In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Hampton Sides 2015
Read: 2018
Non-Fiction

My wife recommended this book to me. It is a nonfiction story of an ill-fated journey to the north pole in the 1870’s. There were many theories about the north pole at that time, and one of them was that there was a large ring of ice around the arctic circle but inside that, once you broke through, was a great polar sea waiting to be explored. Easy for us to say that’s not true now, that we have pictures from space, but commonly accepted at that time. Though the journey was supposed to break through that ice and make it to the top. It failed miserably, but there’s so much interesting information about what led up to the journey, the people who made the journey, the bravery and courage of those on the journey, and the love of families and those left behind. A solid read that is well-researched and highly enjoyable.