“Though Barents never gained fame in battle and never found a trade route to China, he had planted a seed for a new kind of explorer, one whose fame lay in a combination of knowledge and endurance rather than martial glory.”

I’ve read a lot of polar adventure tales, almost always in the throes of winter. Remember last week I mentioned leaning in to the darkness of the season; this is along those same lines. It’s cold and snowy outside, so why not read some epic tales of guys who’ve been much colder than me and far more miserable? Plus, stories of daring and survival are always fun, and it doesn’t get more daring or tense than the coldest cold you can imagine (and then some).

Andrea Pitzer’s Icebound, which tells the story of William Barents’ ur-expedition to the northern reaches of the world, adds to the upper echelon of polar adventure books.

Back in the late 1500s, ocean journeys were all about commerce. Finding a quicker route from Europe to East Asia was the goal—a mythical passage over the top of the world. There was even an idea that perhaps the north pole was actually a warm weather ocean. They really just had no idea what was up there.

So Barents set out on three expeditions. The first two were successful enough (he got farther north than any human possibly ever had), but no passage was found. On the third trip, Barents and his crew made it even further, but were then hemmed in by ice and forced to “overwinter,” or make camp for the long, cold, sunless season until the ice abated and allowed them to return home.

What happened next involved a driftwood hut for 18 men, numerous polar bears, nasty cases of scurvy and hypervitaminosis A (which makes your skin peel off!), and a trek home in what were functionally a couple of large row boats.

Pitzer quickly captured not only the bleak brutality of the surroundings and the arctic ocean-going experience, but also, perhaps most interestingly to me, the changing philosophy of the spirit of adventure in that time. Barents was celebrated as a hero, despite his failure to find a passable trade route.

His intrepid acts of endurance, leadership, and survival in a harrowing environment were enough. From then on, the ships that set out for the poles were more about sheer exploration than business pursuits. Though Barents isn’t a well-known name like Robert Falcon Scott or Roald Amundsen or Ernest Shackleton, he set the stage for all that came after him:

“every famous Arctic explorer who endured horrifying ordeals, every adventurer to the North whose story became a bestselling book, every voyager vowing to fill in the map for national glory, every polar adventurer whose exploits were recorded with the newest technologies—from books to telegrams to photos to radio broadcasts to phones to satellite links—has walked in the path first blazed by William Barents.”

This was an interesting examination of the story of exploration for a Northern passage to China.
It was informative, especially about Dutch efforts, but it wasn't a very compelling read.
It is hard to make a hard tale of survival something that one wants to read.
I did finish it (I listened to it) and that helped make some parts easier to get through.