In the fifth volume of the In Those Days: Collected Writings on Arctic History series, Kenn Harper shares tales of European explorers who came to the Arctic seeking adventure, riches, and the elusive Northwest Passage, and Inuit they encountered there. Inuit were invaluable in adding to Western knowledge of the Arctic, serving as guides, clothing-makers, and interpreters. But not every meeting was friendly. This collection sheds light on Inuit who played a pivotal role in the expeditions of some of the most famous Arctic explorers, including the unfortunate John Franklin. This volume also includes dozens of rare, historical photographs.

One of the finest mountaineering books. A phenomenal tale of strength and valour. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOE SIMPSON In 1950, no mountain higher than 8,000 meters had ever been climbed. Maurice Herzog and other members of the French Alpine Club resolved to try. This is the enthralling story of the first conquest of Annapurna and the harrowing descent. With breathtaking courage and grit manifest on every page, Annapurna is one of the greatest adventure stories ever told. As well as an introduction by Joe Simpson, this new edition includes 16 pages of photographs, which provide a remarkable visual record of this legendary expedition. The distinguished French mountaineer Maurice Herzog was leader of the 1950 expedition to Annapurna. He was one of the two climbers to reach the summit.

As a boy growing up near Liverpool in the 1950s, Andrew Lees would visit the docks with his father to watch the ships from Brazil unload their exotic cargo of coffee, cotton bales, molasses, cocoa - the ships' names and goods noted down in loving detail in his exercise book. One day, his father gave him a dog-eared book called Exploration Fawcett. The book told the true story of Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who in 1925 had gone in search of a lost city in the Amazon, and never returned. The riveting story of Fawcett's encounters with deadly animals and hostile tribes, his mission to discover an Atlantean civilization, and the many who lost their own lives when they went in search of him, inspired the young Lees to believe that there were still earthly places where one could 'fall off the edge'.Lees travelled to Manaus in Fawcett's footsteps. After a time-bending psychedelic experience in the forest, he understood that his yearning for the imaginary Brazil of his boyhood, like Fawcett's search for an earthly paradise, was a nostalgia for what never was. Part travelogue, part memoir, Lees paints a portrait of an elusive Brazil, and a flawed explorer whose doomed mission ruined lives.

"Expedition Naga" is a multisensory trip into one of the world's most remote and least accessible regions. Diaries written by British administrators/explorers during punitive expeditions in the 1920's and -30's against the Naga, a people once notorious for their headhunting activities, are compared with contemporary notes written during the last 5 years when the authors were given special permission to do fieldwork in the long forbidden border areas between India and Myanmar (Burma). Four hundred contemporary and historic photographs, most of which are published here for the first time ever, along with film and sound material on the enclosed free DVD, allow the reader to explore both the present and the past of one of the least known, yet most interesting cultural realms as it has never been possible before.The book will appeal to travellers, anthropologists, people interested in exploration and photography. Furthermore, the subject is spectacular in that many rituals, such as headhunting and other rites associated with fertility, are still taking place, the area having been closed for such a long time. The culture of the Naga people is amazing to witness in the twenty-first century when such cultural traits rarely exist. Furthermore, they are not associated with Indian culture, but rather with African or Indonesian.

'He effectively combines the genre of travel writing with investigative journalism, and brings to light little-known conflicts and events from around the world.' - Perceptive Travel In Journeys to Impossible Places, best-selling author and presenter Simon Reeve reveals the inside story of his most astonishing adventures and experiences, around the planet and close to home. Journeys to Impossible Places continues the story Simon started in his phenomenal Sunday Times bestseller Step by Step, which traced the first decades of his life from depressed and unemployed teenager through to his early TV programmes. Now Simon takes us on the epic and thrilling adventures that followed, in beautiful, tricky and downright dangerous corners of the world, as he travelled through the Tropics, to remote paradise islands, jungles dripping with heat and life, and on nerve-wracking secret missions. Simon shares what his unique experiences and encounters have taught him, and the deeper lessons he draws from joy and raw grief in his personal life, from desperate struggles with his own fertility and head health, from wise friends, fatherhood, inspiring villagers, brave fighters, his beloved dogs, and a thoughtful Indian sadhu. Journeys to Impossible Places inspires and encourages all of us to battle fear and negativity, and embrace life, risk, opportunities and the glory of our world.

Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world and a notoriously difficult and dangerous mountain to climb. First climbed from the west in 1955 by a British team comprising Joe Brown, George Band, Tony Streather and Norman Hardie, it waited over twenty years for a second ascent. The third ascent, from the north, was made in 1979 by a four-man team including the visionary British alpinist Doug Scott. Completed before his death in 2020, and edited by Catherine Moorehead, Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott's final book. Scott explores the mountain and its varied people - the mountain sits on the border between Nepal and Sikkim in north-east India - before going on to look at Western approaches and early climbing attempts on the mountain. Kangchenjunga was in fact long believed to be the highest mountain in the world, until in the nineteenth century it was demonstrated that Peak XV - Everest - was taller. Out of respect for the beliefs of the Sikkimese, no climber has ever set foot on the very top of Kangchenjunga, the sacred summit. Scott's own relationship with the mountain began in 1978, three years after his first British ascent of Everest with Dougal Haston. The assembled team featured some of the greatest mountaineers in history: Scott, Joe Tasker, Peter Boardman and Georges Bettembourg. The plan was for a stripped-down expedition the following spring - minimal Sherpa support, no radios, largely self-financed. It was the first time a mountain of this scale had been attempted by a new and difficult route without the use of oxygen, and with such a small team. Scott, Tasker and Boardman summited on 16 May 1979, further consolidating their legends in this golden era. Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott's tribute to this sacred mountain, a paean for a Himalayan giant, written by a giant of Himalayan climbing.

The deepest cave on earth was a prize that had remained unclaimed for centuries, long after every other ultimate discovery had been made. This is the story of the men and women who risked everything to find it, earning their place in history beside the likes of Peary, Amundsen, Hillary, and Armstrong. In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. Bold, American Bill Stone was committed to the vast Cheve Cave, located in southern Mexico and deadly even by supercave standards. On the other side of the globe, legendary Ukrainian explorer Alexander Klimchouk - Stone's opposite in temperament and style - had targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the Republic of Georgia. Blind Descent explores both the brightest and darkest aspects of the timeless human urge to discover - to be first. It is also a thrilling epic about a pursuit that makes even extreme mountaineering and ocean exploration pale by comparison. These supercavers spent months in multiple camps almost two vertical miles deep and many more miles from their caves' exits. They had to contend with thousand-foot drops, deadly flooded tunnels, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and much more. Perhaps even worse were the psychological horrors produced by weeks plunged into absolute, perpetual darkness, beyond all hope of rescue, including a particularly insidious derangement called 'The Rapture'. Blind Descent is a testament to human survival and endurance - and to two extraordinary men whose relentless pursuit of greatness led them to heights of triumph and depths of tragedy neither could have imagined.

Over 9,000 feet up on the top of Mount Roraima is a twenty-five mile square plateau, at the point where Guyana's border meets Venezuela and Brazil. In 1973, Scottish mountaineering legend Hamish MacInnes alongside climbing notoriety Don Whillans, Mo Anthoine and Joe Brown trekked through dense rainforest and swamp, and climbed the sheer overhanging sandstone wall of the great prow in order to conquer this Conan Doyle fantasy summit. As one of the last unexplored corners of the world, in order to reach the foot of the prow the motley yet vastly experienced expedition trudged through a saturated world of bizarre vegetation, fantastically contorted slime-coated trees and deep white mud; a world dominated by bushmaster snakes, scorpions and giant bird-eating spiders. This wasn't the end of it, however. The stately prow itself posed extreme technical complications: the rock was streaming with water, and the few-and-far-between ledges were teeming with scorpion-haunted bromeliads. This was not a challenge to be taken lightly. However, if anyone was going to do it, it was going to be this group of UK climbing pioneers, backed by The Observer, supported by the Guyanan Government, and accompanied by a BBC camera team, their mission was very much in the public eye. Climb to the Lost World is a story of discovering an alien world of tortured rock formations, sunken gardens and magnificent waterfalls, combined with the trials and tribulations of day-to-day expedition life. MacInnes' dry humour and perceptive observations of his companions, flora and fauna relay the story of this first ascent with passion and in true explorer style.

