly evident in Captain de Longā€™s diary of the voyage. He displayed an incredible gift for understatement, reducing the most appalling circumstances imaginable to deadpan phrases like, ā€˜Our outlook was not encouragingā€™. The account is equally fascinating as a historical snapshot. The USS Jeanette took with them prototypes of Alexander Graham Bellā€™s telephone and Edisonā€™s arc lights, both of which failed to function in freezing Arctic temperatures. The adventurous inclinations of some of the crew were seemingly stoked by having been slightly too young to fight in the American Civil War. Yet there is an oddly contemporary feel about the media obsession with the expedition and its fate. Transatlantic telegraph cables already allowed the expeditionā€™s sponsor to run his New York newspaper from Paris; Bennett was at the vanguard of international news, sending reporters worldwide in search of exciting stories. As well as history, this a vivid portrait of a unique geography. If you have any interest in snowy wastes, as I most definitely do, descriptions of places like Wrangel Land will beguile you.

Finally, I approved of Sidesā€™ comment that the warm Polar sea theory may have been dead wrong in the late 19th century, but at the rate greenhouse gas emissions are accumulating in the atmosphere, temperatures are rising, and polar ice is melting, it may yet become true. ā€˜In the Kingdom of Iceā€™ was a moving, informative, generally very high quality piece of escapist non-fiction. Thank you Rae for recommending it to me! ( )

Excellent. With a story like this, how you organize and. Present the facts is everything. Sides slowly builds interest, developing the chars ters, making you care about what happens to them, and then taking you along for the trip ( )

An entertaining and mostly thrilling account of this famous arctic adventure. Some of the preliminary and by the way material seemed gratuitous, but maybe I was just eager for the story to begin. The story of the idea of the open polar sea is another fascinating look at what we are willing to believe strongly despite all evidence to the contrary.
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It has occurred to me, since I wrote this review, and as Christmas approaches and I read Chris Van Allsburg's Polar Express to my grandson, that the idea of a mystical place at the north pole where Santa Claus can work with his elves, might be somehow tied up not just with the north pole's remoteness, but also with these other 19th century ideas about what might be there (e.g. a hole into the center of the earth and prehistoric creatures). ( )