Mentioned in BBC News: http: //www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24281727 Benjamin Leigh Smith discovered and named dozens of islands in the Arctic but published no account of his pioneering explorations. He refused public accolades and sent stand-ins to deliver the results of his work to scientific societies. Yet, the Royal Geographic Society's Sir Clements R. Markham referred to him as a polar explorer of the first rank. Traveling to the Arctic islands that Leigh Smith explored and crisscrossing England to uncover unpublished journals, diaries, and photographs, archaeologist and writer P. J. Capelotti details Leigh Smith's five major Arctic expeditions and places them within the context of the great polar explorations in the nineteenth century

"Benjamin Leigh Smith discovered and named dozens of islands in the Arctic but published no account of his pioneering explorations. He refused public accolades and sent stand-ins to deliver the results of his work to scientific societies. Yet, the Royal Geographic Society's Sir Clements R. Markham referred to him as a polar explorer of the first rank. Traveling to the Arctic islands that Leigh Smith explored and crisscrossing England to uncover unpublished journals, diaries, and photographs, archaeologist and writer P. J. Capelotti details Leigh Smith's five major Arctic expeditions and places them within the context of the great polar explorations in the nineteenth century."--Publisher's description

Benjamin Leigh Smith discovered and named dozens of islands in the Arctic but published no account of his pioneering explorations. He refused public accolades and sent stand-ins to deliver the results of his work to scientific societies. Yet, the Royal Geographic Society's Sir Clements R. Markham referred to him as a polar explorer of the first rank.Traveling to the Arctic islands that Leigh Smith explored and crisscrossing England to uncover unpublished journals, diaries, and photographs, archaeologist and writer P. J. Capelotti details Leigh Smith's five major Arctic expeditions and places them within the context of the great polar explorations in the nineteenth century

The first two attempts to reach this remote and frigid outpost by air are examined, starting with a failed balloon attempt by a Swedish engineer in 1897. 31 illustrations.

This book describes the 1873 voyage of the British explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith, based on the diaries and photographs of Lieutenant Herbert C. Chermside, who joined the expedition of the seas around Svalbard. Chermside’s photographs, long believed lost, have recently been uncovered in Sweden and are being curated there by the Grenna Museum. The three unpublished diaries of Herbert Chermside were lent to the Scott Polar Research Institute in 1939 by Mrs. Benjamin Leigh Smith. For the first time, Chermside’s diaries are published in their entirety, with the original photographs shown alongside modern images of the same locations. This includes the first photographic record of the north coast of Svalbard, images that are today being used as comparative data for the study of climate change in the archipelago. The diaries have been fully transcribed and edited. Introductory chapters are included, written by specialists in the history of exploration, history of science, and the history of photography from Penn State University, the University of Gothenburg, and UiT, the Arctic University of Norway, as well as contributors from the UK and Germany. This volume is published in association with Grenna Museum, which will present Chermside’s photographs in a 2022 exhibit on Leigh Smith and A.E. Nordenskiold.

In Gilded Age America, Arctic explorers were fabulous celebrities—assured of riches and near-immortality so long as they reached the North Pole first. Of the many attempts to meet that goal, three American expeditions, launched from the Russian archipelago of Franz Josef Land, ended in abject failure, their exploits consigned to near-oblivion. Even so, these ventures—the Wellman expedition (1898–99), the Baldwin-Ziegler (1901–2), and the Fiala-Ziegler (1903–5)—have much to tell us about the personalities, politics, and economics of exploration in their day. In The Greatest Show in the Arctic, the first book to chronicle all three expeditions, P. J. Capelotti explores what went right and what, in the end, went tragically wrong. The cast of colorful characters from the Franz Josef Land forays included Walter Wellman, a Chicago journalist and bon vivant running from debts, his mistress, and an illegitimate daughter; Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, a deranged meteorologist with a fetish for balloons and a passion for Swedish conserves; and Anthony Fiala, a pious photographer in search of God in the Arctic. Featuring an international cast of supporting characters worthy of a three-ring circus, The Greatest Show in the Arctic follows each of the three expeditions in turn, from spectacular feats of financing to their bitter ends. Along the way, the explorers accumulated considerable geographic knowledge and left a legacy of place-names. Through close study of the expeditions’ journals, Capelotti reveals that the Franz Josef Land endeavors foundered chiefly because of poor leadership and internal friction, not for lack of funding, as historians have previously suspected. Presenting tales of noble intentions, novel inventions, and epic miscalculations, The Greatest Show in the Arctic brings fresh life to a unique and underappreciated story of American exploration.

"Novak's account will be of significant value to students of the U.S. Coast Guard and of naval service in wartime. His illumination of the small details of a sailor's life and perceptive observation of the Arctic region and its little-known people will appeal to anyone interested in maritime history."--BOOK JACKET.

Experience the thrill and danger of Arctic exploration as you journey with Captain John Ross through the vast, icy wilderness of the North. This first-hand account of Ross's voyage provides a vivid and unforgettable portrait of a unique and challenging world, and offers insights into the experiences of the Inuit people, the natural history of the region, and the political and economic ambitions that drove polar exploration in the 19th century. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This book describes the 1873 voyage of the British explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith, based on the diaries and photographs of Lieutenant Herbert C. Chermside, who joined the expedition of the seas around Svalbard. Chermside’s photographs, long believed lost, have recently been uncovered in Sweden and are being curated there by the Grenna Museum. The three unpublished diaries of Herbert Chermside were lent to the Scott Polar Research Institute in 1939 by Mrs. Benjamin Leigh Smith. For the first time, Chermside’s diaries are published in their entirety, with the original photographs shown alongside modern images of the same locations. This includes the first photographic record of the north coast of Svalbard, images that are today being used as comparative data for the study of climate change in the archipelago. The diaries have been fully transcribed and edited. Introductory chapters are included, written by specialists in the history of exploration, history of science, and the history of photography from Penn State University, the University of Gothenburg, and UiT, the Arctic University of Norway, as well as contributors from the UK and Germany. This volume is published in association with Grenna Museum, which will present Chermside’s photographs in a 2022 exhibit on Leigh Smith and A.E. Nordenskiold.