**SHORTLISTED FOR ADVENTURE TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2018 EDWARD STANFORD AWARD** A thrilling and dangerous adventure through Arunachal Pradesh, one of the world's least explored places. 'A fabulously thrilling journey through a beguiling land' Joanna Lumley 'With tremendous verve and determination Antonia plunges through an extraordinary world. Thank heavens she survived to tell this vivid and thoughtful tale' Ted Simon, author of Jupiter's Travels 'A tale of delight and exuberance - and one I'd thoroughly recommend. Bolingbroke-Kent proves a great travelling companion - compassionate, spirited and with a sharp eye for human oddity' Benedict Allen, author of Edge of Blue Heaven and Into the Abyss 'A transformative journey that gripped me from the very first page' Alastair Humphreys, author of The Boy Who Biked the World and Microadventures 'Remote, mountainous and forbidding, here shamans still fly through the night, hidden valleys conceal portals to other worlds, yetis leave footprints in the snow, spirits and demons abound, and the gods are appeased by the blood of sacrificed beasts' A mountainous state clinging to the far north-eastern corner of India, Arunachal Pradesh - meaning 'land of the dawn-lit mountains' - has remained uniquely isolated. Steeped in myth and mystery, not since pith-helmeted explorers went in search of the fabled 'Falls of the Brahmaputra' has an outsider dared to traverse it. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent sets out to chronicle this forgotten corner of Asia. Travelling some 2,000 miles she encounters shamans, lamas, hunters, opium farmers, fantastic tribal festivals and little-known stories from the Second World War. In the process, she discovers a world and a way of living that are on the cusp of changing forever. 'A beautifully written, exciting and revealing book that harks back to a golden age of travel writing' Lois Pryce, author of Revolutionary Ride

The first time journalist Jon Lurie meets Jose Perez, the smart, angry, fifteen-year-old Lakota-Puerto Rican draws blood. Five years later, both men are floundering. Lurie, now in his thirties, is newly divorced, depressed, and self-medicating. Jose is embedded in a haze of women and street feuds. Both lack a meaningful connection to their cultural roots: Lurie feels an absence of identity as the son of a Holocaust survivor who is reluctant to talk about her experience, and for Jose, communal history has been obliterated by centuries of oppression. Then Lurie hits upon a plan to save them. After years of admiring the journey described in Eric Arnold Sevareid's 1935 classic account, Canoeing with the Cree, Lurie invites Jose to join him in retracing Sevareid's route and embarking on a mythic two thousand-mile paddle from Breckenridge, Minnesota, to the Hudson Bay. Faced with plagues of mosquitoes, extreme weather, suspicious law enforcement officers, tricky border crossings, and Jose's preference for Kanye West over the great outdoors, the journey becomes an odyssey of self-discovery. Acknowledging the erased native histories that Sevareid's prejudicial account could not perceive, and written in gritty, honest prose, Canoeing with Jose is a remarkable journey.

An important figure in British commercial mineralogy, John Mawe (1766-1829) first published this work in 1812; reissued here is the 1821 revised edition. Mawe and his wife ran a mineral-dealing business, based in Derby with a shop in London. Collecting specimens for the aristocracy, advising on explorations, and going on gathering tours, he also wrote on Derbyshire mineralogy, the South Seas, diamonds, geology and conchology. This book covers his voyage to South America in 1804, including his expedition in 1809 to the gold and diamond mining areas of Brazil. It also describes the local climate, people, natural history, trade and agriculture, and the splendour of such cities as Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. A bestseller, found on library shelves across Europe - and aboard the Beagle with Charles Darwin - the book remains relevant in the history of mineralogy and will appeal to non-specialists interested in South American adventure.

