The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk (2000)

Excellent Read! ( )

"I'm starving faster than you are."

That could almost be the refrain of the many failed expeditions to the arctic in the mid-nineteenth century and after. The Karluk voyage was fairly typical. Captain Bob Bartlett was hired to take a crew of scientists to the ice north of Alaska. The ship was not really up to the task. Many of the scientists abandoned the expedition and went home on their own. After they left, the Karluk was frozen in, then destroyed by the ice. The men survived to reach Wrangel Island in the Siberia arctic. Captain Bartlett sledged out to find help. The men he left behind, trapped in the cold and the dark, got sick and starved; many died before they could be rescued.

So far, frankly, so typical. But this does not answer why. The Karluk should never have been employed in this service, but there was time to bring off supplies. Several of the men on the ship, in effect, mutinied. Their time on Wrangel Island was consumed in arguing and, indeed, fighting.

They spent a long time on the island, and Niven's account makes it seem longer, because, somehow, everyone seems to be on the point of death, but survive to be on the point of death again a few days later, and repeat endlessly. Why? We can't tell. It's a significant issue, because a lot of tales of arctic disasters have this same tone.

And what of Bob Bartlett? Niven is full of praise for him. And, to be fair, the crew was all alive when he left, and he did bring rescue. But he also wrecked the ship, and let the men go out of control. It was not a pretty picture.

As a chronicle, this book is good. But as an insight into the horrid problem of "arctic madness," something is missing. Most readers, I think, will want more than a chronology. They will want an explanation. ( )

This is a story like Endurance, except that the people involved were far less fortunate. It is the story of Karluk, an arctic expedition ship sent out by Canada in 1913 and organized by the explorer-promoter Vilhjalmur Stefansson. The expedition was cursed by his carelessness and lack of organization. He provided them with substandard supplies, ship, and personnel, then abandoned the ship when it became stuck in the ice, ordering the crew and expedition scientists to carry on. After it was all over, he blamed the disaster on the captain. The ship drifted in the ice for 4-5 months until it was crushed off the coast of an island off Siberia. The ship’s captain made a heroic journey on foot to get help to rescue the survivors but many died. The story details how they fell apart physically and psychologically. The author relied heavily on first-hand accounts of the people involved, including Bjarne Mamen and William McKinlay. A fascinating book of a horrible episode. Another treatment of this is McKinlay’s The Last Voyage of the Karluk: A Survivor's Memoir of Arctic Disaster. ( )

To be honest, I thought this would read something like a history textbook. Quite the contrary. It reads like a regular story, a piece of fiction, and in some ways, it's hard to believe that it isn't fictional.

The book itself is fairly well-written -- I find the style very engaging and suspenseful when necessary (given the author's history in film, I'm not surprised). I also liked the format, where each chapter covers the events of one month. Technicalities aside, the story itself is so amazing, it's almost unbelievable. That any of the crew survived this ordeal is in itself a miracle. That a handful made it through without resorting to dishonorable behavior is even more amazing.

To say that I enjoyed reading this doesn't seem appropriate. I did enjoy it, but not as one would enjoy reading a work of fiction. The Ice Master is a gripping, heart-wrenching, and sometimes horrifying tale of adventure and survival in one the world's most unforgiving climates. It was a little slow to start, as we meet our "characters" and learn of the origins of the expedition, but the story picks up once the ship sets sail and it doesn't stop until the end.
And even then, there's a feeling that the story isn't over, that it will never be over. The book mentions several times that William McKinlay, the only surviving member of the scientific team, would spend the rest of his life searching for an answer, a conclusion of some sort, to what happened. He even said once that a part of him, indeed all of them, would always remain on Wrangel Island, where they lived for nine months and endured the worst of their hardships.
As a reader, I came away with the satisfaction of knowing that some of them survived and went home to their families and the lives they thought they'd never live again. Not quite a "happy ending" but it feels like a conclusion. For the survivors themselves, however, they would find no such satisfaction. It would haunt them until their dying day. I can't help but wonder, who would these men have become had they never been through this ordeal?

One good thing I took with me from reading this is to complain less. No matter how bad things get, it's not as bad as it could be. I could be stranded in the Arctic, during one of the worst Arctic winters in history, with no food, cheap used winter clothing, second-hand gear, people I can't stand who keep stealing from me, suffering from maladies I can't get rid of and occasionally forced to sleep for a week because I've been made blind by glare on the snow.
No. It might be bad, but it could always be worse.

As mentioned before, I like the author's style. Some people didn't and I guess I can see why, but I thought it was well-written. Niven's voice is natural and engaging, her descriptions vivid. I appreciated the many pages of pictures, but I almost didn't need them to see the world in which the events took place. Everything, from the individual to the frozen white landscape, is infused with life and personality. At times, the ice itself almost seemed to become a villain of sorts, unpredictable, deadly, thwarting the progress of the heroes at every opportunity. I won't argue with those who don't like her writing style or her voice, but I think she succeeded where many would have failed: taking a subject that could have been very boring and dry and turning it into something so enthralling, it's impossible to put down.

While probably not the best of it's kind, The Ice Master is a book worth reading. I learned a lot about Arctic exploration and I'm excited now to learn even more. Survivors William McKinlay and Captain Robert Bartlett both wrote accounts of these events and I have already added their books to my reading list.
This is the first non-fiction I have read in a long time and I liked it as I would a favorite piece of fiction. It wasn't life-altering by any means, but it did impress upon me the importance of appreciating the good things in our lives and keeping everything in perspective -- my daily hassles, when compared to a year in the Arctic, suddenly seem less troubling.

I would recommend this book to anyone. ( )

http://www.chrisgray.me/2005/01/the-ice-master-by-jennifer-niven/ ( )