Fergus Fleming

Like Barrow's Boys before it, the most impressive thing about Ninety Degrees North, Fergus Fleming's chronicle of the explorers of the Arctic and the quest for the North Pole, is that the author manages to have his cake and eat it. He doesn't shy away from the horrors and rigours of exploration in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world (as early as page 37, we get this about an epidemic of scurvy: "Morton was so appallingly afflicted that the flesh dropped from his ankle, show more exposing the bones and tendons. Kane dared not amputate lest tetanus take hold.") and yet at the same time he also manages to capture the aspiration and the majesty of it all.

Fleming is an excellent writer who can include plenty of detail and anecdote in his prose without disturbing the flow. So it is appropriate that it is he himself who best summarizes the diversity of his approach to the book in his concluding pages:

"The quest for the North Pole… It had provoked acts of heroism and folly, had led its protagonists through scenes of beauty and vistas of despair, had tantalized scientists and inflamed the imaginations of artists and adventurers alike. Governments and individuals had been drawn into its dream-like depths, spurred in equal measure by sound theories and myths of wildest fancy." (pg. 415)

Fleming packs all this variety into his single-volume heavyweight history. Initially, I felt the book suffered from the lack of a central theme: Barrow's Boys seemed to draw spice from the almost-universally foolhardy bravery of the explorers sent out by Sir John Barrow, something lacking in the more internationalist Ninety Degrees North, with its mix of foolhardy expeditions and more sober ones. But whilst this means the book doesn't tear along like its predecessor, it retains all the dogged research and skilful weaving of narrative, anecdote and analysis. It is a fascinating period and place of history, delivered impeccably by one of the finest narrative historians. show less

When I was in high school many years ago, we lived for a couple of years in Neuchatel, Switzerland, in a 13-story building. On a very (very) clear day, we could see Mont Blanc far in the distance. Even at that distance, it was a majestic site. I like looking at mountains, but the idea of climbing would never enter my mind. The thousands who have now climbed Everest, with the help of guides to carry their bags and technology, have trivialized what once was an extraordinary accomplishment.

So show more it was for the Alps in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were considered unclimbable, harsh, and forbidding monuments to death and destruction. Avalanches regularly killed many, and the physics of glaciers were not understood. Fleming has written a detailed examination of how and why that all changed.

It was a combination of thirst for scientific knowledge about the Alps coupled with myth that was layered with romantic views of Byron and others. Killing the Dragons refers to the legends that the Alps were populated by Dragons. Crossing the Alps was a very hazardous undertaking because of swift changes in the weather, glacial crevasses, and falling rocks. (One avalanche sent boulders into a lake creating a tsunami of epic proportions inundating a town.

After Mt. Blanc was climbed successfully, the story continued, moving from dragons to a virtual advertising campaign. Much lie Everest today, climbing Mt. Blanc became the thing to do. The Alps were transformed into a thing of beauty and respite, attracting hoards of visitors, rather than something to be feared.

Before you know it, the Alps and Switzerland benefited from another kind of myth, that of the health giving clean air and wonderful resorts. Towns and villages that had been considered mere provinces of swine, were now sought after resorts and the Swiss, clever people they are, soon had a train (!) running up though the Matterhorn close to its summit for people like me who would rather ride than climb.

It’s a fun read (I listened to the well-read audio version) show less

This is a companion book to the author's Ninety Degrees North, which focuses exclusively on Arctic exploration in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. This book covers exploration in the Arctic, Antarctic and Africa in the first half of the 19th century, centred around those explorations sent out by the Second Secretary to the Admiralty, the very wilful and determined Sir John Barrow. These expeditions were largely to the Arctic, which I found the most interesting destination, and show more indeed the digressions to Africa rather jarred for me, though they petered out half way through the book (they would no doubt have fitted much better in a book devoted to the important topic of African exploration). The early visits to the then almost entirely unknown Antarctic were very intriguing and one can share their wonder at perceiving for the first time the massive Ross Ice Shelf and the volcano Erebus. Overall, what struck me in particular was the sheer amateurishness of so many of the early efforts, carried out in a death or glory frame of mind, sometimes ignoring the fact that the explorer in question might have had no previous marine experience, have a dislike for cold weather (or hot weather in the case of going to Africa), or a lack of leadership skills. This even applied to explorers who became very prominent such as Sir John Franklin, the mysterious disappearance of whose last expedition in the 1840s, and the numerous attempts at rescue, offer an eerie few chapters near the end of the book. Another feature that is prominent throughout is the sheer brutal length and misery of the Arctic winter that appears to last from about September to July, and the fact that many crews overwintered for a number of years in succession and might move very little distance in the interim. They had tremendous courage and stamina, whatever else one might say about some of mistakes and casual attitudes towards life and health that form prominent features of this fascinating saga. show less

An exceptional narrative history of the early Arctic explorers (with the odd jaunt to Timbuctoo and Antarctica thrown in for good measure). Prompted by the Second Secretary to the Admiralty, Sir John Barrow, scores of classic stiff-upper-lipped British explorers set out to fill in the blank areas of the map. "What lay at the North Pole? Did Antarctica exist? Was there a North-West Passage? Where was Timbuctoo? What lay at the heart of Africa?" (pg. 9). With the Napoleonic Wars at an end, show more Great Britain was starting to flex its Imperial muscles. It was considered intolerable if "other countries should open up a globe over which Britain ruled supreme." (pg. 11).