Octogenarian Anthony Smith's journey was originally inspired by both the Kontiki Expedition of Thor Heyerdahl (who he knew) and the incredible story of the survivors of a 1940 boat disaster, who spent 70 days adrift in the Atlantic, eventually reaching land emaciated and close to death. While this might sound like a voyage no-one would wish to emulate, to octogenarian Anthony Smith it sounded like an adventure, and he placed a typically straightforward advertisement in the Telegraph that read "Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveller requires 3 crew. Must be OAP. Serious adventurers only." In his inimitable style, Smith details their voyage and the hardships they endured with a matter-of-fact air that makes his story seem all the more impressive. His advanced age allows him a wider perspective not only on the journey but on life itself, and his never-say-die attitude to the difficulty of the journey is inspirational. 'Old men ought to be explorers' said T.S. Eliot, and this book certainly gives a compelling argument in his favour. It is both a great story (a huge storm on the final night of the voyage almost wrecked them on a reef) and a call to action for the older generation - do not go quietly, says Anthony Smith, but seek out adventure as long as you are able.

Ernest Shackleton is one of history's great explorers, an extraordinary character who pioneered the path to the South Pole over 100 years ago and became a dominant figure in Antarctic discovery. A charismatic personality, his incredible adventures on four expeditions have captivated generations and inspired a dynamic, modern following in business leadership. None more so than the Endurance mission, where Shackleton's commanding presence saved the lives of his crew when their ship was crushed by ice and they were turned out on to the savage frozen landscape. But Shackleton was a flawed character whose chaotic private life, marked by romantic affairs, unfulfilled ambitions, overwhelming debts and failed business ventures, contrasted with his celebrity status as a leading explorer. Drawing on extensive research of original diaries and personal correspondence, Michael Smith's definitive biography brings a fresh perspective to our understanding of this complex man and the heroic age of polar exploration.

Carl Lumholtz (1851 1922) was a Norwegian ethnographer and explorer who, soon after publishing an influential study of Australian Aborigines (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection), spent five years researching native peoples in Mexico. This two-volume work, published in 1903, describes his expeditions to remote parts of north-west Mexico, inspired by reports about indigenous peoples who lived in cliff dwellings along mountainsides. While in the US in 1890 on a lecture tour, Lumholtz was able to raise sufficient funds for the expedition. He arrived in Mexico City that summer, and after meeting the president, Porfirio D az, he set off with a team of scientists for the Sierra Madre del Norte mountains in the north-west of Mexico, to find the cave-dwelling Tarahumare Indians. Volume 2 focuses mainly on the neighbouring Huichols people, their daily life, and their religious practices, including shamanism.

At a time when the greatest mountains in the greatest ranges had been climbed by numerous routes, collected like stamps and written about extensively, Victor Saunders and his friends relished the exploration of the slightly lower, slightly humbler, but often more aesthetically satisfying and no less testing summits in the 6,000- and 7,000-metre range. With thousands of unclimbed peaks in the Karakoram and Himalaya to choose from, these were ripe fruit for the committed mountaineers of the day. In his Boardman-Tasker-winning Elusive Summits, Victor Saunders describes four expeditions to the Karakoram, to Uzum Brakk, Bojohaghur Duanasir, Rimo and the stunning Spantik. Battling crevasses and violent weather, injured climbers and dropped rucksacks, Saunders and his friends make a string of exciting and difficult ascents. Saunders communicates the highs and lows of expedition life with relish, good humour, and a keen eye for the idiosyncratic among his companions. His first book, Elusive Summits, is a wonderful celebration of the sheer exhilaration that comes from the hardest level of alpine-style exploration in the Karakoram.

