Ep. 395: When Things Go South Up North

Was it that long ago? Yeah? I was just thinking the same thing sitting here a couple of minutes ago, the episode Eating Folks in the Arctic. That's a good title to tell about the books you came because you came in and we talked about Crockett, you bet yeah. And wrote a book called American Legend about the life

of David Crockett. And uh then laborath of Ice was a book that I wrote about the Greeley expedition, which ended up with some cannibalism involved and you know, grim experience just like to It's like, I don't know how you can write this stuff. You know, it's funny. I got asked by one of my professors a while ago. He was like, do you ever write books in which no one dies, And I'm like, no, I haven't yet. It's just everybody's like their feet falling off, take their

mittens off in their hands, stuck in their mitten. It's just like, oh, man, I could believe you went and now you your new books out Empire, Stone and Ice, and it's like a bunch more people freezing to death and dying, And yeah, I like it. I like to see people at up against it, you know, when they are um in the elements, having to use their wits

to survive, you know. And a lot of times, you know, the expeditions start out with lofty goals and they're they're you know, they're trying for new lands or to reach the North Pole or but I always go into them knowing this, um the only reason I'm thinking as soon as I start the book, I'm like, the only reason someone wrote the book, because I can tell this must all go to ship. It's not gonna be a big

book about how it went great well. Endurance though, I will say that people who always say, like, you know, is this like endurance? You know, um Shackleton's and Arctic Expedition, And I go, yeah, it's really like endurance, except in endurance everyone lives. In my books, most people die, um, which isn't not necessarily true, like maybe half, you know, and there's a little bit of a happy ending component. Yeah, but if you're willing to get there. It's like a

half glass full half glass crew half half. He's a crew half full crew half. Also, I'm always like, I don't want to give spoilers, you know, even though, um, when you look at the cover, that's not gonna go disastrous and heroic voyage yeah, glass half half the disasters. It's an image of a ship that doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon. The disasters and heroic right. Yeah,

so you know it's UM. I really do like stories that have um, you know, protagonists and antagonists, and also where once things have gone really poorly, then there has to be some kind of industrious nous and people who figure out, whether it's navigation or whether it's like you know, woods craft and how to how to mcgeiver their way out of these really dire situations. I just love um. And also I guess I'm sort of drawn to the cold.

You know. This is a second book I've written about the Arctic, and I have a third one under contract. That's about the going to the North Pole indirigibles. We'll get to that later. And well try semi rigid dirigibles a k A. Blimp. But yeah, so they tried. Yeah, they tried to fly blimps to the North Pole. Um, they'll each it didn't end. Well, let's that. Yeah, crashing a blimp a couple hundred miles from the North Pole is uh not you know, it's not on the usually

on the flight plan. But yeah, I mean, I just there's something about, um, you know, the far North. For one thing. Um, I grew up with a dad who was a Nordic skier and ski racer, and he used to take us out in southern Idaho and you know, I would go duck hunting on Silver Creek and it would be like below sometimes when I was a little kid, you know, and so um, and I guess just being in cold places has always kind of um intrigued me.

The idea of like especially historical um stories where you know, they did not necessarily have the kind of gear that we have now. In some cases, though, the the Inuit Arctic clothing is probably better than what we have um. But yeah, I just I'm really drawn to um expeditions gone awry and then how are they going to get

out of this? Yeah. One of the things that uh, I want to get into with you when we get going on it is Um, I've always been a big fan of Stephenson, okay, and I always knew that he had like a little bit of a fall from grace, But I didn't fully understand the fall from grace. And I don't know, like you paint him out to be a real um. He's the villain of the book, but it doesn't like what he does is villain as doesn't

undo why I why I'm interested in them really. So, I'm interested because like his his observations and the things that he recorded about the Esca Mo Hunters that he spent time with. I mean, he had observations and and and um things about life ways and cultural practices that I haven't counted anywhere else. I mean, he might have been a total like what's in it for me? I'm out of here? Uh Yeah, and I'll let you guys kind of die. Um. He might be that kind of guy,

but it doesn't undo some of the insane stuff he did. Yeah, that's true, and I mean, I'm glad you brought it up because, um, Villa mur Stephenson's just funny. He had he was born William and then he changed his name back to the Icelandic sounding. Yeah, another score against the guy. Yeah, I was Bill Jalmer. So how would you have said it villelm Willelmer. He was born William. He was born William named Willie. That would annoy the out of Like

he didn't want to sound American. He wanted to sound more authentic for being an ex you know and explore or would be uh, you know, Arctic legend having a name like Amondson or Nonsen or freach Off you know, um, which is but yeah, he it was funny because he was born William. He changed his name back to the Icelandic spelling um and uh. But his he was his people called him staff. You know, it was easier than

pronouncing Villemer. You know. But the guy I used to hang out with, the guy Matt peel logs for log Homes and another log Peeler. He's like I would always tell you about his name is bear Paw. I'm like, I don't think that it probably is no but yeah, you're right. I mean the guy is what he's really complex. Um. And you know because the this book Empire at weiss Stone deals mostly with the period that just has to

do with the Canadian Arctic Expedition. Um. You know, his action in and around this particular expedition are the ones that I primarily deal with treat But you are a strange behavior man. Yeah, I mean he would. You were absolutely right that if you've taken in totality the bulk of this guy's work, you know, Um, he was very influential in in understanding how one how it was possible in really small teams to live in the Inuit or

a new Piet way. Um. The problem I think he ends up having is that he's trying to do an expedition that is of a much bigger scale, uh, involving you know, multiple ships, fifteen scientists, and so it sort of went against his core principle, which is like if you if you were in a small team on skis or snow shoes, and you know, with sledges, self contained, you're going eating just what you encounter and living essentially off the land, You're going to be able to do

better than if you're trying to take you know, whole bunches of people who may or may not have a lot of experience, uh, in ships, you know, in very uncertain waters. And then that's when things go wrong, you know. Um and so, yeah, I think, um, he's a really complicated figure, and I struggled a lot with you know, how much to villainize him. I have to say, Um, so in the in the scope of just what happens

in this book. You know, some of his actions I think were, um, you know, you can't really square it with like the what he should have done. It was self seeking. We'll cover. Yeah. I got a quiz question for you. Okay, what was Stephenson's favorite wild game? Um, I'm gonna go with ru or bearded seal. Wolf. Wolf really like more than anything else. Wolf my favorite. One

of my favorite Stephens and meals. He talks about in My Life with the Eskimo as they find a whale, beat a beached whale and its tongue is dried out but it still looks good. They cut its tongue out. He talks about how they had to boil it and change the water multiple times to get all the salt out of it, and they later learned from the Eskimo that, um, that whale has been laying there five years, so it's fermented and tempered. Oh man, we should get we gotta

cover a couple of things real quickly. We should get a terminology right. Let me tell you a story. I was on now Nevak Island, Okay with the chupa Eskimo, and I said to a chupick Eskimo, I said, hey, uh, I noticed you guys say chupick eskimo. Uh what like what you like a white guy like me to call you? And he goes, well, if I'm if I'm not an eskimo, what am I? I just I said, I'm just checking, man, because there's a lot of confusion about the whole in

New Eskimo thing. And he's like, I've never heard anybody call me a chupick into it. He hadn't know what did he call himself chupick eskimo, big eskimo. So there's a there's this kind of thing. I think that like, there's a lot of confusion around the terms. And now it's anytime. It's just one of those situations where um, maybe I'm like, okay, maybe he can. He'll say it, but it's not cool for me to say it. He's like, if you're not gonna call me that, I don't know

what you're gonna call me. It's like that. We had the Native American guests and we asked him, is it Indian cool? And he's like, yeah, but for some it's not, you know, so maybe it's Yeah. I noticed that in the in the beginning of your book, You're like, I'm using Eskimo because all the journals that was like that was at the time, like when we're talking, and that's what that's. So that's the term I'm gonna stick with in my book though, Right, these are like people of

different tribes and many of them now go by into it. Right. Yeah, that's a really good point. And you know, so I actually have that disclaimer in the in the open on one of the first pages because um, but so the um, you know, the term for most of the people that were on this expedition would be um Inuit or you know, Inupiat, and so it depends a bit on where they're from, you know, and and so I think it's important to distinguish.

But it got a little bit clunky. UM too. That's why I wanted to just use the word eskimo, because they were using using it. Yeah, though, you know, it's it is important to be sensitive to what people actually like to be called. That's why I'm outline for you that I just asked a person rather than guess right it was it was an unexpected reply on his part. Yeah, yeah,

I think. Um, and so you know, for the most part, the people that we're dealing with that went on the expedition who came with the family, who came with Stephenson and he picked up near Barrow, they were yeah, yeah, and so um they and there were there were four mainly and then this other were five who originally went on the expedition, right, what they there's a point we gotta okay, this is the last thing we're gonna do. Okay, and then we're gonna start from the beginning. This last

thing we're gonna do. Though. Uh, once you crossed the Baring Strait, okay, so in places its what fifty seven miles and all of a sudden you're in Siberia. Um was that a completely different sort of like tribal like like once you cross the straight would you would you find are people who were a new piat or is it a different who totally different tribal history and different groups. Yeah,

that's a really interesting question and a good one. So yeah, you know, if you're going up, they are looking at the map to the left, you know, Russian Siberia, um like church Key people and chochooch Key and then you know to the right Alaska and in Um Canada you know um Inuit a new piat um and so like, and that was it's really interesting because there were some of the um Native members of the expedition were like freaking out when they realized they were gonna be landing

on the Siberian shores. They're like, you know, my people have told me you land there, like you don't come back, they will kill us. And you know, they just had some of it was just lower that they had heard um. But in the in they end up being treated very well by the indigenous people of of the Siberian side. UM. But yeah, it's it's uh, it's an interesting question, you know.

H And Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams. He's out hunting. He's out hunting with Askima hunters and they're off Alaska and they're hunting wal wrists, and he says for a while,

he goes, they were technically in Russia. Yeah, a little bit of fluidity about, you know, to the to them, I doubt they were talking about that being one continent and its being another continent, right, I mean you can be on a floating berg and all of the sudden, which which the people in this book end up on, you know, and like a mile square chunk of ice floating, and you know at some point you like are crossing into other character you know of Russia now, and all

of a sudden it's like, oh, these people are different, while we're on a new continent. Yeah, trying to not die, alright. Some backup was because I got I got to talk about a funny story. Um, the guy wrote in as they do, so this, this guy writes into the letter, UM says nothing to do with the Arctic exploration. He's got a broad their name Murray. It's a good name for a story. It's a good way to start a story. His brother Murray. He's just like, yeah, I don't know, man.

