The bibliography of the Arctic quest is interminable. Scores of books deal with the search for the North West Passage; scores more deal with the fate of Sir John Franklin; an entire library concentrates on the quest for the North Pole. Most major explorers published their own accounts. Almost every one has had his biographer; some have had several.
Apart from Lawrence Kirwan’s short work, The White Road, I know of no other study that treats the entire period, from Parry to Peary, as a single narrative. This I have tried to do in some detail for it seems to me the stories of the search for the Passage, the Pole, and for Sir John Franklin, are so intertwined that it is difficult to unravel them. They form the three acts of a seamless drama that has fascinated the world for the best part of two centuries.
Readers who have come this far will know that this is a book as much about explorers as it is about exploring. I have done my best to rescue the men who sought this Grail from the dead hands of adulatory biographers and the must of history, to examine their characters and personalities, their strengths and their weaknesses and restore them as human beings with human flaws and human ambitions.
This is also a book about the Inuit, those much neglected native people (whom I have called Eskimos, the name used almost exclusively during the period, to avoid confusion). Too many historians have given them short shrift; but without the presence of these cheerful and accommodating people the story would not be complete.
The Arctic Grail is based very largely on original documents – the letters, journals, and personal papers of the leading characters and their associates. I have, whenever possible, examined the handwritten accounts, which in many cases differ substantially from the published ones. Elisha Kane, for instance, emerges as a different personality when one compares his original journal with his published work. The contemporary newspapers and periodicals and government documents – especially reports of investigating committees – have also been extremely useful.
A work of this complexity would not be possible without the dedicated spadework of a good many predecessors. I stand in awe of Frances J. Woodward, whose diligence in ploughing through the voluminous correspondence of Lady Franklin produced her remarkable Portrait of Jane, a work that no student of the period can neglect. Mrs. Gell’s John Franklin’s Bride (Eleanor Anne Porden) and Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s Sir John Franklin in Tasmania were also invaluable secondary sources. Richard Cyriax’s scholarly and definitive Sir John Franklin’s Last Arctic Expedition is another essential secondary source for the Franklin era.
Other works which I found especially valuable were Ernest S. Dodge’s The Polar Rosses, Alexander Simpson’s Life and Travels of Thomas Simpson, George W. Corner’s Doctor Kane of the Arctic Seas, Chauncey Loomis’s Weird and Tragic Shores (Hall), A.L. Todd’s Abandoned (Greely), John Weems’s Peary, and Dennis Rawlins’s Peary at the Pole: Fact or Fiction?
Once again I have had the invaluable assistance of a team of dedicated people without whom this book would not have been possible. Barbara Sears, my indefatigable research assistant, tracked down and dug out the various works described in the bibliography. Janice Tyrwhitt, my editor, forced me to rewrite several sections of the book and provided a shrewd overview of the entire work. Janet Craig, my copy editor, acted as a remarkable backstop; without her meticulous and painstaking blue pencil, this would be a flawed work. Geoffrey Matthews again drew the maps; Walter Stefoff was responsible for the design; Tom McNeely did the drawings and endpapers; Elsa Franklin provided useful advice. My wife, Janet, not only read the manuscript for grammatical errors but also bore with me when my efforts at concentration sometimes rendered me deaf, dumb, and blind.
Miss Sears and I would like to thank a number of people and institutions in Canada, England, and the United States for their help. These include:
Alison Wilson, archivist, in charge of the Polar Records at the National Archives, Washington, D.C., particularly for her help well above and beyond the call of duty. She would suggest things for us to look at (she drew the John Wall Wilson diary to my attention, for example), and she went out of her way to make sure that it was a pleasure to work at the Archives.
Robert Headland, archivist at the Scott Polar Research Institute.
Leonard F. Guttridge, who generously shared suggestions and leads on the Adolphus Greely story at a time when he was working on the same subject.
Dr. Owen Beattie, at the University of Alberta, for providing copies of his papers on his latest research on the fate of the Franklin expedition; and Dr. James Savelle, for providing information on his work with the Franklin relics.
Captain T.C. Pullen, for reading the chapter on Peary and Cook.
And the following institutions:
The staff of the Baldwin Room, Metropolitan Toronto Central Library, unfailingly courteous and helpful with a constant stream of requests; the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto; the National Archives of Canada; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, for making the Elisha Kent Kane journal available; Stanford University Library, for making the other half of Kane’s journal available; the National Maritime Museum, London, England; the Royal Geographical Society, for allowing us to examine the William Hooper Journals; and the Mercer County Historical Society.