This is an exciting History armchair travel book to the Arctic. A group of amateur Arctic explorers set out to discover Crocker Land. Despite troubles before the even leave they set out for the Arctic. While there more troubles ensue and World War I breaks out. The author did a wonderful job with research but the book reads like an historical novel. This is a suspenseful well written Arctic adventure. Wonderful historical photographs accompany the text. Grab a Hot Drink and Comfy Chair and enjoy this adventure.

Cold, hungry, exhausted and stuck

A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier by David Welky (W. W. Norton, $28.95).

There’s something about immersing oneself in the story of people in extremity while tucked safely in a warm, safe house with a full refrigerator.

Schadenfreude, perhaps, or a genuine fascination with risk-taking, or perhaps a bit of both.

In the case of A Wretched and Precarious Situation, it’s also fascination. Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary had spotted what he named “Crocker Land” (after one of his sponsors), a previously unknown land mass, during his 1906 failed attempt at the North Pole. In 1913, two of his compadres set out to find and explore it.

Like other tales of extreme conditions and naive expeditions, this one was full of bad luck from the beginning. One of the leaders of the expedition, George Borup (Peary’s son-in-law) died in an accident early on, leaving Donald McMillan to carry on alone.

Welky had access to McMillan’s previously unpublished diaries of the journey, and he writes a compelling narrative that contains a twist or two as the expedition heads off the edge of Greenland, over Ellesmere Island, and onto the frozen sea.

What comes through strong and clear is that, without the assistance of the Inuit guides and bearers, all the “explorers” would have died. Like Jon Krakauer’s tale of the ill-fated ascent of Everest in 1996 (Into Thin Air), we see how the hubris and ambition of some can put everyone onto thin ice.