His brother Murray is driving through the night on the Archery deer hunt when his truck ran out of gas. His truck and his gas can were old okay. The truck's phil spout had the flap on it, and his gas can spot was made for regular gas, so the spout diameter prevented him from filling the tank directly from the can. You can picture this, right, I keep I'm gonna point out with the listeners in my truck, I keep a little funnel that's well adapted to my A

little male. Yeah, like a little funnel well adapted to my truck's intake. He took an arrow out of his quiver to prop open the flap and was gonna spill gas from the can into the opening. Totally makes sense. With the arrow holding the flap open, he reached for the can from the bed of his truck and promptly pushed the arrow's knock into his eye. He pulled the arrow out, filled the tank, felt okay, proceeded on his trip. The next morning, his eye was swollen shot, so he

had it for the hospital. He was examined by the doctor who took X rays and determined that no permanent damage was done. Over the next year, Murray had recurring sinus infections, which you never had before. He'd take the prescribed antibiotics, get better, only to have the infections returned. Now here's what this story takes. You can probably see where this is going. But I need to I always want to call our resident doctor Adam Alan. Yeah, we haven't talked to him. We haven't had reason to talk

to him. Like one day, I'll came go on with Murray here. One day, a while at work, Murray had something caught in his throat, began to cough. He coughed up a pocket of mucus that had something hard encased. When he wiped the object clean, he found the knock of the arrow, which had come loose, got into his eye socket, worked its way through his sinus cavity, and then out the back of his throat. In a year's time, I got a lot of questions. Didn't show up on the X ray. Like I, I wear contacts, So I

just don't know how. But you hear about those dudes and get shot by nailguns, don't know it? Sure? Yeah, it's and that doctor that broke that file off up in my mouth. My My other question is how did he not notice the knock was missing from the arrow? I can totally see how you would not toss hitting the bed of the truck, or you think that it like you'd think that it whatever in all the fos m hmm. I wonder if he kept it first to

write a book about that. It's a mystery. Yeah, good but for you man, But yeah, no plastic showed up on the X ray. I don't know, man, I give it a fifty fifty. Phil's not buying I'm not buying it. You're not this guy, Phil saying, this guy's bald faced liar. I think this guy might come down to beat Phil's ass. He's risking that for sure. We gotta talk to Allen. You call me a liar. Bill, FIL's gonna know when

he hears that from across the park. When he hears that from across the parking is gonna know that his theater days or through right, and it's a better outcome than and if the other end went in with the broad hand. You know that. You cough that up. Here's here's a correction that came in that this guy is no listen. I'm gonna read the correction. During episode three with Cole Wetzel, Steve makes an error when discussing the

capitalization of wildlife species common names. Quoting here, Steve was correct when he states that black bear would not be capitalized when using a sentence okay, and also that proper nouns such as English would be capitalized when used like an English sparrow. I was talking about how I need to do a seminar for my colleagues because I will oftentimes have to go through something incorrect where someone capitalizes

black bear. Okay. However, he is incorrect that sparrow would not be capitalized when using when utilizing a species official names such as English sparrow. Still quoting the American Ornithological Society states on their website, English names of birds are capitalized in keeping with standard or ornithological practice as such unquote. As such, the official common names of all birds species such as whooping crane or red cocketed woodpecker would be

capitalized when written. If using more generic descriptors such as woodpeckers or eagles. When describing groups of words, the lower case version should be employed. He goes on to say, I know Steve prides himself I'm being correct, as evidence by every time he argues about a miss trivia question. So I just wanted to provide a helping hand. I have one word for this person. Oh yeah. First off, yeah, first off, the American Ornithological Society doesn't get to decide

what's proper English. He could have like, listen, it makes no sense to me that he he agrees with you that black bear would not be capitalized either word, but English sparrow both would be capitalized. Red cockaded woodpecker would be capitalized, which is just like black bear. Yeah, how about like like, don't get your don't get your grammar from wherever you got it. Also, there's a phenomena And I love this guy. Thanks for listening. I'm not hacking on him. I love It's great that he wrote in

not hacking on him. I'd rather he wrote in that didn't. But you're just wrong, buddy. The out point out is, um, So, I know some people that when they're telling me stuff, I'm always like, how could they have gotten that information? And I think that some people proceed all their Internet searches with the truth about We've known a couple of people like that, Like like, if you're in the search like a picture that you're like, I'm gonna do a

little research on Hillary Clinton. Okay, are you type in Hillary Clinton and you could read that stuff. Are you type in the truth about Hillary Clinton and read that stuff? It's like because you're sort of like, there's there's two, you know, versions out there. So I think maybe he wrote in the truth about capitalizing bird. Um, here's another half correction there. They were back with you, buddy, So hang tight there. But as a writer, you're probably interested

in that very much though that kind of fluid. Uh yeah, I mean, I think language changes over time, and you know it, rules are not static, but you know, there are certain things where you would want to use a Latin word for something and you know, um, but yeah, you can get in the weeds on this stuff. Yeah. You ever read Lewis and Clark journals? How that was randomly capitalized for whatever reason something different, Like in the

same paragraph it'll be spelled to day. I just decided to capitalize beyond all of a sudden the middle of Uh okay, here's the guy. This is this is one helfle Finger is not here. This is one for helfl Finger. Here's a wrinkle that crossed my mind, and the ongoing I added the word ongoing. I misquoted him. He's saying here's a wrinkle that crossed my mind and the white tail white tailed deer debate. I'm adding that's an ongoing

debate with our buddy helfle Finger. He asked, has anyone brought up how big horn sheet big horn sheet is the accepted name. It looks to me like it's grammatically the same as white tail deer, but no one insists that you call them either big horned sheep or just big horns one what halfle finger thinks about that big

horns is pretty common. I feel like, yeah, but I get what he's saying about the comparison to white tailed and big horn I bet if you went back in time you would find that they probably once upon a time, helpful finger, I'll have some smartass know what all things to say about this, But I bet if you went back in time it was like big you'd see an example of big hyphen horned. It was before it was officially named. Would just described these animals as that deer

is white tailed, that sheep is big horned. But now and then it just becomes like buddy was ting becomes something entirely on its own after a while, So you'd have to look at what um, yeah, to take about three seconds to go look like, what is it's show name? I think it's official name is Big Horn Sheep. But this guy is not wrong like the last guy. When you were a kid, did you watch Happy Days reruns? You everyone Fonzie I had to apologize but he uh yeah,

he couldn't. He couldn't pronounced like I was, alright, buddy, how do we begin? Um? Let me set the scene. One of the things I like most about this book is it you're gonna take off after this? Is that? Um? When when I give at at times, i'll give a list of like ten ten my ten favorite books, Ten greatest books for outdoor enthusiasts. My Life with the Eskimo is always on there. It's amazing and me get like Arctic Dreams, it's like coming into the Country by John McPhee,

like the greatest greatest book for outdoorsmans. Okay, be like coming into the Country for John McPhee. My Life with the Eskimo by Stephenson, Arctic Dreams by very Low pez Um. Journals of Lewis and Clark explain why I don't want to get into it. Um, But it's always on there. I I love it that this book begins and Stephenson is like literally finishing his manuscript of My Life with the Eskimo. Right, Yeah, it's amazing because and by the way, I think that contributes to some of the problems that

end up occurring. Um. But we can get into that. So give us the year and why, like worth's going on in America and right so you know, it's night

this story Empire of Isostone begins around nineteen thirteen. Is the expedition in nineteen thirteen to nineteen eighteen ultimately, but Stephenson has just come back from being in the Arctic for like four years, right, um, and he had been on the nine five He did an expedition in in Iceland, and then he was on the north coast of Alaska and the Mackenzie River area, and he was really interested in the ethnology and studying, um, the native people's there,

and also you know, My Life with the Eskimo pretty much suggests that, Um. His theory was that a small group of people, um, of white people with you know, native assistance and adopting native life ways could survive for an indefinite amount of time in the Arctic north and even on the ice right and and moving between land masses and and out on the Polar Sea as hunting, hunting and eating seals primarily and walrus and you know,

back on land caribou and Arctic fox and stuff. And he wasn't like what's cool about him two is he wasn't sort of chasing the North Pole. He was just trying to find uncontacted peoples and hang out with them, right. He he was a different, uh, you know, a different kind of explorer, more of you know, a scientist explorer rather than trying to be the first at something. Though, um,

we can get into this a little bit later. Um, you know, he he was eyeballing the idea that this place Crocker Land that Perry had said, Robert Perry had said he'd seen from the east coast or the west coast of Greenland that there was a landmass above Alaska

that was undiscovered. So that was kind of in the back pocket, right, was this happening at kind of the tail end of Arctic exploration like started in saying the mid eighteen hundreds with search for the Northwest West passage, right, and so, but also at the very tail end of I mean Peery in nineteen o nine had claimed cook and oh eight in period nineteen o nine had had

claimed to the North Pole. So that was sort of other even though it was contested, that was sort of off the you know, off the bucket list for people. They're like that one the North Pole's you know, been bagged. Now that ultimately becomes contested played out, Yeah, we don't

need to go there, um, but there you know. So Villa Almer's will Helmer Stephenson was a very serious scientist, right, and so he was wanted to um prove in a way that you could live, that that small groups of people um could live off the ice and land um for an indefinite period of time. Now, make all your clothes, everything you need and and you know, if you're smart, bring along uh Inuit people a seamstress and hunters um,

because their skills in these things was unparalleled. Right. Um. So you know, in nineteen o Sevenson had been he had just come back from like four years in the Arctic, and he he kind of he did something really interesting. So there was this notion and he perpetuated it of

the blonde Eskimo. So he came back in and claims that he's contacted while he was out there for four years, that he's contacted these descendants of Laife Ericsson who are blonde haired, blue eyed Eskimos or Inuit people's and you know, because there was a mystery of what happened to the to Laife Ericson like up in Greenland, right right, And so then the idea was that like descendants of laf Ericsson had um made their way to the west and over to the islands north of Alaska and the Yukon

Coronation Goal Victorial Islands, and that they were living, that these were descendants of laf Ericson. Now this made headlines right New York Times, National News, and Stephenson um kind of went with it like he just rolled with it. He didn't. He said he had encountered these people and that he wanted to go back and study them more. And so part of it is that not true? Well, it's it's not true. He was trying to milk the

idea that they were descendants of Laife Ericson. What what is more probable, and Ahmondson talks about this later, is that you know that more much more recent European um explorers intermingled with the native people there. But Stephenson was kind of rolling with this myth that these were descendants of Laife Ericson and they were called blonde Deskot. The had died out, they had just integrated into yeah, into a culture, and so he used that as a marketing tool. Right.

So he gets back after four years in the Arctic and he put this trip together, the Canadian Arctic Expedition, which is my book is about. He he whips this thing together in a matter of months. You know, sometimes expeditions of this magnitude, with multiple ships and twenty scientists, you know, they take years to put together. Right. So Stephenson rolls up to Seattle in n perpetuating this on

Eskimo story. The headlines eat it up. He flies over or sails over to Europe and goes to like an international polar conference that starts talking up like this new expedition. He's going to go try to find these blonde Eskimos and um right about them. And also that there's there was a theory that there that Perry had seen this place called Crocker Land, which was a land mass above Alaska.

