In the golden age of polar exploration (from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s), many an expedition set out to answer the big questionÑwas the Arctic a continent, an open ocean beyond a barrier of ice, or an ocean covered with ice? No one knew, for the ice had kept its secret well; ships trying to penetrate it all failed, often catastrophically. NorwayÕs charismatic scientist-explorer Fridtjof Nansen, convinced that it was a frozen ocean, intended to prove it in a novel if risky way: by building a ship capable of withstanding the ice, joining others on an expedition, then drifting wherever it took them, on a relentless one-way journey into discovery and fame . . . or oblivion. Ice Ship is the story of that extraordinary ship, the Fram, from conception to construction, through twenty years of three epic expeditions, to its final resting place as a museum. It is also the story of the extraordinary men who steered the Fram over the course of 84,000 miles: on a three-year, ice-bound drift, finding out what the Arctic really was; in a remarkable four-year exploration of unmapped lands in the vast Canadian Arctic; and on a twoÐyear voyage to Antarctica, where another famous Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, claimed the South Pole. Ice Ship will appeal to all those fascinated with polar exploration, maritime adventure, and wooden ships, and will captivate readers of such books as The Endurance, In the Heart of the Sea, and The Last Place on Earth. With more than 100 original photographs, the book brings the Fram to life and light.

"Polar expeditions have generated a literature with its own history and style. The Frozen Ship is a thorough and thought-provoking examination of some of the most influential, popular, and intriguing accounts of journeys into the eternal ice--from Viking settlers and Renaissance conquerors to Robert Falcon Scott's meticulous account of his own dying, and from the tales of Parry, Franklin, Nansen, Shackleton, and Byrd to the journals of little-known explorers, missionaries, and archaeologists from Europe and North America. The Frozen Ship considers the morbid fascination with expeditions that went horribly wrong and the even greater interest attached to those that were rescued at the last minute"--Page 4 of cover.

The Northwest Passage proved so elusive for so long that many sailors and explorers believed it didn't actually exist. A sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic archipelago, it wasn't until Roald Amundsen's 1903–06 voyage that the Northwest Passage's existence was finally proved, but the transit is treacherous and entirely dependent upon the ice giving up its grip for sufficient time to allow vessels through. This is not a journey undertaken by average sailors in small private boats. But David Scott Cowper, 73, is no ordinary sailor. There are seven possible routes through the Northwest Passage, and Cowper had sailed through six of them singlehanded. This is the account of the sixth and most northerly – from ocean to ocean through the McClure Strait, this time accompanied by Jane Maufe, his crew. The account of the voyage is written by Jane and she captures Cowper's steely determination, resourcefulness in the face of adversity and humility in the wake of great achievement. Theirs is an old-fashioned relationship, where each party expects to fulfil their stereotypical roles. But Jane is no push-over - she can steer a watch, haul sails, and leap ashore slippery pontoons with heavy ropes like the best of them. As well as a captivating story of adventurous sailing it provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between two serious and dedicated sailors, alone together in some of the most isolated and forbidding desolate wastes on earth. It is a relationship built on respect and high expectations, mutual ambition and also self-sacrifice, and the book is a uniquely revealing and charming account.

On October 28, 1943, a U.S. Navy ship was successfully teleported with disastrous effects on its crew. Crewmen died, developed rare or yet unidentified diseases, and most horrifying of all, some became fused to the metal, their arms and legs protruding from the bulkhead. A team of psychologists has gathered at a small university to study and analyze the same reoccurring dream of seven completely different people. The dream involves a large navy ship in a vast desert with soldiers trapped inside the bulkheads. Slowly, by depriving the dreamers of REM sleep, the dreams are killing the dreamers. What the dreamers do not realize is that another vessel; this one equipped with nuclear missiles has disappeared in a green-gray mist over the North Atlantic. Only Elizabeth Foxworth, a social worker studying the dreamers, can prevent nuclear disaster by entering the dream, and risking her life and the lives of the dreamers. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Driven by a passion for travel and history and a love of ships and the sea, former Monty Python stalwart and beloved television globe-trotter Michael Palin explores the world of HMS Erebus, last seen on an ill-fated voyage to chart the Northwest Passage. Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of the Erebus and its occupants to life, from its construction as a bomb vessel in 1826 through the flagship years of James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition and finally to Sir John Franklin’s quest for the holy grail of navigation—a route through the Northwest Passage, where the ship disappeared into the depths of the sea for more than 150 years. It was rediscovered under the arctic waters in 2014. Palin travels across the world—from Tasmania to the Falkland Islands and the Canadian Arctic—to offer a firsthand account of the terrain and conditions that would have confronted the Erebus and her doomed final crew. Delving into the research, he describes the intertwined careers of the two men who shared the ship’s journeys: Ross, the organizational genius who mapped much of the Antarctic coastline and oversaw some of the earliest scientific experiments to be conducted there; and Franklin, who, at the age of sixty and after a checkered career, commanded the ship on its last disastrous venture. Expertly researched and illustrated with maps, photographs, paintings, and engravings, Erebus is an evocative account of two journeys: one successful and forgotten, the other tragic yet unforgettable.

