Review by Booklist Review
More than 300 years before Ernest Schackleton's famously ill-fated expedition into Antarctica, another explorer led a daring sea voyage that ended in catastrophe. William Barents was a relatively unknown, sixteenth-century Dutch navigator when he led a trio of expeditions into the Arctic in an attempt to find the much-sought-after northern trade route to China. During the third voyage, his ship was ensnared by pack ice, and he and his crew were forced to make a go of it in the savagely inhospitable Arctic. This is a masterful re-creation of a desperate fight for survival. Based on extensive research, the book takes us back nearly half a millennium and plunks us down in a vividly realized world in which sailing off into the unknown really meant just that: Barents (yes, the Barents Sea was named after him) had no idea what was in store when he set sail. A big part of his plan depended on the wildly false notion that he would find a mild climate and sailable seas at the top of the world. More than just another book about a disastrous sea voyage, this is a richly evocative story about a particular period in the history of exploration. Icebound deserves a place beside such classics as Alfred Lansing's Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage and Roland Huntford's The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundson's Race to the South Pole.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Pitzer (One Long Night) recounts the three Arctic voyages of 16th-century Dutch navigator and cartographer William Barents in this impressively researched history. Seeking a northeastern passage to China, Barents and other sailors and merchants subscribed to "the idea of a warm North Pole," Pitzer writes, "an easily navigable sea... that might carry them over the top of the world and deliver them to profitable lands." After frozen seas turned back his first two expeditions, Barents rounded the northern tip of Nova Zembla, an island north of mainland Russia, in August 1596. His ship became encased in three feet of ice, however, forcing Barents and the rest of the crew to wait out the winter in a cabin they built onshore. They survived polar bear attacks and temperatures of 30 degrees below zero, and in June 1597, with the ship still trapped in ice, set out for home in two small boats. Barents, who was suffering from scurvy and had poisoned himself by eating polar bear liver, died seven days into the return journey. Pitzer captures the terror of bone-chilling temperatures and crushing ice floes, and includes edifying digressions on the Dutch war of independence (1568--1648), Viking navigation techniques, and scurvy's deadly effects on the human body. This engrossing account thrills and educates. Agent: Katherine Boyle, Veritas Literary. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
William Barents (c. 1550--1597) was a Dutch navigator and cartographer who sailed three times into the Arctic searching for a shorter trade route to China. His first two voyages in 1594 and 1595 were unsuccessful because of ice and mutiny. Barents's third voyage, in 1596, was tasked with sailing over the North Pole to trade with China. He discovered Spitsbergen, Bear Island, and the nesting site of barnacle geese, but became icebound on the northeastern coast of Nova Zembla. Barents and the surviving crew were threatened by polar bears, scurvy, ice, and Arctic weather for over ten months. The crew left Ice Harbor on June 13, 1597, and began rowing and sailing home. Sadly, Barents died seven days later, though the sailors were rescued seven weeks after that. Journalist Pitzer uses the writings of Dutch merchant Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, among others, to create a rich retelling of the life of Barents, who broadened scientific knowledge with observations that he and his crew made of Arctic flora, fauna, weather, and atmospheric events. The Dutch thoroughly embraced his legacy and renamed the Murmans Sea in his honor in 1853. VERDICT An engaging read for fans of polar and Arctic history.--Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Biography/history of a 16th-century Dutchman who sailed courageously to the North Pole. Pitzer, a journalist who last wrote a global history of concentration camps, draws on diaries, archival material, and her own three trips to the Arctic to recount, in exhaustive detail, three arduous journeys carried out by navigator William Barents in search of a northern route to the Far East. Barents was in his mid-40s, with a wife and five children, when, in 1594, he joined an exploratory fleet whose mission was part of the Dutch Republic's effort to "transform their country into a world power." The first expedition was successful: After traveling more than 3,000 miles, the fleet identified two possible routes to China, and every sailor returned home safely. The second expedition, though, had worse luck. The seven ships that sailed in 1595 constantly feared being trapped by ice; weathered violent storms; and battled polar bears, which attacked and ate two sailors. Morale plummeted, and the ringleaders of a mutiny were hanged. Barents' third expedition, which set out in 1596, proved disastrous. "They'd sailed once more into merciless terrain without even basic strategies to survive in it," Pitzer writes, and they became locked in ice, forcing them to overwinter in the Arctic. The author chronicles the crew's daily experiences, hauling lumber for miles, dismantling their ship for planks, building a shelter, hunting for meat, and surviving temperatures that dropped to 30 degrees below zero. They were weakened and ill from scurvy and once poisoned themselves from eating bear liver. By the time they freed two small boats from the ice and sailed for home, several had died. Though Barents succumbed during the return and had found no northern route to China, he became legendary, leaving a legacy of determination and becoming "the patron saint of devoted error." Although sometimes overwhelmed by repetitive detail, Pitzer's narrative vividly conveys tension and terror. A meticulously researched history of maritime tragedy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