It was undiscovered, right, So those two things were kind of the impetus for UM getting this expedition put together. So Stephenson goes over to Europe, makes a couple of presentations. All the while he's talking to the Canadian government. He's trying to get financing from the American Museum of Natural History the Canadian government, and within like three or four months he cobbles together this UM expedition that's going to

have the most scientists. I mean, this is arguable, some will argue it, but the most scientists that have ever been on a polar single polar voyage UM three ships, UM, one of the greatest ice navigators in history. This guy, Robert Bartlett from Newfoundland, suit total badass. And then you

know he's cobbling this thing together. The thing that I found really amusing is that while so they take off, they he gets all these scientists together, he gets the money together from UM, the Canadian government, he agrees to become uh you know, he was he was an Icelandic American because he was he was born in Manitoba, and then they moved to North Dakota when he was like three after a couple of his family members died in the flood, and then the family moved to Nodak and

then so the Canadian government is like, well, we'll pay if you become a Canadian citizen. So he was just totally flexible. He's like, I'll do whatever. You what man signing the papers, it becomes a Canadian. So he's in icelandic American, Canadian, you know. And uh so he cobbles this thing together. They take the Carlak, the ship that's like unsuited really for the task at hand, like a

whaling whaling boat. I mean it was a you know, and it was Carlaca is the allusion word for fish, and they it was used in Seattle in the in the salmon industry, and it was a whaling vessel. Was the boats about a hundred and twenty nine feet and uh so ship. Yeah, but I mean, what what's so bizarre about this is? And I love it in a

way about Stephenson, he's so badass. He's like Bartlett. He ends up in listing this guy Bob Bartlett, who's who had been The backstory on Bartlett is that he had been on two attempts to the North Pole with Peery as the captain of the S. S. Roosevelt. Like Per's iron clad super badass ice breaking expedition vessel right, and so Bartlett had gone almost in the North Pole. He got sent back because UH Perry took Matthew Henson instead

for the final hundred and fifty miles. But he was already a known um explorer and had one like the Hubbard medal. He was a big deal. But Stephenson ends up like, Okay, I'm gonna use this guy, UM, and I'll meet you in the car look um up in in Nome. So but Stephenson takes like a cruise pleasure ship, the s S. Victoria, and he's on the ship heading toward or they're all gonna meet in Nome UH, and he's he's like writing the manuscript. He's got a secretary

with him. He's finishing the book like my life with the Eskimo, thinking about how I'm going to turn this into a best seller. While this new expedition UH is supposed to be taking off in like a month. So he arrives on a you know, on a separate ship UM and then rolls up to g Nome and it's like okay, well let's go now, manuscript and then they take the manuscript and he how right up to the deadline was he was he a popular writer well a time, yeah,

I mean he was becoming, um, like an Arctic expert. Right. But so this thing he had spent four years, Um, he was just dropping this manuscript that was going to be like my life with the Eskimo, how you know, here's how it's done. And then but that was gonna be published like probably when he came back or handled by other people so that he would come back to uh, you know, a best seller. And he's got the follow up, right, he's got the sequel. Um, that's what I've been doing.

Labruth Device, Empire Advice and then Realm of Ice and uh. Um. But what I found so interesting about him is like, so he was he was multidimensional. You know, he already had lived um in small you know, with small groups, um in like the Mackenzie River Delta for years and living pretty much off the ice and land and sea ice, and so he had um, he was very good at that. I think what he was less skillful at is organizing

an expedition of the magnitude of the Canadian Arctic Expedition. Yeah, these guys, you know it goes to ship so unbelievably fast. It's amazing. It's like, I mean literally like they leave and then then it went to ship. They leave and they get all there's you know, like they leave um esquimal. They end up going to Nome, and then Bartlett, the captain of who's from Newfoundland, he's like, this ship, you know,

it's not really suited. This guy has been the former captain of the Roosevelt, like super bad vessel, right, and he's in this this uh small ship with I think the um he called the engine. He said, it has the power of a coffee pot. It's just not I mean. And by the way, these were not um. They weren't technically icebreakers anyway, but they had to be nimble and they had to be sheathed in hardwood so that you're

going to encounter ice. Right. The problem is that when they took off, when they Bartlett finally stops and says, okay, we need to do some work. We got a retrofit to what time of year did they Well, so they're taking off in July and you know in that in that region, the window is pretty short anyway for navigable waters. Um and there they were trying to make it from uh Nome after they got through the Bearing Street and everything.

They're trying to make it from Gnome over to Herschel Island, which is above Um the Canadian yukon Um to the east, so just you know, some a few hundred miles or something, and the goal was to get there and then they were gonna unload all the ships and like retrofit everything and then get get it together from there. And there's a sort of ongoing joke among the members of the ship.

They're like, because what happens is they leave so fast um because the weather window is closing that they don't have all They've got three ships, the car Look which is the flagship of the expedition, the Alaska, and the mary Sacks, and they're all going to be used in different ways, but they have all the wrong equipment on the wrong and the wrong members on the wrong ships. So Stephenson is like, we'll sort that out at Herschel Island and they end up like it becomes a joke

among the men. Barlett says it a few times. They're like, we can't find the you know, we can't find certain scientific tools, and they're like, you got a geologist on the car Look and he needs other equipment that's on the Mary Sacks, which, by the way, after they all leave their separated within a day, the armada is completely separated, and they never see the Alaska or the Merry Sacks again. The people of the calling the Carlic, don't you know. Yeah, it's like it's like like I want I want to

make sure people understand. It's be like, let's say you have a big group of friends. You're all going to go on some kind of monster hunting trip, road trip, hunting trip, and you're all planning on being in different

areas hunting different ship. But you're in such a eagerness to get out of there and get some miles behind you that you just load everything randomly into truck and you're not even in the truck you're supposed to be in for where you're ultimately going, and then you pull out of the parking lot and never see each other again. How was the hunt? Well, yeah, so it's it's it's really funny you point out, like how quickly this thing

becomes a debacle. Right, So there Stephenson's on the Carla and Captain barlett Or is on the Carla and a number of the scientists, right, But then some of them are on the Alaska the ray sacks, and they get separated,

like the day out. So then the ship the Carlick gets There was a really really heavy winter ice and snow much earlier, so by August early August, they're experiencing snow squalls, really zero degree temperatures, and you know they're they're starting to encounter big ice pack already, and they're they're just like five ten miles off the coast of Alaska at this point. Uh, And you know the guy like, so there's a bunch of the wrong equipment and a bunch of the wrong people are all those ships, and

then within days, um, they get encased in. So Bartlett makes what's kind of a controversial decision, right, So you could either in those days there were different theories. You could either hug the shoreline, stay close to shore in case things got iced up, and then you can make it to land like like you ditched the boat, yeah yeah, or maybe the boat you find uh enclosed protected bay and then you win her there the time the next session.

But the other approach was to go out farther offshore, where often there were bigger open leads and open leads of water, and and so Bartlett, after consulting with Stephenson, and this becomes kind of controversial because they don't really agree on who said what. Bartlett decides to take the Boulder choice, which is to go offshore and then head east through not you know, weaving through open leads between

the ice and make it to Harold Island. Yeah. I just want to clarify thing here, and you can chime in on this. The way you can imagine the polar ice is um, it's fracturing all the time and coming back together again, and windstorms will blow big chunks away, so you you can pick your way through it, and then it'll get calm and everything will well together, right, and then it might break apart in a different fashion.

So they're literally like getting stuck in the ice. Then they drift for a day and then all of a sudden it opens up and they can make some more headway. Yeah, and then they dodge chunk eyes and they get frozen into some more ice, and then they realize they're still moving because the ice. Then they're stuck in ice that's moving right. It's high. It's kind of like going through you know, an ice jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are being

moved around by wind and current. Right, and so there's kind of there's a way to weave your way through the labyrinth. Um, and you know, you have to make headway when these things open and part, and there's like a few miles of open water. But the stuff is all happening earlier than usual, and so um, they never The irony of this is that, like the first thing they're trying to do, We're gonna take these three ships leave, go over Point Barrow and then head east to this

place called Herschel Island and meet there. They never even do that. So like because the car Now, what ends up happening is that the two other ships, the Alaska and the mary Sacks, they make it through. But the story that I follow concerns itself more with what happens to the members of the car. Look, which is the flagship, and Stephenson and the Captain Bartlett are both on it, so and a bunch of scientists and then an Inuit

family and um, a couple of hunters. So Barlett Truck makes the bold move he's going to go offshore and try to make his way north and then up and around and meet it at Herschel Island. Within days, they are what's called biss set or encased in like a mile square of ice, right, so it it sort of knits all around them and they're they're like, you know, floating iceberg, though it's not like high berg. It's it's like a flat flow and it's well then so and

and then things really go wack. So they hang out on the ship like waiting around for a while to figure out like what's going to happen, and to really important things happen early on UM one is that while they're still within striking distance of the northern Alaskan coastline, Stephenson in in second week in September, decides, Hey, I'm gonna go caribou hunting. He basically tells Captain Bartlett, I'm gonna go cariboo hunting. I'll be gone for about ten

days to two weeks should no disaster occur. And Barlt's like, what you're going caribo hunting? And no, he pieced out heat. So there's a whole there's a whole thing that's going on here, which is that UM And you know I told you I have not really I hate spoilers, but it's like, you know, you gotta lay it out. Yeah, And so they're they're frozen in they've been floating in kind of a circuitous weaving way. They're not going any one direction for very long for a couple for like

a month. Stephenson's all auntsie because he's like, Okay, my expedition, the to other ships are somewhere. I gotta get out of here, you know, like I should probably go to land Um. And so he says, I'm going caribou hunting because under the pretense that they need fresh meat, because if they are going to be stuck for a really long time on the ship, they're gonna they're gonna they've got like a couple of years with how much is he really gonna hauld back anyway? That's what I was

gonna ask. Where they set up for like kind of a normal Arctic expedition where they were prepared to be there for years, were prepared to be there for maybe

two years. And they have Pelican because they have like they have like presumably former information to base stuff off of, like the terror and the Arabis like disappearing, and like you think they would they kind of be like man hip could go bad out right, So usually you would bring more food than you you know, you for a year, and then you gotta figure like if they is go really poorly, we gotta have even more. But so Stephenson says, um,

going Caribo hunting. I'm taking these two Inuit hunters can be named Jimmy and Jerry, and also the a couple of the scientists who were supposed to be on the other ships. They're supposed to be doing like ethnological study over in above northern Canada. And so he's like, I need to take those two guys so that they can go where they're supposed to go. And then he brings this photographer along, um, this guy named Wilkins, which is kind of cool because then you've got this photographic image

of Stephenson leaving the car. Look like he can't you know, he's got the dog sled team and he's like charging off and the ship's bailing on his expedition, and there's like photographic evidence of him doing it, you know. But he says, I'm going hunting and I'll be back, and you should probably like big coal fires around the ship in case so I can see it so immediately like it's just a bad timing, right immediately the freaking whopper

of a storm comes in. Stephenson gets about like six to eight miles and he gets to this little island um right above it's called I think I'll find it later. But he was walking across the So he's walking across

