Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the Discovery of the Queen's Ghost Ship

It is exceptionally rare for a work of non-fiction to transport the reader to a landscape so alien that it defies the imagination, to meet characters whose particular combination of courage, determination, ingenuity, and vision drive them to feats beyond all experience. Resolute is such a story and were it not for Martin Sandler's scholarly writing, his copious end notes, appendices, and biographic epilogue, the reader might be forgiven for thinking it just so much fiction. But the images of skeletons languishing in open boats, of message cairns against bleak snowswept horizons, and the thought of hundreds of men cowering in the cold and dark for month after mind-numbing month awaiting the spring to break up the ice seizing their ships, cannot help but shock the modern reader. Sandler's scholarly history of the search for (and discovery of) the Northwest Passage, and of the search for the men who disappeared there both thrills and haunts us. It is extraordinary how much treasure, planning, and hope went into England's quest for a commercially viable route over the northern boundary of North America, but it is equally remarkable how large a role was played by wanton ignorance. The gentlemen (nearly all were eventually knighted), who took this stage, very rarely consulted the people who knew most about the geography and the terrain, that is, the whalers and the Inuit natives. And the disregard for fundamental science is startling. How could Second Secretary of the Admiralty, John Barrow, whose orders sent so many men into those icy seas, ever have imagined that the ice that blocked the sea at lower latitudes would somehow vanish as the pole was approached? And sending those men out with what amounted to experimental food canning technology amounted to negligent homicide. Resolute is a book of history, of adventure, of biography, and to be perfectly truthful, it is also a book of horror. Read it for any of these reasons, but be prepared to be shaken up a little in the process.

RESOLUTE: THE EPIC SEARCH FOR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE AND JOHN FRANKLIN, AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE QUEEN'S GHOST SHIP is true adventure history at its best, and a top pick for any general-interest lending collection. Historian Martin Sandler offers up a high-seas adventure journey set in the early 1800s, following a vanished famous explorer, some 39 attempted rescues, a ghost ship, and many discoveries. It makes for a fascinating, involving journey that reads with the drama of fiction but is entirely factual history. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

What an historic HOOK this book has. In 1854 the HMS RESOLUTE is in the Artic searching for the lost John Franklin expedition. The RESOLUTE's captain gets stuck in the ice and abandon's the ship. A year later an American whaler discovers the RESLOTE drifting and deserted. The United States government reconditions the RESOLUTE and presents it as a gift to the Queen as an act of national friendship. Years later the Queen had the remains of the RESOLUTE carved into an ornate desk as a gift for President Hayes. And today that same desk still sits in the Oval Office. (Remember the famous picture with John John sticking his head out of JFK's desk.) This story alone would make for a great book but in what is a short 248 page narrative Mr. Sandler covers the totality of the British and American expeditions to the Artic as they all are in a rush to discover the Northwest Passage. Each chapter in the book is an example of excellent story telling covering a separate event or adventure. All amazing pieces of the story to building the big picture of what it took to explore and survive in the Artic. This is a fun, all be it light, overview of a topic you may not have given any consideration. I found the book very educational, entertaining, and very well presented. It even has an 18 page Epilogue reviewing what happened to the 36 explorer that make up the various expeditions. I might add here that I would recommend more highly the excellent book, The Ice Master about the doomed 1913 voyage of the karluk. This book really gets into the personal business of survival, luck and a super story. But not doubt about it, Martin Sandler has written a very entertaining page turner although with a more global overview.