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Icemen is a fascinating investigation of man's relationship with the Arctic - one of the most hostile environments in the world and, for the last hundred years, a magnet for explorers. The men who came here encountered a world of towering ice and howling winds, of eerie fog and beautiful mirages. Some came for glory, some for wealth, and some as a result of their sheer determination to succeed. Many swore they would never return, but for a few the Arctic became an obsession.
Even today, the Arctic is steeped in controversy. Who was the first man to see the North Pole? Was it Robert Peary, Frederick Cook, or the crew of a Norwegian airship? Did a British Arctic expedition really resort to cannibalism? How did a Swedish balloonist meet his gruesome death? Icemen reveals all about the ambitious expeditions that set off to explore the imposing, vast Arctic territory. Along the way, it tells the stories not only of the search for the Northwest passage by the British John Ross, John Franklin, and William Edward Parry and the controversial race to the North Pole by the Americans Robert Peary and Frederick Cook, but also the feats of other inspired explorers, including the ill-fated balloon trip of Swedish Salomon Andree, the harrowing airship flight of Norwegian Roald Amundsen, American Lincoln Ellsworth, and Italian Umberto Nobile, and Gino Watkins' British Arctic Air Route Expedition of 1931.