the pack ice with dogs led team. He took the best dogs too, the best hunters and best and so he's like gets to this island and as their camp there, a massive storm comes in and by the time the like sky is clear, he looks out and the carlak is freaking gone, and now it's blining like to thirty miles a day on the Arctic drift, just blowing the wind, blowing in the wind towards Siberia, right, So he's like,

where's your ship? Um? So at that point, you know, Stephenson makes he has to wait on this island for like a week for the for the because now the storm also breaks up the ice all around the little island is on, so that he there's he's like, there's water water, he can't get across um. So he waits it out. He's kind of cool. They build like this fifteen foot driftwood observation tower where he's up there like looking, dude,

wears my ship kind of situation, you know. And then he just goes to land with these um two INU hunters and the photographer and another scientist and he was just kind of right, the whole thing off bails he so he well, in fairness, he's got it. He's got this sort of dance to do because he wants to continue doing the scientific work and he knows that two

of the ships are somewhere. Uh, if he can find them, he can maybe re outfit and retrofit and like do the and keep doing the science on off the coast of Alaska and the Yukon. But as far as the carlt goes, he pretty much just puts it out of his mind. Um. And then at that point, you know, the ship is moving pretty fast toward the northwest and

it's it's spookily following. Uh. There's a drift that is known at that point UM a ship that was captained by DeLong And the book that um Hampton Sides wrote called In the Kingdom of Ice talks about that journey where that that ship got encased in the ice very near Wrangel Island where these guys get marooned, and it goes for like, I don't know, over a year, and and Nonsen, the Norwegian legend, had intentionally encased his ship, the Fram in ice to follow this same drift pattern

to prove that that was the way the prevailing drift went. And Nonsen was clever enough. I can never figure out why these people didn't learn from Fritz Nonsen, because he he designed a boat called the Fram, and he designed the hull to be rounded so that when inevitably the ice flows encased around your ship, it lifted the boat up onto the flow, and then you've just got like a hotel, you know, and so instead of like crushing

the ship. So I mean, it never never really understood why they didn't start building all of these ships that we're going to be used in this way with rounded halls.

It's like, um, but they didn't. So anyway, now the story ends up being about like it toggles back and forth between what I stay with Stephenson for a while to uh follow his actions and in actions, and then the story goes to what happens to the members of the car like because they are saga is really only just beginning and Stephensons planned to go overland to the rendezvous point or was that even Yeah, well so he he did, in fact, like he girlfriends, Oh well, they're right.

So there's a It turns out he had a secret wife and child like in New piet and um I theorized that that was partly what his thing was, is that he was like, I mean, either I'm probably going to be on this ship for a year maybe two. Uh, I don't. I'm like within ten miles of land, I'm freaking out of here. I mean, you know, he makes a bunch of excuses about like the caribou hunt, but there was some suggestion that the caribou were sort of out of that area by then, like and he they don't.

They don't get a caribou ever, Like it's like okay. So then he ends up reuniting with this um wife named Fanny that will call her his indigenous spouse. Uh. And they had a young son named Alex, and he had left them a few years before and and then so he's gonna reunite with her and then try to cobble together the remnants of this exhibition for which he has, you know, convinced the Canadian government to give him many hundreds of thousands of dollars, so you know, he he

had some rationale to like make this thing work. The thing is he I just find that his in action around trying to like do anything about the car look um ends up being why I view him as a little bit villainous. But not I mean, he's he becomes he does great science. But anyway, so then the story becomes about, like what the hell happens to this ship floating in a square mile of ice across the Arctic Ocean. Yeah, yeah,

we can, we can leave Steven Stevens and behind. But um, leading up to it, what was interesting is he's doing media and there and he'll he says kind of like cryptic ship that the people on the crew um like he's a little fatalistic, all the things that could go wrong, you know, And people on the crew keep reading or reading like interviews from him, like this guy's out of

his mind. Well he's quite comfortable with the fact that, you know, he's like we may never return well, and and he says at one point, like the scientific inquiry, everyone on the crew and scientists know that the um that the goals of the expedition and the scientific information is much more important than either the ship or the lives of its members. And they're like, wait, but I'm one of those. What's going on on? Wait, I'm gonna die,

that's what you're saying. And so, yeah, they're not happy, and they have like, you know, they have big meetings. This is before they ever even leave, and you know some of them are saying like, I'm not going if that's the case, right, if that's his attitude. Well, also he makes them sign over, which was not uncommon at time, Like they're all going to keep journals and diaries and stuff,

Thank goodness, or I wouldn't have these books, you know. Um. But Stephens is like, oh, by the way, while he was in up organizing this trip, he's like made all these sweet publishing deals and media deals with um, you know papers in England, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail in Toronto, and he's like secured book rights and everything, and so he's like, oh, yeah, you guys gotta hand over all your journals and stuff. Um. So he decided he's not gonna get paid. They're all getting paid.

So as rationality is, look, you're getting paid. I'm not getting paid as a member of this expedition, even though I'm the expedition leader, but I'm gonna get paid on the back end on publishing rights. So he's organized this whole um empire of of publishing, and you know they're reading about this in the paper also going well, so wait, what about like what about us? And he's like, you know, you signed, you signed the contracts. What can I tell you? You You know, get on this ship, man, Let's pick

it back up with the car. Look, right, so this is where the story where guy think gets really freaking good. I look at it in terms of like third or three stages of what happens. Right, So, after Stephenson goes in his carrybo hunt, you've got I don't know, man, the numbers are elusive to me, but like seventeen, no twenty, some members are still on the ship. Um, you've got like thirty sled dogs. Right, You've got a couple of these skin umiaks that are pretty cool. You've got a

house cat. They got a house cat and Rock who's just awesome tough cat. Um, and they're floating really fast on this in case of ice, towards Siberia, essentially towards the north of Siberia. Now that they float for months right now, this is not uncommon, like you know, um, and the ship is set up right so they've got

they're still trying to do some science right there. They got this dredging um mechanism, and they build an iglue out off the ship and they this one scientist Murray is like hauling up also to creatures and you see life that has never been seen before. They were doing legitimate science, but um, that ends up sort of falling apart because they got like that, like sextants and whatever. They know where they're at. They're taking soundings of depth. Yeah,

they have a general idea of where they are. Um. But but now okay, it's starting to get to be September, October, November, December, right so then in the whether you know, now the lights gone. Uh so now you've got basically Arctic night has fallen on him. They can't you know, they can't really take readings anymore. It's pretty much dark, and so they're floating along. They celebrate like Christmas on the ship they're out there. What I love too is that you

know they're they're doing some really interesting things. They got this um character who's on the ship named yard Mom, and he's only twenty two and he's a Norwegian um guy who who's really into skiing. He was a ski champion. So he's like teaching all the he's teaching Captain Bartlett and all the other scientists how to ski. Right, they build jumps and stuff kind of wise because Barlett like bites it at one point and almost breaks his hip.

You know, he's like, probably don't need the Captain, you know, doing Nordic ski jumping here, right, Like what the hell? And but you know they're living, They've got enough food. They you know, they're the living quarters are fine. They shooting polar bears. They shoot a couple of polar bears and rout um. They go duck hunting. One of the scenes I really love is that they had these Peterborough canoes that were on the ship that they were going

to be using. They were going to sort those out at Harold Island and they were gonna use them on the Mackenzie River Delta. But so they take these out in some of them, they start noticing a lot of ducks out there, right, So the couple of the Inuit members who they had hired on at Barraw Point Barrow are doing a lot of seal hunting and Bartlett and one of the couple of the scientists are are like, well, there's a bunch of ducks out there, and they did

have some shotguns. So they end up taking these Peterborough canoes out in the in the open leads and it's pretty cool, like they set behind these ice humms as a blind and then they go flush up a bunch of ducks. And you know, these these guys were not practicing uh, you know, game sportsmanship. They're like water sluicing knucks. You know, they won't need them for food. So they get a bunch of ducks and and um, they're shooting. They shoot a few polar bears. Um. I was surprised

too that they're eating those bears raw. Yeah, yeah, I mean avoid the liver though, Um but yeah, yea you explain that, well, well, so they can kill you. Yeah. The bears eat high uh portion of seals, right, and so they end up having um large quantities of vitamin A in their livers. It turns out, and if you eat, if you eat a bunch of this it'll kill you. It's it's kind of cool because the the inuite members

of the expedition seem to know this, right. I Like there was a um there are stories that were like of the what the heck the name of that expedition, but of the the Dutch expedition that went in seven But they these guys Barrens, William Barrens, like they didn't know, right. So they're they're eating, they're eating barrel livers and m getting super sick and dying. Um. So yeah, they you know, at this point there Bartlett has decided like, okay, our goal.

Now they know generally from the logs of DeLong the trip that like had to go ten months more in case and ice, it blew by Wrangle Island and never was in striking distance of it, so they missed it. Barlton knows that Wrangel Island is really the only hope if they're going to make it to land. Once they start moving thirty to sixty miles a day in the in the drift and current, and as it happens, they they reach a certain point where they're probably within a

d it and they they're able to see it. Okay, at a certain point. But but the problem is now larger flows are starting to encroach around the flow that they're on, and there's there they're gonna get pinched there. They know they're gonna get probably crushed. Right, So Bartlett has the good sense to begin offloading a whole bunch of gear, food sleds, they build kennels for the dogs, you know, very organized, and he's getting ready to take

a walk. He's getting ready if this thing, if the boat ship gets crushed, we're gonna have to live on the ice for a while, right, And so, um it takes a little while, right, So there's some false alarms that these fang like you know, teeth of ice crushed into the side. But then they're pumping. They're able to pump it out for a while. They actually are able at one point to um unload a bunch of the stuff and the and the car look rises up so

it's not as imperiled. And that sort of the picture on the covers is when it was a little bit up higher and they've got ice blocks of stuff shoring it up. Eventually that's all, you know, the ice is way too powerful and the ship gets crushed and by that time though Bartlett has had the great forethought to have you know, year's worth of food and gear, and they've built some iglue shelters and they with a lot of the crates and stuff. They have one it's called

the Box House. So they have manufactured sleds. Yeah, they manufactured some Peri style sleds while still on the car. Look, and they've got dogs. So Bartlett's thinking is, okay, if I can if the ship gets crushed. When the ship gets crushed, we're gonna have to live on the ice until March when the light gets good enough to travel again. Right, And so invariably the ship does get crushed. Um, it's a great scene though. I love the scene where Bartlett's

got a flair for the dramatic. Right, So he's he's in the he's in the galley. Now everyone's off on the at the box House and the ice House. They're they've taken everything off there. They've got their um beds, you know, sleeping situations set up. And Bartlett's like stays in the galley and he's got like a phonograph and he's playing record after record and then theatrically kind of throwing them into the fire. You know, and he saves

He saves Chopin's Funeral March for the last one. And you know, I would love to see this in a film like Great, because he's like puts it on, you know, and it's got this like dirge thing you could death is coming like, and he goes out onto the rail. The scene in the movie you would think this is because what are you doing? I mean, and he stands on the rail and then you know, right as Funeral March is playing, the notes are drifting off into the

Arctic wind. I milk this pretty hard, by the way, and then you know he steps off and the car. I mean, it's kind of bizarre, like to think you're sitting there the ship you've been on for a few months. There it is, and like when it goes down, you know, it's like they've raised the flag to full mass and

then it's like it goes down. The flag goes down, everybody's watching, and then the steam spout is like you just see and then all of a sudden, your ship's gone and you're on the ice going okay, now what right? The story becomes about To me, I think that one of the coolest elements is that Bartlett's driven. He understands kind of the situation, which is, I've got to get these people to land now. Stephenson later argues, and I think incorrectly that they should have probably bolted like he

did way earlier, um across the ice. But Stephenson was already a very skilled uh ice traveler, and he had lived with, you know, the Inuit, and he he knew how to do it in small teams. You know, you've got like fifty and seventeen people, only a few of

them had any experience on ice. Bartlett and this guy named John Hadley that they had picked up in Barrow also um and other than that, you know, these are not experienced Arctic travelers except the Inuit that they were with that they had brought, who basically save all their lives.

