Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition

I originally read Ice Blink over two years ago. For some reason, the story has stuck with me ever since. Cookman does a top notch job putting the reader in the Hulls of the HMS Erebus and Terror. Stephan Goldner's greed is almost beyond belief. Warning- Ice Blink is not for the sqeamish!

I love this book. Could not put it down. The author has researched the facts and gives excellent detail to the history. It is a fascinating story and if you like to read about the real explorers you will not regret purchasing this book

I was always intrigued by the disappearace of the ill-fated Franklin expedition, having seen the NOVA presentation some years ago. So I sat down and read this book and couldn't put it down. The story in itself is tragic and heartfelt. The reasons behind it all the more tragic. The NOVA story focused on lead and botulism poisoning as well as scurvy. But having read this book, I've come to the conclusion the Cookman was too lenient on the Admiralty who employed Goldner. 29,000 cans of food is an astounding amount of food to the say the least even in this day and age of automation. In their race to find the passage, they didn't question where Goldner was going to obtain all this fresh meat he was contracted to provide. Not even Queen Victoria ha instant access to the gourmet food he offered. Canned Lobster? Curried rabbit? They didn't inspect his factory and being located in Whitechapel should have been enough to raise eyebrows. That's the place where Jack the Ripper plied his trade and where you wouldn't be caught at night! There was no quality control. No one in the Admiralty had the balls to question where all this fresh food was going to come from! He was contracted to provide fresh beef, roast beef, mutton, fresh vegetables ( all of which not even the very wealthy had access to at the time). All they knew was that he had this patented new process, he was cheap, and he was going to deliver on time. If Goldner was greedy, then the Admiralty was more so at wanting to save money on the deal. Though Cookman calls Goldner the culprit, he should have added the Royal Navy too! The chapter titled Houndsditch was quite disgusting and shocking. Goldner basically hired London's poor, dirty, bacteria riddled workers on the cheap, made the cans on the cheap, and put anything into dirty cans. He used what you and I throw out! The meat was poor quality ( he used any kind he could get his hands on, bones and cartilage even garbage!) rotten vegetables that he didn't wash and canned it and hoped his patented heating process would make everything okay! These were sailors and Royal Naval officers! You'd think a little more care would have been put into this by the Navy. Nope. I'll never look at another can of creamed corn again without thinking how fortunate we are that we've perfected the canning process to some degree and think how those poor souls should have gotten the same. Because of the faulty and careless canning method, most of the officers including Franklin most likely died from botulism poisoning and if you've read about it, it's not a pleasant way to die! Of the many things that killed the entire expedition one can also say that technological arrogance was partly to blame. The ships were huge! Why send so many men? With so many mouths to feed, didn't anyone question Barrow? The ships were heavy because of all that food they had to carry and most of their coal was depleted that first winter just heating the enormous things! The whole thing was a set up

Years ago I had read a National Geographic article about the discovery of the frozen bodies of three seamen from an ill fated expedition to explore the Arctic for the fabled Northwest Passage. The modern discoverers of the remains were scientists who performed an onsite autopsy to determine the cause of death, as the scope of the disaster had left many unanswered questions since it's occurrence in the mid-19th Century. The amount of knowledge that was gained after more than a century post mortem was impressive, and left a lasting memory of the unfortunate expedition: The Franklin Polar Expedition. When I saw the summary for the book The Ice Blink, I was immediately captured by the Franklin subject, and got the book. The volume reads like a novel, written as it is by a well researched journalist rather than an historian. I read it in a single day, almost in a single sitting, so riveting is its human detail. The author covers the topic lengthily, including other equally unfortunate attempts to search for the passage to the Pacific by way of the northern most reaches of North America. He details the careers of the various officers as well as that of the Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, Sir John Barrow, who was as much a part of the events as any of the actual participants. He outlines the background of many of the enlisted men, and points out the financial incentives that encouraged them to go on the discovery voyage. He also points out that few who had been on one before, were actually willing to go for any amount of money! Cookman's biography of the titular leader of the expedition, Sir John Franklin is illuminating, but that of the captain of the Terror is by far the most interesting. Francis Croiser was passed over as leader of the expedition on the basis of his social and ethnic status (Irish middle class) but was the most experienced of the officers with the rigors of polar exploration. It was ultimately on his shoulders that command fell after the early death of Franklin, and under the worst of all possible conditions. From physical remains found at the site of the abandoned ships and strewn across the landscape following the doomed men's path, it would appear that the flight from the pack ice in which both ships had been imprisoned for almost 18 months had been well and carefully planned by Croiser, and except for the desperation and hopelessness of their situation might well have brought a few home. He certainly seems to have given them the only real hope they had of survival. The author paints a vivid picture of the retreat of the men, using the 19th Century reports of efforts to find survivors, those of modern investigators of known sites (like that mentioned above) and of reports by other explorers and natives who accidentally discovered remains. Putting the story together with what is known of other polar expeditions, what is known of the 19th Century naval organization, and the society of the time, and the inf

What went wrong? How could 129 officers and men with the most technologically advanced ships and enough canned, baked and pickled food for three years on a journey to find the North West Passage in 1845 - vanish? There had been eight previous polar expeditions since 1819 and only 17 deaths out of 513 men. This was one of the greatest British navel disasters.Ice Blink is about mismanagement, oversights, government foibles, prejudice and incompetence. The lessons of the Sir John Franklin's Expedition in 1845 are still sadly relevant. The same problems that doomed those men in the far North are around today. Governments and corporations often award contracts to the lowest bidder, prejudice means the right people do not get hired, top heavy management creates inefficiencies and over reliance on technology obscures common sense. The lowest bidding manufacturer, Stephen Godner's Canned Food, was the exclusive supplier of canned food for the expedition. No one in the navy bothered to check the filthy conditions at this factory. The canned food arrived just a few hours before the launch, avoiding close inspection. Sir John Barrow, Second Secretary of the Admiralty, hired men of English birth and Anglican faith for the expedition, and dismissed ten experienced Scottish Seamen. One officer was in charge of four men.Admiral Barrow and Captain Franklin believed in the latest machinery. Ships, scientific knowledge and canned food would lead them to victory. There were no hunters on board or native guides used. Despite all this, Ice Blink is also about the bravery, loyalty and resourcefulness of the men who served on the expedition. They did everything they could to survive and to help each other.Scott Cookman brings alive the times that made this expedition possible. He probes into the mindset of the men who cleaned the decks, fixed the sails, shoveled the coal, polished the silver, cooked the meals and attended the sick. He also probes into the motives of Captain Franklin, his officers and Admiral Barrow, and puts the events in context. His details of life in the British navy, the medical profession, class dynamics and ship building of over a hundred and fifty years ago draw the reader into that world. The author's painstaking research has paid off in a griping non-fiction book that often reads like a novel. Cookman compares the expeditions to explore the last frontiers on earth to the current space missions. Going across the North-West Passage was similar to going to the Moon. It was as remote and uncharted.Every one involved with the manned mission to Mars should read this book. It is a `what not to do' when organizing and preparing for an ambitious venture.The Charlotte Austin Review