For the first time ever Roland Huntford presents each man's full account of the race to the South Pole in their own words. In 1910 Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen set sail for Antarctica, each from his own starting point, and the epic race for the South Pole was on. December 2011 marks the centenary of the conclusion to the last great race of terrestrial discovery. For the first time Scott's unedited diaries run alongside those of both Amundsen and Olav Bjaaland, never before translated into English. Cutting through the welter of controversy to the events at the heart of the story, Huntford weaves the narrative from the protagonists' accounts of their own fate. What emerges is a whole new understanding of what really happened on the ice and the definitive account of the Race for the South Pole.

This book tells the tragic true story of the fate of Scott of the Antarctic and his companions on the return trip from the South Pole.It was written anonymously by Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams, for Scott's son Peter, with the object at the time of raising funds for the child following his father's death.This facsimile has been created from an original 1913 edition, a now scarce work first published in the year of Scott's death during the Terra Nova expedition of 1910-1913.

"Portugal is not all that far away, or exotic, or dangerous, but it felt like a huge stretch for me to leave my partner, family, job and home and just go off. An overland solo trip lasting months in an ancient little campervan was not the kind of thing I did. But it was something I was about to do."In her debut memoir A Van of One's Own, Biddy Wells tells the story of how, propelled by a thirst for peace and quiet, for a modest adventure and, perhaps, for freedom, she left for Portugal on her own, with only her old campervan, Myfawny, and her GPS, Tanya, for company. Having left just about everything behind, her solo trip forces her to face her fears, her past, and herself. The road provides the perfect canvas to connect the dots between a past breakdown and her present need for freedom, as she reflects on her own life, her relationship, her family and the world around her - to see whether her life still has room for her in it. As she meets wise and not-so- wise people, members of the campervan community and friendly locals, her outlook on life begins to shift, and a chance meeting in a bar leads to the person who will put her on the right track.But will she go back home, to Wales?And what is the meaning of 'home? 'A Van of One's Own is a journey through the breath-taking scenery of France, Spain, and finally Portugal, populated by colourful characters and the roar of the ocean, the taste of fresh fish and the grind of the asphalt; but more importantly, it is a journey through past memories and present conflicts to inner peace.

'When a man is conscious of the urge to explore, not all the arduous journeyings, the troubles that will beset him and the lack of material gains from his investigations will stop him.' Nanda Devi is one of the most inaccessible mountains in the Himalaya. It is surrounded by a huge ring of peaks, among them some of the highest mountains in the Indian Himalaya. For fifty years the finest mountaineers of the early twentieth century had repeatedly tried and failed to reach the foot of the mountain. Then, in 1934, Eric Shipton and H. W. Tilman found a way in. Their 1934 expedition is regarded as the epitome of adventurous mountain exploration. With their three tough and enthusiastic Sherpa companions Angtharkay, Kusang and Pasang, they solved the problem of access to the Nanda Devi Sanctuary. They crossed difficult cols, made first ascents and explored remote, uninhabited valleys, all of which is recounted in Shipton's wonderfully vivid Nanda Devi - a true evocation of Shipton's enduring spirit of adventure and one of the most inspirational travel books ever written.

'As I studied the maps, one thing about them captured my imagination - Across this blank space was written one challenging word, "Unexplored"' In 1937 two of the twentieth century's greatest explorers set off to explore an unknown area of the Himalaya, the breath-taking Shaksgam mountains. With a team of surveyors and Sherpas, Eric Shipton and H.W. Tilman located and mapped the land around K2, the second-highest mountain in the world. It was their greatest venture, and one that paved the way for all future mountaineering in that area of the Himalaya. For Shipton and Tilman, exploration was everything, with a summit a welcome bonus, and Blank on the Map is the book that best captures their spirit of adventure. With an observant eye and keen sense of humour, Shipton tells how the expedition entered the unknown Shaksgam mountains, crossing impenetrable gorges, huge rivers and endless snow fields. There's a very human element to Shipton's dealings with his Sherpa friends, and with his Balti porters, some of whom were helpful, while some were less so. The expedition uncovers traces of ancient cultures and visits vibrant modern civilisations living during the last days of the British Empire. Only when all supplies are exhausted, their clothes in tatters and all equipment lost do the men finally return home. A mountain exploration classic.