Unfortunately, the ventures were often that peculiar mix of stout-hearted bravery and bumbling incompetence which those of us in Britain have long considered our hallmark, coupled with our habitual preference for 'muddling through'. As author Fergus Fleming remarks late on in the book, Barrow's men were stereotypical of the Victorian explorer: "a brave, patriotic chap, steadfast but daring, manly but emotional, confident but modest, willing to carry the banner of queen and country to the furthest reaches of the world; ready not only to face the void but to stare it down, and to do so in blind, cheerful ignorance." (pg. 374). Those of us in Britain have always been somewhat perversely proud of our incompetent failures as long as they have the redemptive quality of courage (witness the lionisation of Scott of the Antarctic, a spiritual descendent of Barrow's boys), and Fleming has provided us with a book chock full of them.

Only 19th-century Britain could have served us such characters. There is the officer who, having distinguished himself in the Sahara, is sent to the Arctic (pg. 106) and claims "he was better able to withstand the cold because he still retained the heat" (pg. 114). There are the officers who traverse the oppressively hot inner regions of Africa in full dress uniform, determined as they are to project all the pomp and power of Britain to the natives (pg. 179). There is the captain who, with his ship completely disabled in the Antarctic oceans by a clash with its sister ship, performs a sternboard (essentially reversing in neutral) in order to outmanoeuvre a fleet of mountainous icebergs (pp355-6). There are the countless, nameless, dauntless seamen who, as Sir John Franklin admiringly notes, enter "upon any enterprise, however hazardous, without inquiring or desiring to know where he is going or what he is going about." (pg. 127). And, overseeing it all, there is the extremely harsh taskmaster Barrow (who was annoyed when an early expedition returned home unscathed, because that "was not what exploration was about" (pg. 57)).

This is not to say that Barrow's Boys is solely a comical look into John Bull playing at explorer. Fleming often notes the very real effects of the poor planning, bureaucratic high-handedness and schoolboy-ish Boy's Own eagerness, not least the tell-tale knife scrapes on human bones indicating that a lost expedition had resorted to cannibalism. Some of the tales (most notably Franklin's two major expeditions and the horrific ordeal of McClure's crew) are positively appalling, and take some of the gloss off what would otherwise just be another ripping yarn. This is welcome, for Fleming offers a balanced appraisal of this era of exploration and the conditions endured. There are countless examples of the sheer indomitableness of the natural world, particularly in the ice lands, which – whilst it is not explicit – I interpreted as a necessary riposte to the hubris of an, here in the form of the British Empire. This means that you can marvel at the tales of derring-do and bravery, and feel patriotic pride in the endeavours of the King's and Queen's men to plant their piece of silk on new barren lands, whilst still accepting that Nature reigns supreme. Fleming allows us to, in effect, have our cake and eat it too.

I could go on and on about the events featured in the book, and there are countless adventures and anecdotes which are worthy of mention. But it is even more worthy to mention that Fleming has taken these stories and woven them into a brilliant piece of narrative history. He is a sympathetic storyteller throughout, imposing his own personality and humour on the prose without letting it get in the way of the facts and the history. It is a great example of the genre, right up there with one of my favourites, The Lost City of Z by David Grann (not coincidentally, also about a British explorer). Fleming's best quality is his eye for anecdote: there are innumerable bizarre events and occurrences peppered throughout the text, and if it took me longer to read Barrow's Boys than it would another book of similar length, it is because I was enjoying it so, so much.

If I have one criticism of the book, it is that the summation at the end (the last chapter, 'Riding the Globe', not counting the Epilogue) was rather too short. Fleming's conclusions are sound, however: for all their bravery and lunacy, Barrow's expeditions were also ones of futility. "Every single one of Barrow's goals had proved worthless in the finding: Timbuctoo was a mud town of no importance; the Niger had little practical application for trade; northern Australia was totally unworkable as the site of a 'second Singapore'; Antarctica was an inhospitable lump of ice; and the North-West Passage… was an utter waste of time. The Open Polar Sea, meanwhile, was not only not worth finding but not even there to be found." (pp422-3). And after all that, the North-West Passage would eventually first be sailed by Johnny Foreigner: the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Men had died, treasure had been expended, and for little gain in real terms. But it had fired the public imagination and began a love affair with exploration that encouraged the likes of Burton and Speke, Livingstone, Scott and Shackleton, and one which we can still see around us today (the discovery in 2014 of the wreck of the Erebus, one of Franklin's ships from his lost expedition, made headlines around the world). Despite everything, Barrow's boys embodied that primal desire for discovery, exploration and conquest which has driven human progress for millennia. And, as Fleming concludes (pp423-5), what a thrilling ride it all was. The same could be said for the reading of his book. show less