But so Barlet knows, Okay, at some point, I'm going to have to get all these people to Wrangle Island if we get close enough to it, and then I'm gonna probably have to go myself with maybe one of the two um Inuits curral Luck and Ktectovic, and take them across the long straight south to Siberia and then go somehow get word to the larger world that there were marooned on Wrangle Island or their maroon on Wrangle Island, because he reasons that not going on moss with twenty

some people is not going to work. Yeah, and only one as far as they know, only one white guy has ever been there. Yeah, like mirror right, Yeah, yeah, I mean John Muir, the naturalists you know, had like written the only real first descriptions of the place. Right. And it's interesting that they know too that that Wrangel Island has driftwood, right, and another island doesn't have driftwood. Yeah, Harold Island doesn't have driftwood, and it's small and uninhabitable,

but it's really close. It's like within thirty miles of Wrangel Island, and then Rangel Island is I mean, it has populations of polar bear, it has populations of walrus. It ends up having a lot, a lot of wildlife. Um. But let me hit you with another quick stuff and something from my life with the Eskimo when he's up in the High Arctic, he's on he's with hunters who have never seen a tree, but they have driftwood. Their explanation of what driftwood is. They think it's a plant

that grows under the water. It seems reasonable. Yeah, I mean, he's like, it's ship, it's probably he speculates that it's trees washing out Mackenzie Delta going into the Arctic Ocean landing on these islands. And then you just like, I don't know where that ship came from. It's a it's a seaweed. Yeah, that's really cool. You've never seen a tree. Yeah, it just by the way, there are no there are

no trees on Wrangl Islands. So the driftwood, you know, has has come from other places, right, and you know, luckily they know that from these these law us that they had and um, and so that you know, Barlett understands that basically, if I can get them all to Wrangle Island, I gotta go then for help, right, and then that's a whole other ordeal. So the book essentially toggles between I mean, get first of all, getting to Wrangle Island from after they take all the stuff off

the ship. That place is called they name it shipwreck camp. You know, it's like makes sense. And so they're like that they've got a complicated problem, which is that they've got a year's worth of food. We can't move. We can't move it like you can move some of it and fuel. Right, So there's an odyssey of getting from shipwreck camp to Wrangle Island and then the other odyssey

of Barlett trying to go get help. Well real quick, hit those dudes that that try the other guys that pieced out right, So um is really while they're drifting along Stephenson's left and you know, during the dark night, things are starting to get you know, as they do on a ship, like some people are getting freaking cabin fever and some people are like you know, uh, we're in close proximity. There's arguments and the scientists, uh three

of them. One is named Murray, one is named Mackay um, and this other Frenchman named Rich and that those three guys um. The two guys um Forbes, Mackay and Murray had been with Shackleton on the nineteen o nine expedition. So in the in those expeditions, they didn't use dogs. They're like man hauled, right, so harnesses on you and you're pulling lighter loads, right, and so for a number of reasons that aren't fully explained, like why they're so

adamant Um. These three guys decide we want to leave the car. Look, go it alone. We want to go it alone. And Bartlett is in a tough spot because, you know, in if if this were a military situation, he would be able to say, like, you, you you can't leave the ship. I'm in command of you and the ship. But because they were scientists hired by Stephenson, it was sort of a gray area. And Bartlett um decides that

he's going to support them in their decision. I mean, there were some murmurings of mutiny and stuff at a certain point. But and actually the three guys asked this other Norwegian guy, um if he will go with them, and he's really become close to Bartlin, He's devoted to him. He's like, basically, if you asked me again, we're going to have a problem, you know, like I'm not going with you, and um, you could could ask me about it.

But so they end up um striking off on their own and before Bartlett and the rest of them head for Wrangel Island. Now what's kind of cool is that they have built a series of in knowing that they have to transport all this gear and food in the direction of Wrangle Island. They built a bunch of of like a relay system of igloos, maybe ten miles apart.

It's kind of cool, really smart, because you know, if you keep going back and forth and bringing some stuff, setting up cash is, coming back to shipwreck camp, and then going forward again and moving to and building another igloo, you're also creating a kind of trail. You know, there's a lot of wind blown activity and so and so. It doesn't stay completely there, but they mark these igloos

with flattened Pemmican tins so that they can hopefully see them. Um, but these three guys decided to go it alone, and um, they don't take dogs, even though Bartlett offers them dogs because they had were used to the man hauling technique that they used with Bartlett makes a sign of things saying a waiver. It makes a sign of things saying we've decided to take off. Yeah, but it's not my fault. Are they gonna do the same thing the rest of the crew is gonna do? Are they just they got

a different plan. They got different plan, and they said, well, we think going to use some of the igloos on our way. But their plan is to is to head south either. They were kind of clueless because they didn't at this point, they didn't exactly know, you know, to the spot where they are. They have a general notion that they're like, you know, one hundred miles west of Wrangle Island, but I mean it's a pretty big space out there, so they end up going on their own.

There's a really really grim scene in which um Barlett continues to uh send out his own small teams that are going to try to make it over in in like relays to Wrangle Island, and they come across these guys after like a week or ten days on one of their forays. And I mean it's a really grim scene. You know, like two guys are sitting there. Uh. One

guy's hand is out of its glove. Um and this is Murray, you know, and he has himself with a Pemmican tin and he's got like infected hand, right, it's all swollen up, and um, they're they're barely moving, They're all you can tell. Their faces are all frost bitten. They don't really know what direction they're going. And the other guys from Varlett's teams are you know, they're on dog sleds and they're they're like, you guys need help, right, and they say, well we we decided to do it alone.

The mile behind them is this French guy, Henri Bouschot, who um is just in a dire situation. They and there's all this strewn gear like they've been lightning their loads. So it's like you know, a yard sale. And you said, you said they had only been out there like a week at that, yeah, a week to ten days and and and there you know, but they're frozen like they

haven't been, um taking good care of themselves. Like what you need to do is each night, get to an igloo or build an igloo, set up a primus stove, eat food, stay warm, stay dry if you can, and hope that, of course, that the ice doesn't crack underneath

your igloo, which it often did, you know. Um. And then so they've come across like the strewn gear and everything pemmican, and they come across this Henre boshock guy and he's he's just his feet are halfway out of his mucklucks, his his gloves are mittens are off, you know, his hands are like black and necrotic and pustules and he's like them, they're like, we need to take you back to shipwreck camp. Get on the sled and he says,

you know, let me die, and like I'm done. Um, and you you know, then they just like cluck the dogs on and head out. It's kind of and those dudes never seen again. It's just like never seen again, you know. In fairness, Bartlett sort of makes token efforts

to look for him a couple of times. But um, four other guys get stranded on um on Harold Island, which they came to accidentally, you know, they were trying to reach Wrangle Island and they ended up on Harrold is Harold Island, which is that really small, inhospitable, no drift wouold, no food place, and they're those guys, um are screwed. You know. Yeah, when did someone find their bodies?

It's like nineteen twenty six, I'm thinking lands on the islands. Yeah, and they this they were US, um, the US expedition and they um, I believe they were. They had the notion of finding out if they were still there. They were aware of them, They were aware of them, and you know, so it's like, but what's What's interesting is that that so for four members, Barlett's trying to get everybody over to Wrangle Island. But during the during these relay halls, UM, at one point Mom and Yard, Mom

and the Norwegian member of the team. Um, he gets disoriented and he ends up like within two miles of Harold Island. And at this point everyone's in mom and is in pretty bad condition, you know, he's like dislocated his knee and there they don't have that much food left. He realizes he's at the wrong island. So he decides, uh, after consultation with the other members of that little advanced team, that he's going to go back to shipwreck Camp and these guys can stay there within like two miles of

this island. But um, there's there's open leads of water between it and the island at the moment. So it has to make a hard decision, right. He's kind of, um the leader of this little team, and he says, I'm going back to shipwright Camp. You guys make it here, And then they write letters to Barlett saying, Okay, here's what we're gonna do. Stay here as long as I can, as long as we can come try to get us. If we don't hear from you will eventually make it

over to Wrangle Island ourselves. How are they all kind of getting split up? And I mean it's really what's interesting about that is like, you know, if you think about polar ce a lot of times you imagine it being flat, you know. And what is so remarkable about this landscape seascape is how ruptured and undulating and uh, you know difficulty, Yeah you so. And also you know

the light. There's a really great question though. You know there are there are also um experiencing a lot of um Arctic mirages, right there are these um like uh, celestial conditions make it so that um, something out there will appear to be a land mass and it's like uh, you know water sky that has come up over open water and you know it sort of looks like a land mass and it's like an optical illusion. So that's

part of it. Um. The conditions of trying to navigate are really hard because the ice is continually breaking up, and so you can't go in a straight line. You have to follow leads till they narrow and then cross there um and so they end up getting quite disoriented. Uh, in a number of instances. But once they have this start hit with another stuff and until your guy Stephenson talked about one time stalking a grizzly bear that wand up being a ground squirrel. We're talking about he talking

about how deceptive, Oh, the Arctic light is. Yeah, and there's another guy that was like, I can't remember which way it was, like they think they're looking at island and it has two glaciers. It's a walrus head sticking out of the water. That's how in terms of like just distances and mirage. Yeah, and then and then when the light comes, all the snow blindness, snowblindness, and and

everything's blowing. So yeah, it's and also you're not the conditions of such there not able to take really accurate readings right and then and then not to mention the ice that you're on is moving, you know, sometimes great distances like so, so that all contributes to, um, the difficulty. Uh. And and you know, I'm glad you brought up the pressure ridges because one of the most badass things they do in this book is that once they decide, okay,

we're making a break for a wrangle island. Um, they encounter when the shore ice. When when when this floating sea ice gets within proximity of maybe thirty miles of Wrangel Island, it starts bumping up against these extended spits, right, and so the ice that's hitting it's kind of like a wave, a frozen wave. So the ice is is hitting the shoreline far out off shore, buckling and then growing, growing, and like some of them are not up to a

