In the Kingdom of Ice:The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
by Hampton Sides
I know it’s a coincidence that I keep reading books about near-starvation and survival under incredible odds—and I’m on a diet. I sure wish I could send those people some of my uneaten food.
But that would involve time travel, so I’ll just chuck it in the trash and carry on. Like those poor adventurers on board the Jeannette, sailing and steaming to the arctic in search of the North Pole. It wasn’t as stupid as it sounds and they weren’t stupid people. In those days (1880's), it was a common belief that once you got past the ice, the arctic opened up into a warm, very salty sea. There were some convincing theories to explain it. So off went Captain De Long and his heavily fortified, ice-crunching ship Jeannette. They were well prepared to overwinter in the ice, if it came to that. And not all that poorly prepared for what actually happened. So it's a long, harrowing story you'll have to read for yourself--and stay off Wikipedia until the last page is history.
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