It’s amazing to me that we have gone from having unexplored areas on Earth to sending a spaceship to Pluto in less than 150 years. Hampton Sides’ In The Kingdom of Ice tells the story of terrible journey to find the North Pole. (If you’re interested in Pluto, New Horizons is approaching the dwarf planet at 36,373 mph and scheduled to flyby on July 14, 2015.)
James Gordon Bennett was the eccentric and extremely wealthy owner of The New York Herald. He had recently funded Stanley’s trip to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone as way to sell papers. Now he was looking to create the next sensation. He set his sights on an expedition to reach the North Pole.
At the time, the North Pole was still unknown and unexplored. The foremost cartographer in the world, a German named August Petermann, believed that warm currents sustained open water at the top of the world. The theory was that the warm Japan current flowed through the Bering Strait toward the pole and created an area of warmer, ice-free water around the pole. If a ship could just break through the ice ring, it could reach the pole. Peterman even forecast that there was a landmass at the pole.
George Washington De Long led a team of 32 men deep into those uncharted Arctic waters based on those theories. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of “Arctic Fever.”
Of course, we now know that Petermann was wrong. The Jeannette and her crew suffered the consequences.
The book starts as a tale of risk and facing the unknown. Unfortunately, the captain has faith in the one theory and does not accept the unknown as a risk. He hedged his risk. He had the ship prepared to be trapped in the ice and provisioned to survive being trapped for an extended period of time.
The risk was fueled by a bubble. The world had Arctic fever. Several explorers had attempted to reach the pole. Some of the fever was fueled by the media. Mr. Bennett funded the voyage because he wanted to sell newspapers.