ÊThe Laughing Mary was a light ship, as sailors term a vessel that stands high upon the water, having discharged her cargo at Callao, from which port we were proceeding in ballast to Cape Town, South Africa, there to call for orders. Our run to within a few parallels of the latitude of the Horn had been extremely pleasant; the proverbial mildness of the Pacific Ocean was in the mellow sweetness of the wind and in the gentle undulations of the silver-laced swell; but scarce had we passed the height of forty-nine degrees when the weather grew sullen and dark, a heavy bank of clouds of a livid hue rose in the north-east, and the wind came and went in small guns, the gusts venting themselves in dreary moans, insomuch that our oldest hands confessed they had never heard blasts more portentous. The gale came on with some lightning and several claps of thunder and heavy rain. Though it was but two o'clock in the afternoon, the air was so dusky that the men had to feel for the ropes; and when the first of the tempest stormed down upon us the appearance of the sea was uncommonly terrible, being swept and mangled into boiling froth in the north-east quarter, whilst all about us and in the south-west it lay in a sort of swollen huddle of shadows, glooming into the darkness of the sky without offering the smallest glimpse of the horizon. In a few minutes the hurricane struck us. We had bared the brig down to the close-reefed main-topsail; yet, though we were dead before the outfly, its first blow rent the fragment of sail as if it were formed of smoke, and in an instant it disappeared, flashing over the bows like a scattering of torn paper, leaving nothing but the bolt-ropes behind. The bursting of the topsail was like the explosion of a large cannon. In a breath the brig was smothered with froth torn up in huge clouds, and hurled over and ahead of her in vast quivering bodies that filled the wind with a dismal twilight of their own, in which nothing was visible but their terrific speeding. Through these slinging, soft, and singing masses of spume drove the rain in horizontal steel-like lines, which gleamed in the lightning stroke as though indeed they were barbed weapons of bright metal, darted by armies of invisible spirits raving out their war cries as they chased us.

Fiction. In her debut novel, FROZEN VOICES, Lynne Heinzmann has performed magic beyond even the skills of Harry Houdini, one of her most delightful characters. Heinzmann pulls off an astonishing feat of literary legerdemain, resurrecting real people who, in February 1907, were passengers on the steamship Larchmont, a vessel which sank off the coast of Rhode Island, taking 137 souls down with her: 'drowned, frozen, or scalded to death.' In giving voice and vitality to a group of these passengers, Heinzmann combines meticulous historical research with a humane and generous imagination. Readers will live and breathe with the four narrators of the novel, as we see them before, during and--for some--after the disaster. FROZEN VOICES weaves the characters and events aboard this doomed ship into a complex and spellbinding tale. In the end, readers are left with exactly the reactions that should follow such an act of wondrous conjuration: we are amazed and deeply touched. --Hollis Seamon

The Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913 is not meant for children, so it doesn't look like bookish Helen or her squirmy little brother, Michael, will be having any fun. To fight off the boredom, Helen plans to keep her nose in her favourite books. But on their way to the Arctic, the ocean freezes over early, catching the captain and crew by surprise. The boat becomes trapped in ice and everyone is forced to abandon ship before it sinks. It's a long and treacherous road to solid land and many dangers lie ahead. Helen could not have predicted that instead of reading about adventures, she would soon be living an extraordinary one of her own.

In this thought-provoking and lyrical debut novel, a young woman's only hope for survival in the dystopian future is a ship, a Noah's Ark, that can rescue 500 people. London burned for three weeks. And then it got worse. . . Young, naive, and frustratingly sheltered, Lalla has grown up in near-isolation in her parents' apartment, sheltered from the chaos of their collapsed civilization. But things are getting more dangerous outside. People are killing each other for husks of bread, and the police are detaining anyone without an identification card. On her sixteenth birthday, Lalla's father decides it's time to use their escape route -- a ship he's built that is only big enough to save five hundred people. But the utopia her father has created isn't everything it appears. There's more food than anyone can eat, but nothing grows; more clothes than anyone can wear, but no way to mend them; and no-one can tell her where they are going.

Frozen Passage, a lighthearted story of a time-traveling pirate ship, follows a salty old sea captain and his crew of ancient mariners across a frozen field of ice 400 years into the future and a new world. What happens when pirates from the 16th century take a disabled cruise ship? Will the Coast Guard or Navy capture our tall ship or will the captain sail to Cuba? And what about the treasure? But beware, because as the two worlds are brought together, one man's everyday experiences become another man's witchcraft, even as a love story threads its way across time and space, overcoming social and cultural suspicion.