Hell on Ice

Book excerpt: Based on a true story: the thrilling tale of a ship’s 1879 journey to explore the North Pole—and the crew’s desperate attempt to escape an Arctic ice pack. In the 1870s, newspaperman James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald drummed up excitement and publicity for his paper through highly publicized missions of exploration. In 1879, Bennett’s idea for a voyage was his most audacious to date: the North Pole. To do this, he hired a team of naval veterans in addition to a smattering of civilians with specialized knowledge in meteorology, whaling, and naturalism. The men on board the Jeannette set off in September of 1879. This would be the last time anyone saw them for two years. The product of devoted research into personal histories, memoirs, and classified congressional investigation records, Hell on Ice is a remarkable document: a novelization of history, turning the horrible ordeal of the brave men of the Jeannette into a riveting narrative. Written with a weathered seaman’s familiarity, the story brilliantly captures a most perilous voyage from the perspective of the ship’s chief engineer. The men of the Jeannette endure months trapped in an Arctic ice pack, and then begin a desperate trek for home.