hundred feet high. And there's some really cool pictures in the book of like them standing on these things, and you realize, oh my god. So they have to now get sledge and everything over these things. And Bartlett when he encounters them, a couple of the other guys had gone like maybe one or two miles each direction, and the thing extends for ten or twenty miles, this long ridge of ice, and he's like, well, we're gonna have

to cut our way through it. That's it, right. So then they take to take some like four days to hack a trail, and with the dogs and ice axes and shovels, h hack a trail through the series of ridges. And they do some clever things, like they tie a rope between two sleds and then they'll get one of the sleds up the top of these ridges are really terrifying and precipitous, like if you fall down you could

well be dead or battered at the bottom. So they take these sleds and they get one to the top, and then they using men and dogs, they push it over, and then it pulls the other sled behind it. The weight of that sled pulls the other sled up, and then they disentangle that one or on time and then do it again and makes some you know, weeks weeks to get from shipwreck camp to Wrangle Island, and at that point, you know, all ideas of them all making it across the long straight to Siberia are out the

window because they're in quite bad shape. He makes an interesting call here, and this is where I'm at in the book, So from here on out, I'm I'm you're You're on your own. But he makes an interesting call at Wrangle Island where he wants everyone to break up into really small groups and spread out all over the place. Yeah, well the theory it seems so weird to me. Well, his rationale is uh. Bob Barlett decides very quickly when he lands on Wrangle Island. So, so first of all

they find driftwood. So, and they've got some um. They have brought with them some tents right from the ship they brought these bell tents are kind of like yurts, right, big ones though big big yards um and some other canvas tents. But at first they it's more conducive to its march when they land March March twelfth. And at first that they decide like, we'll build you glues right because the um they're efficient. Um. So Barlett determines, Okay,

there's driftwood there, um is some game. They have been encountering seals, but the seals are quite offshore. Uh. And then some Arctic foxes and some bears that they have encountered in Usually the bear situation was like they're not hunting bears. The bears are kind of hunting camp man. You know, the bears have been following them, or the bears will be duking it out with the dogs, right, and the bears like bear while he's duking it out

with the dog. There's really close encounters though, like where one guy Hadley has to snag his rifle, like while the bear is trying to get to the dogs and he's on the other side of the sled, you know, and he's like grabbing his rifle within feet of a freaking ten foot polar bear. You know when they when they gourmet butcher polar bear, they like the back legs, the backs drafts, and the heart. Oh yeah, yeah, there's

there's no human presence on Wrangle Island. And by the way, visited at all um from you know, that's the last known place that had wooly mammoth. Yeah, and that cool. So also there's like a very yes some people most people say four somewhere like a dwarf wooly mammoth. But so that's a really good question. Um, at that time, there's no residents on Wrangle Island and even to this day, um, there there's like a couple of so it's it's Russians own it. But um they're they have like one full

time resident, one or two full time residents. And then I was really bumb man. I had almost went to Wrangle Island twice. First time my trip got scuttled. So there's a couple of expedition companies that take you, um in you like a fifty person um, you know, ship and then you get off on zodiacs and you can go camp for a few days on Wrangle Island with

these nature um naturalists and rangers be really cool. Had it set up, uh pandemic scuttled that, and then I was going to go the next summer, and the Putin invaded uh crying, and then like it's they weren't going, called that Russia. Yeah, we can't go to Russia. So that was kind of a bummer. But so then Barlett, you're right, he made the call that like these people, so in getting across the pressure ridges and getting over from ship at camp to Wrangle Island, UM, some of

the members are in pretty bad condition. Now, I will say the Inuit members Kurl Luck, his wife Kirak, who nicknamed Auntie, and the two kids, Helen and mug Pe are like nothing. It's like nothing has happened to them. They're in absolutely great I love they got little kids. The little kids are always playing. The little kids are playing, and they got the cat. You know, everybody else's like the kids. They're like, I don't see problem, eat seal

blubber and have really nice arctic clothing, you know. But you could blame Stephenson in part for this because he brought Antie along Kiuk to so Arctic clothing and then but he bought a bunch of the skins pretty late

in the game. So like she's sewing and teaching the members to sew while they're still floating along, and they didn't like they weren't fully kidded out all the members anyway, Barlette makes the call that like, these people are two tired, frost bitten uh and to make and inexperienced to make it across. It's about a hundred miles from the southern coastline of Wrangel Island to Russian UH Northeastern disease, So that's yeah, it's interesting that there they start coming down.

Within days after Bartlett leaving with Kateactobic, they start coming down with this swelling sickness. So their limbs are getting really um. Their limbs are some of their hands and feet are swelling to like twice their normal side eyes and the there's two theories. One is that the pemmican that they had was somehow flawed in the ratio of fat to protein was wrong, I mean, not not good enough,

so that they begin to get um. What's called nephritis or it's like an inflammation of the kidneys um and imbalance. You know, they've got like a dietic dietetic imbalance. But it's freaking everybody out because it's not scurvy because they're getting some meat you know here and there with Arctic foxes, the seals and the polar bears. Um. But then you know, they start to So that's the other thing. Stephenson doesn't know that, Like he's like, well, they should have all

gone with Bartlett. Bartlett just leaves with one Inuit guy, Karactobac. The problem is, you know, it'd be like taking all your buddies and there there's in terrible shape and they can't go, like you know, they're they're no longer fit for this track across the ice that's going to be dangerous itself. To go fetch a boat, yeah, I mean in a very roundabout way, go fetch a boat. Yeah. When would they have been like considered missing or how

long would have been? So Stephenson makes land in like October or late September, early October of and eventually he does he sends word to the Canadian government that uh, oh, I've lost my ship but no, he has no idea where it is. I have I have no idea where my ship is. But it will probably be fine because

they have these umiaks, which are skin boats. And you know, Stephenson's thinking more like what he would do, and but he would only do this alone or with a really small with him and two into a un He's not going to do it with like a bunch of inexperienced people. So he reports to the Canadian government that like the flagship Carlaic has gone, it will it will either be rushed. Most likely it will be crushed or it's going to like bypass wrangle Island and end up like somewhere else. Yeah,

there's this, there's this. I forgot about that when he's talking about the like in some number of years, when you're all dead, it'll spit you out like in Greenland. Yeah, he says. I love his line. He says he'll go around the Arctic and it'll like spit you out. But it takes a few years. Yeah, it says, either either them or their wreckage. And great. So there they were going west, but watch to the east. Are they are

coming back? Are the other two ships? Meanwhile, just like they've gotten where they were supposed to go, and they're just hanging out waiting. Right. So when Stephenson arrives back on mainland Alaska, he he's cruising along the coast and he runs into some of the people that actually that he had known from the previous expedition he was on,

and they have you know, they're hearing stories like there's reports. Okay, uh yeah, the Alaska and the Mary Sachs have been seen and they're actually winnering over in this bay before Harold Island. But they're safe. So he learns that those two ships are safe. So at that point Stephenson decides, Okay, I'm gonna reoutfit what's called the New Northern Party and that other one that's the Old Northern Party and they're screws like Europe. It's like, well, there's still your people.

But anyway, he's like, I got this. I'm gonna I'm gonna do what I said I was gonna do. He's also really clever because he knows from where he is how long it takes mail to get to the Canadian government. It has to go by like dog sled, and it's he knows that it's going to leave like by December one or something, and then it's gonna take a couple

of months to get to the Canadian government. So by the time he knows that, by the time they get the report that the car looks gone and I'm reoutfitting, he will already have done it, Like he'll already be out on the ice doing his thing, and they can't really say don't do that, right, And he he does some pretty m debout things like he's gotta he's got

an open checkbook, right. So he arrives at one of these trading posts and it turns out the guy is basically leaving because he's been there too long and he can't stand the winners anymore. And he's like selling everything sevens and like buys it all, and he goes to another guy and he's like, he finds the guy has a really cool schooner, so he's like, hey, can I buy that schooner? And he writes of a check for like thirteen grand right on top of the two ships

that he's already bought. Um. Yeah, the numbers are astronomical what he ends up spending, right, But so Stephenson quickly um regroups and he he has like he has it out with UM, the the expedition leader of the Southern Party, this guy Dr Anderson, UM, and you know, Dr Anderson sees that Stephenson. First of all, he's like, where's your ship? Why you know? And why aren't you going to do anything to go find them. Stephenson's like, I can't do anything.

Nobody can go there until summer. Right that part of the world, You've got like a six week maybe window where there's going to be open water, and some of these places are accessible. But at this point I don't even know where the car Look is. So Stephenson is right to say, like, there's nothing I can do about it personally right now, except to say we should be

organizing rescue missions for next summer. Right anyway, He goes off onto the ice re outfits, grabs a couple Norwegian dudes and goes off and Um continues to do you know, ethnological and um scientific study and sort of bid bids goodbye to the car Look. And by the time he ultimately gets back, oh, by the way, he abandons his wife and child again after being with that for a little while. UM. This is a touching scene of good farewell.

UM anyway, so Stephenson is doing that, and then and then the the book takes off onto where it really picks up. I think momentum is after Bartlett leaves with this cateactobic guy. Yes, let me let an ordeal. Yeah, let's let's just Yeah. So they get to Wrangle Island.

He leaves everybody most people people Wrangle Island, gives them instructions written instructions, do you use that and the other thing I'm gonna split, watch for me and such such and such harbor July August, watched for me to come back with a boat, right, and I should answer your

pbous questions. So when they got to Wrangle Island, Bartlett's um rationale was, if we set up there there on the northern the northeastern tip of Wrangel Island, it's only like ninety miles wide, and you know, fifty or sixty

miles um top to bottom um. So Bartlett's rationale is that there, if we spread out and have some people at icy Spit, which is where they land, there's another place called Cape Wearing it's about midway, and then there's Rogers Harbor, which is the southern h western point of

the island. He figures that if we distribute people in different teams, they can have better luck hunting in smaller groups and and taking care of themselves rather than having to have, you know, cook for fifteen people every day. So smaller groups, and also it will um, it will distribute the hunting um landscape a little more spread out.

That's his rationality. Now then, so right that he ends up like on a rate, the book becomes like a race against time because Barlin needs to get across the Long Straight to Siberia and then somehow get all the way over to the east and fight a shipped across the Bearing Strait and get back to Alaska where he can send a telegram to tell them they're on Wrangle Island. Right, so their lives like at every moment are kind of dependent on whether Bartlett makes it. And so I cut

back and forth. It's like if Bartlett and his Intuit hunter, like you know, you got all these people dying and stuff happened, like if they had just gone off ten miles and fell into a lead and died. Yeah, it's reasonable soon no one on no one on Wrangle Island's gonna survive. I think maybe that the Inuits would happen because there's a at anecdote I'll get to because they could have been they could have been there anyway, right right.

