Race to the Polar Sea The Heroic Adventures of Elisha Kent Kane

by McGoogan, Ken

• ISBN13: 9781582434407
• ISBN10: 1582434409
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-01
• Publisher: Counterpoint

Summary

"On July 27, 1853, when Elisha Kent Kane stood on the deck of the brigantine Advance off the coast of Greenland, he faced a monumental challenge: if Sir John Franklin and his men were trapped beyond the ice fields in the fabled Polar Sea, what was the best way to rescue them? The thirty-three-year-old explorer knew that if he reached them before the British did, he would secure a place for himself in the annals of Arctic discovery." "Already, despite his youth and recurring heart problems, Kane had descended into a volcano in the Philippines, infiltrated a company of slave traders in West Africa, and narrowly survived getting stabbed during hand-to-hand combat in the Sierra Madre. After getting trapped in the polar ice, Kane forged a unique alliance with the Inuit and so survived two horrific winters before leading the most spectacular escape in Arctic history." "This extraordinary young man, having failed to find Franklin, would lead his team 1,300 miles in eighty-three days, traveling by sledge and dogsled, then in small open boats. Returning home to international acclaim, Kane faced another dilemma: he had fallen desperately in love with the beautiful spiritualist Maggie Fox, a young Canadian woman deemed unsuitable by his prominent Philadelphia family. How this star-crossed relationship combines with Kane's tragic early death to deny the explorer his rightful place in history is one of the most fascinating aspects of this story."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Today & Yesterday	p. 1
Call to Adventure
In Search of Franklin	p. 9
The Philadelphia Story	p. 15
To Die in Harness	p. 22
Into the Volcano	p. 28
The Romance of Egypt	p. 35
Crime & Punishment	p. 42
Heart of Darkness	p. 47
A Mexican Escapade	p. 54
Raising the Curtain	p. 66
An Arctic Baptism	p. 74
The Beechey Graves	p. 80
Locked in the Ice	p. 88
After Eighty-Six Days	p. 95
Death in the Family	p. 100
The Spirit Rapper	p. 107
The Open Polar Sea	p. 117
Constancy & Change	p. 123
Trial by Winter
Defying the Ice	p. 131
The Belly of the Whale	p. 145
Science & Speculation	p. 153
Decades before Shackleton	p. 163
Heroes in Delirium	p. 177
Two Discoveries	p. 190
The Defection	p. 207
The Aristocrat Goes Native	p. 222
An Ignominious Return	p. 235
A Polar Nightmare	p. 244
Godfrey's Treachery	p. 255
Away like Stevedores	p. 264
The Ice Takes a Man	p. 275
An Incredible Journey	p. 284
Return of the Hero
Dr. Kane Home Again!	p. 301
Rumors & Rebuttals	p. 310
The Writer Delivers	p. 319
Two Become One	p. 325
The Land of Fog	p. 332
The Judgment of 1857	p. 340
The Verdict of History	p. 346
Acknowledgments	p. 362
Select Bibliography	p. 364
Illustration Credits	p. 366
Index	p. 367
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.