Land of Tempest reveals Eric Shipton at his best - writing with enthusiasm and humour about his explorations in Patagonia in the 1950s and 1960s. He is an astute observer of nature and the human spirit, and this account of his travels is infused with with his own zest for discovery and the joy of camaraderie. Undaunted by hardship or by injury, Shipton and his team attempt to cross one of the great ice caps in Patagonia. It's impossible not to marvel at his determination, resilience and appetite for travel and adventure, be it climbing snow-clad mountains, or walking in forested foothills. Shipton takes a reader with him on his travels, and the often-inhospitable places he visits are a stark contrast to the warmth of the people he encounters. Land of Tempest is essential reading for anyone who loves nature, mountains, climbing, adventure or simply the joy of discovering unknown places.

`If I could choose a place to die, it would be in the mountains.’ Clouds from Both Sides is the autobiography of Julie Tullis, the first British woman to climb an 8,000-metre peak – Broad Peak – and the first to reach the summit of K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. A truly remarkable woman, Julie describes her early days in a London disrupted by World War II; her family life, climbing, teaching and living by the sandstone outcrops of High Rocks and Harrison’s Rocks in Tunbridge Wells, Kent; and her experience as a high-level mountaineer and filmmaker. Tullis demonstrates her determination and self-discipline through training to black-belt standard in both judo and aikido, and never allows financial concerns to keep her away from the high mountains – a place where she felt at peace. Filled with vivid accounts of frostbite, avalanches, snow blindness and exhilaration alongside her climbing partner Kurt Diemberger, Clouds from Both Sides takes us to Yosemite, Nanga Parbat, Everest and K2. First published in 1986 before her death, and with an additional chapter written by Peter Gillman documenting Tullis’s final, fated expedition to K2, this story is as relevant and awe inspiring today as it ever was. Tullis’s achievements are timeless and her attitudes and opinions far ahead of their time. Clouds from Both Sides is a tribute to the memory of an inspirational woman determined to strive for her dreams, an extraordinary account of her adventures and an exhilarating testament to her courage.

In 1982, following the relaxation of access restrictions to Tibet, six climbers set off for the Himalaya to explore the little-known Shishapangma massif in Tibet. Dealing with a chaotic build-up and bureaucratic obstacles so huge they verged on comical, the mountaineers gained access to Shishapangma's unclimbed South-West Face where Doug Scott, Alex MacIntyre and Roger Baxter-Jones made one of the most audacious and stylish Himalayan climbs ever. First published in 1984 as The Shishapangma Expedition, Shishapangma won the first ever Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. Told through a series of diary-style entries from all the climbers involved, Shishapangma reveals the difficult nature of Himalayan decision-making, mountaineering tactics and climbing relationships. Tense and candid, the six writers see every event differently, reacting in different ways and pulling no punches in their opinions of the other mountaineers - quite literally at one point. Nonetheless, the climbers, at the peak of their considerable powers and experience, completed an extremely committing enterprise. The example set by their fine climb survives and several new routes (all done in alpine style) have now been added to this magnificent face. For well-trained climbers, such ascents are fast and efficient, but the consequences of error, misjudgement or bad luck can be terminal and, sadly, soon afterwards two of the participants were struck down in mountaineering accidents - MacIntyre hit by stonefall on Annapurna's South Face and Baxter-Jones being caught by an ice avalanche on the Aiguille du Triolet. In addition their support climber, Nick Prescott, died in a Chamonix hospital from an altitude-induced ailment. Shishapangma is a gripping first-hand account of the intense reality of high-altitiude alpinism.