I mean, you know it's not ideal because um of how remote it is, but um yeah, so Bartlett yea, you know, there's it becomes it's sort of this race against time where Bartlett is trying to get to mainland Siberia and then to get word to the world that there's a bunch of stranded people from the car look on Wrangel Island and you cut back and forth to what's happening with them on Wrangel Island and things begin to so they you know, they don't have a finite

amount of um or they do have a finite amount of food um that they've been able to bring. And they make a couple of um gnarly treks back to shipwreck camping to get more uh some really some really dangerous treks where the leads break open, they get guys get so I don't want to ruin it for you, guys get separated from each other and from there and the dog has to like lead them back, you know.

So things are starting to deteriorate on Wrangel Island in that um their physical condition is poor and they're not they're hunting constantly, but they're not able to procure enough food. They can just barely stay ahead, you know. The woman and the kids, Like I'd run an essay rolled about this where the woman and the children want to be in some of the primary procures. Yeah, of game. Yeah, it's so it's really cool. Curl look, uh is the husband and father of the two children, and so he's

really good hunter. I mean he's you know, he's what he's getting seals. Um seals start to go off shore, so it gets harder to get seals, and as things become um more dire and they're running out of food, Auntie is really industrious, Like she figures out how first of all, Curl look, you know, fashion some um bows and arrows because they're going to run out of ammunition too.

So he starts to figure like, if we can if we can shoot um arctic foxes and birds with arrows, that'll save us ammo because we're gonna need the bullets for walrus, bears, seals, bigger things and so. But Auntie is really really clever, so she figures out how to um jig for cod She takes a sewing needle and bends it and then hooks it up to some sinew twine and then they stand over this little title crack and like snagging. Um these like twelve inch tom god there, like, yeah,

can they get a bunch of those? Um, She's the kids do some really clever stuff. One of the girls, Helen, the eleven year old, figures out how to put a piece of seal blubber onto a feather quill where you pull it out right, and then she has that attached to a piece of string and chucks the blubber over there and kind of hides and seagull come up and eat the blubber. The quill gets stuck in their throat and then she drags it over and wrings its neck. You know. Um, that's like one seagull at a time.

But the biggest hunting, um, I mean kind of the most hunting that they do. That's effective. Um oh also curl look. Uh. He creates snare tracks for snare traps for Arctic foxes. Um. And he builds two things. One he builds a kayak um, which is really cool. I mean there's there's a there's an image of him working with the Scotsman and William McKinley that they had a camera,

you know, like they have a picture of building. It's crazy that they're gonna like and then I know, like and so he takes a couple of weeks and he it's really funny because he's hedging, like they're they're starting to run out of food, and they're like they hear walrus in the bay and they're like, if we can get a Walruss or two, we're set. Like, you know, now it's getting to be August. They're thinking, if Winner

hits again, we're screwed. We're gonna die here. Um. So he he builds a kayak and Auntie is awesome, like has has gotten all these skins from the bearded seal the brook and um, you know, he he uses an ads and you know, he uses a hatchet as an ads and he has like you know, a skinning knife and some snow knives and they he's able to fashion you know, find driftwood planks and stuff and fashions out the frame and then they bring it inside the one

of the wall tents and uh Anti like completely fabricates the skin outside of this kayak. But Carola has been like hedging because he doesn't want he's the only one who knows how to run uh and he and he builds a really nice two handled paddle, you know, but he he has no interest in being solo in the water with the pound walrus, right, so he's here to like telling him I don't really want to do it, and they're finally like, you gotta go get the walrus. Work we can't do it, you know. He ends up

he ends up getting a walrus. Uh and you know, but it's a small one and it doesn't last that long. So by by the time, um it's starting to get near late August, you know, they're into some uh rough rations. They're eating scurvy grass. You know, it's like um coke hilaria. It's a it's a little arctic grass that has actually named scruby grass because yeah. And then Auntie is starting to make the stuff that one of the members names

salad oil. So she takes like chunks of blubber and puts them in a skin poke or a little bag and puts the chunks of blubber in there and leaves them out to ferment. And then when that stuff gets all congealed and fermented. They open up the bag and dip other chunks of seal meat and blubber into it, like you know, and and the and the you know what. People are like, we're good and uh, but like the other guys are like, do you know we really need

something bigger? Um. So anyway, they start to plan, Like they realized that the window for ship getting there. Bartlett had told them that in mid July someone needs to be at Rogers Harbor on the southern point, and that's where if a ship is going to come, that's where it will will meet. You. Um, but you know, things

are getting really sparse in terms of food. They know that the window is closing, and so they start planning, um to to go inland, follow this stream, go inland, build a cabinet and try to make their stand for winter on Wrangel Island, which is a really um daunting prospect, you know. And at that point, you know, without giving away too much, um, Bartlett has uh conspired to send

a rescue our mata of ships. And then so these people are dying on Wrangel Island essentially, or are going to die, and unless Bartlett gets these ships to them in a really tight window. Uh, it's probably not known, But what why don't the when things get real bad? Why don't the into it? Just like what's preventing them from just taken off? You know? That's like they have the skill set to take like they can make boats.

They know what they're doing. Yeah, I mean I think that there's a there's a a kind of ethical standard, like they were hired, you know, they were hired to do a job, because it's like pulling the weight for all these people. You think at a point you'd be like, I don't know that you I don't know what you guys do this for me? Right? Okay? Yeah. So the other thing I forgot to tell you though, is that like so so curl look um, you know, they they stay and they you know, they probably do realize like

I'm we're doing most of this. But though Hadley is a pretty good hunter, McKinley is a good hunter. This guy, Ernest Chafe, he's young, he's he was the mess room boy on this car. Look, he's like nineteen, and he brought with him his shooting medals from competitions that he had won. He's sort of badass, and so he ends up being pretty good. But what one of the things that wearing keep wearing. Um. There's all these cliffs and they're filled with thousands of they name them crow bills,

but their ox or meewers um. So they're on these cliffy you know, they're like little kind of penguiny looking birds, but they you know, great diving duck um diving meewer and and so they're up there and they realize, Okay, there's a lot of meat there. We can get it if we can get it. So they they use driftwood and and rope and they build this ladder. That McKinley, who's this little they call him a we mack. He's only weighs like a buck thirty. It's a little dude.

But he's spry, and so he's gonna climb up these ladders and get you know, they don't have shotguns another thing they blew, but they have rifles. So they get up to where these crow bills ox are nesting and they're in the thousands. So and they they're still they're getting the eggs and they're shooting as many as they possibly can. Right one time, McKinley like falls off the ladder and goes battering down onto the snow and ice, and he's luckily and nothing breaks, but he's all bruised.

And then they build this other thing like a Boson's chair. The plan is they're gonna lower him, hike around and then lower him down, you know, because I don't know about this gig, you know. Um. But so they're able to like subsist and they also um curl. Luck figures out that they have the buried under snow. They had this net from the car look, and so the they noticed that ducks are starting to um, you know, pool

up in some of the larger leads. So they go out there, sneak up on the edge of a lead and they take in unison, like three of guys will throw this net and scoop up a bunch of birds. But you know, the birds are not big enough where that's going to um. You know. That's like a couple of days. It gets you through. So that all that's happening while Bartlett is on his odyssey. Now at this point, we're the only three people who died, Like the three that took off, those are the only people that had

died up to this point. Well, those three we know the other guys that went to the wrong Old island and then probably they're probably dead by that. No, so there's some other carnage. I don't want to give anything away. I mean it's uh, it's really sad man because so in the split up Icy spit wearing point in the middle and then the other place Roger's Harbor. So some yarn mom and the Norwegian guy Templeman to cook, uh, and this other guy George Malloch who is one of

the scientists there. They end up at Roger's Harbor and the hunting is not not good there. They get some Arctic foxes, but they they're and they're also in really bad shape. So um, that scene at Rogers Harbor becomes um like really dires almost like the Greeley and that's going and so a couple of times it's really sad. Like McKinley goes down there and you know, he realizes one of the guys from that's been at mid Island.

He gets down to them to check on how they're doing, and it's like not well, you know, they're like hallucinating and they're they're malnourished, and so McKinley tries to make this you know, noble herculean track back to get different pemmican for mom and who can't eat this stuff anymore? And find some more and bring them, bring them food.

And there's some really touching scenes where like McKinley has brought him like a can of condensed milk, you know, and he's like giving it to him like he's a little baby, you know, and you're just like, oh my god, is this guy gonna make it or not? You know, I got all Arctic explore stuff that that was one of the things I kept wanderings, Uh, was there during this period? Were there any of these trips were everything just went like name for me, one just went great.

That's a really good question, like when you signed up, like when they so at this point, they've been at it for a while, Like you're in the in the teens, nineteen teens, people been up there dying for a long time. You getting anyone to fund him? What are they looking at as the sort of like way it could go right? Well, So that's a really great question. Um. I mean, ironically, and I don't really want to say this because you know, I'm I'm kind of anti Stephenson on this whole thing.

But so yeah, they're like, well he did it. Yeah, so he was able to. I mean he had he went with this guy Rudolph Anderson who ends up being on this the Southern Party. Uh, and Stephenson had brought back like artifacts and it was for the American Museum of Natural History. So the things that that Stephenson was bringing back in the findings that they were making about like maybe you know, underscoring all of this is like a desire to find potentially new land and claim it

for Canada. So that you know, I think people's ability to um fundraise and to be really um convincing and persuasive. I mean Perry was very good at it. Um. You know, some of some of the expeditions had worked. I mean Perry, even though it's contested now um had in nine made it to the North Pole. So you've got like, he didn't lose a bunch of guys. No, no, and you

know they he did it better though. I mean he brought out steel holed icebreaker, the SS Roosevelt, right, so he you know, um, so people could look at that and you could be like, you know, he did he did it. But also there's there's a bit of a difference. UM. I think in all of the in many of the expeditions leading up to this, like first were what they were about, or discovery of new lands, being the first to the north Pole, the first to farthest north, the

first to go through the Northwest Passage. UM, this was one of the early like purely it's going to be scientific in nature, and so it was worth it for the Canadian and also the Canadian government had sort of designs on UM. If we can expand our holdings our land mass, that's good, you know, in terms of UM dominion over the north right. But so I think Stephenson's ability to persuade the Canadian government that this thing was

going to be an unprecedented scientific UM success. And in many ways it was because the work that he ends up doing, which I don't I cover it briefly in the book, because my interest was more about the car look and that story. But I mean, so Stephenson ends

up continuing on. I mean he conveniently, like so World War One breaks out like right as Um Bartlett and everybody, you know, right right as the regular island fiasco is going on, and Stephenson conveniently, uh, like goes onto the ice in like nineteen fourteen and conveniently sort of re surfaces to the world right right as World War One end. It's like good timing. You know what happened? Yea, give me a paper the Great War? What? Right? And so you know a number of the other members like have

to go serve and stuff. You know, So how did uh? Um? I never looked this up. How does Steffan's gonna end up? Like? How long does he live? Well? He lives forever? Yeah, I mean, uh sixty two. He dies of I don't think it's anything like cataclysmic, like cancer or anything. No, no, But the funny thing is, and I have to add this because it has to do with your question about whether, um, you know, Curl look and his family could probably have survived or walked a hundred miles. Um. So this is

bizarre Stephenson. You gotta hand it to him. So he resurfaces, okay, And now he's he is, His books are selling, he's rights, he's written My Life with the Eskimo, and he also writes The Friendly Arctic, which is a great title for a book in which most people vacation. And that's him kind of laying out how you go about it, right, He's like, what's you do is you take off as soon as things look bad with the Inuit who will

keep you alive? And by the way, Amandsen, you know the famous uh Norwegian bowler explorer, he he contests the friendly Arctic big time. He's like, this is actually irresponsible because you're you're making it sound like any ea, who can just go with a rifle and live off the ice. And it's like most of the people that dry that are going to die, you know, because but Stephenson, in fairness to him, he developed a great deal of skill in living in this way. But so he does the

most man. No, there's like, no, whatever you're saying about his like allegiances and in his his cavalier attitude about human life, you cannot deny. I mean the guy could do insane ship. Oh yeah, yeah, and he teached he knew how to pick his company, that's what. But he could go and just go right. What he couldn't do was, you know, put together an expedition of this magnitude. Right, but you give him in a couple of hundreds and

they would do some crazy ship. Yes, So I was gonna kind of follow up on that, Like there's so many variables and there's no way of knowing obviously, But in your opinion, does this trip go a different way of Stephenson doesn't leave from the get go, or at least when he sees the ship has floated away, turns around and tries to find it. Maybe yeah, because I mean I think it's Stephenson. UM might well have been

able to get more of them to land. Um, he still would have been challenged by the fact that most of the scientists and the crew members did not have um arctic ice skill, you know. So the thing I was gonna say though, that UM that he does that's really a head scratcher. Um Is that so one? You know?

Like some years after this expedition, Um, he decides he's going to organize another expedition to Wrangle Island, right, Um, And one of the survivors, this guy's name is Fred Mauer, Uh, decides that he wants to go back to Wrangle Island because he had so much fun there the first time, and Stephenson convinces him to do it. So he gets like four part of the rationale. And Stephenson wasn't really

wrong about this was that there He's already envisioning. I mean, Stephenson thought about some things, like he predicted polar flight to across the Arctic. Um, he predicted submarine travel in that region. I was kind of I was gonna ask, was was this expedition kind of the end of an era? Absolutely, they call at the end of the dog Sled Adventurer, you know, because things, you know, things began to change in terms of technology. But so Stephenson organizes this other trip.

Now the Canadian government wants no part of it, even though he was going to originally try to claim Wrangle Island for Canada. Um. So he's become a Canadian citizen by this time, and he's like, well, um, we can plant the flag. It was kind of contested, so he, I mean, nobody will pay. So he self finances this thing from like his book proceeds and he uh, he sends Fred Mauer, one of the guys from the car. Look, these two other members and a woman also seemed just

her name is Ada Blackjack. This is you might want to read this book. It's freaking cool. Read Empire biss at first. But yeah, so, um they go to Wrangle Island. It's things go south there, you know, as they do, and they realize they're not gonna they're not gonna make it. And so I think when things go south and the north might be exactly so anyway from our or the guy from the car look and this other guy decided there they know, well Bartlett did it with Karactobic. We're

gonna strike across the long straight to go. They're they're running out of food and it's just not gonna work either of this. They leave Aida black Jack with the one other member. These two guys strike for Siberia and die out on the ice, and Aida Blackjack nurses this guy who has scurvy for a while until he dies in her arms. She lives on Wrangel Island by herself

for a year, like figuring out Ada black Jack. Yeah, I mean she is tough, she's industrious, she knows how to um use bow and arrow, and she eventually get picked up, She gets she gets recovered. It's a good name. He already got a great name. I'll take her name, Stevie black Jack. Oh wow, I can lead an expedition at that name. Well, um, we didn't give it too much away, did we. Okay, good. You know what's the book about a black jack? It's called Ada Blackjack. It

sounds a good name. Yeah. Uh and it was written by a woman named Jennifer Niven, who who wrote the last book about this, um but like twenty years ago. Um and uh this this woman is is a really great writer and has transitioned into like young adult um writing. Now she didn't right about this got their hands on not not yet, No, they didn't. Um. And Russians do. Um. And you know it's cool because today, I don't know if you guys know this, but today Wrangle Island is

um a spectacular nature preserve. You can't go there without like being you know, you have to have specific paperwork sure you're not bringing Yeah. And and it's the largest uh Pacific walrusts breeding ground and the largest polar bear dead ing ground in the world to this day. Um. And it's just spectacular if you look at um, like, just look at images online of it. It's so rugged. Man,

the top of it's like thirty feet um. And you know it's cool because there's you know, there's beautiful rivers running out to the sea and um, polar bears hanging out now The weird thing is that musk oxen people they go, well, why didn't they just eat all the musk oxen that are there? Because if you look at Wrangel Island, there's musk ox in there. Now they were they were there, you know, so it's like, well, they wish they'd had those muskoks And oh, well, man, you

got a good New York Times review. Hey, I appreciate the shout out there. Yeah, this morning New York Times uh uh said some nice things about this book, and um, I'm pleased. We're gonna, you know, pump it up next week. December six is the drop date. You're not doing any more podcasts, are you? Let's do that? No, no competitive ones, nothing that's good. No, nothing that There's no podcasts that are that are like this, really that are Yeah, I

like RBS or something. It's all structured and formal. Yeah, you're already working on the third book in the trilogy. Yeah, thanks for asking that. Man. I so I do need to get off the ice eventually, because it's started my numbing, you know. Um, but I did pitch book and I'm I have I'm under contract to write a third book in the trilogy and it's called realm of ice and sky, and it's about the first uh what are called airships

or blimps, um, they're actually semi rigid dirigibles. But try to say that a whole bunch of times, you know, um, semi rigid originals, that we're going to try to fly to the North Pole in nineteen o five. This American just seems like such a bad idea. I know, well in this American dude named Walter Wellman. So this is before Pierry has made it to the North Pole or

Cook or whoever you did. Um, he's like trying to fly from smaal Bard, you know, Spitzberg and north of Norway in in a blimp to get to the North Pole. Right now. It doesn't go well for Wellman. He he lives, but he ends up being kind of pioneer for in in n six and then later um ammonds and ultimately goes with this guy named Umberto Noble a um he's

an Italian airship designer. They make it to the North Pole and from smaal Bard and then but pass over it and continue on to No right, So it's a transcontinental flight trans Arctic trans Arctic ice continent flight of the pole. So two years later, Amondson takes a lot of credit for it, and this this Italian guy, Noble is like, man, I need to do that again, like and get and make it more about me. So he he this is a really bad idea. So he takes

He has mostly an Italian crew. At this point Amandson and him are scrapping and so Noble a takes I mean these things are huge, like a four ft blimp, you know, with like the cabin underneathe right, yeah, yeah, like exactly the led Zeppelin. Yeah, And so they take it. They make it to over the North Pole and instead of continuing on, so the plan was to like land, It's hard to land a blimp because you need these like poles that you tie to right tether to them.

Though they're gonna try to like lower dudes down and do uh North Pole study right out of like repelling out of the damn ship and so that that will work. So anyway, this is the bizarre thing that happens is that they make it to the North Pole. It's really fucking windy and it's not going well for their ability to um you know, uh, nobody wants to go back right back to Spitsberg and not do the same thing that he did already, which is with continue on. So

they turn it around. They can't land or land people. They throw the Italian flag out and they're like, okay, they know they're at the north Pole. They've got good readings on the way back. By the way, Noble at this point is like been awake for seventy six hours. He's all sleep deprived, and he makes some mistakes. They crashed the blimp like a hundred and fifty miles back toward UH Norway Spitzberg A's fall Bark. They crashed the

blimp in this catastrophic accident. The cabin that has like most of the people in it, bunch of them, nine of them billing out onto the ice right like they're thrown onto the ice. Their legs are shattered, they're broken. And then they look up and the six of the other members UH are still in the cabin and and the blimp is sailing off into the sky and they're like hell they fly away, never to be seen again.

And now you've got these guys on the ice, and it it creates the largest rescue operation in polar history, right and then in which, by the way, the famed explorer Roald Ormondson goes to go save Noble A flies off in a Fokker ship you know, seaplane and never is seen again. It's awesome. The blimp really have been seen, never been seen? And yes, how is that? I mean maybe it's still flying around big place and things get engulfed by the leads in the ice, you know, just swallowed.

I kind of rather be in a boat for a year, I think. Yeah, So that one I gotta, I gotta really got it right now. Once you write that one, come back all right? You want to hear more about Noble A and there bring bring a to black Jack with thanks, man, I really appreciate you. So give the hit people once more with the name of the book. All right, this is the Empire of Ice and Stone, the disastrous and heroic Voyage of the car Look by Buddy Levy available blame where books are sold. You bet

in audio too, And oh did you do the read? That? Sons of bitches, they don't let you do the read. Did you tell me what have you heard these pipes? Man? Listen, man, I wouldn't I know? They said, I'm doing another I got it. I got so, I got another book that's hitting the ten year mark, so I'm getting the audio rights back. I'm gonna do my and read it. Was just the first time, you will Nope, oh no, you

did so. I had a book like okay, American when when I sold so when I sold American Buffalo, the my publisher at Random House, they sold the audio to an outside place. The outside place did had bought the audio for ten years. They hired some soap opera guy to read it and the hunt him down and kill him. Then at ten years it ran out. Random House got it back. At that point they were doing more audio.

Then I went and did the read. Now the book I published after American Buffalo, my book Me Eater is the ten year thing is reverting and I'm going to the the studio and read that. Son of a bit. Yeah, well, you know, I would like to if I write something more more personal memoir, I will probably read it. I'm very happy so far with McMillan. Audio. Did a good job guy as an actor professional. I listened to six voice Shish and I'm like, that guy's pretty good. Shout around.

You went through a voice cattle idea, you know, voice. What do they call it um when you go up for the job, right, not yeah voice audition. I've told the story of Hunter times Man probably fifty times on the show. But the one I got my first book that a guy that a soap opera person read. I turned it on and he couldn't get two words out of his mouth and I had to race over turn it off and never it was just like, that's not what it sounds like. It was an actual soap opera line.

He's probably he's probably a great family man, loves his wife, loves his children. It was like, you're gonna hut him down and kill him. I'm not. I want to take you back. My name went down. But loves his country, loves his wife, loves his children, I have no doubt. But it was like he had no business saying those words. It's too bad. I don't want to hear it now. Yeah, I think I'll get it. I'll lend it to tell

me how it is. No, this guy is great. And by the way, sometimes, man, you're glad they because some of the words are really hard to pronounce. You don't need to figure it out. Yeah, you're just like, let that guy handle it. You know, I know how to spell them out, how to say him, spell a villain or like times. Yeah, I'll leave that up to you, but it's tough. Good luck. Thank you, oh man, Well, thanks a lot. Good luck on the book and when you get the next one ready to come back. I

appreciate it. Always love what you guys do. Man, Thank you very much,