Joseph Ren Bellot (1826 53) was a French naval officer whose travels took him from Africa to the Arctic before his tragic death at the age of 27. In 1851 he joined a British expedition to search for the missing explorer Sir John Franklin (1786 1847), whose expedition to find the North-West Passage was last heard of in July 1845. Although the voyage was unsuccessful in its search, it explored previously unknown areas of the Arctic. Bellot kept extensive notes about his journey in this remote region; they originally appeared in French in 1854 and were translated into English in 1855 and published in two volumes. Volume 1 contains a biography of Bellot, who was regarded as a hero in both France and Britain, and the first part of his journal, which describes the ship's departure from Scotland, their arrival in Greenland, and their encounters with the indigenous people there.

Joseph Ren Bellot (1826 53) was a French naval officer whose travels took him from Africa to the Arctic before his tragic death at the age of 27. In 1851 he joined a British expedition to search for the missing polar explorer Sir John Franklin (1786 1847), whose expedition to find the North-West Passage was last heard of in July 1845. Although the voyage was unsuccessful in its search, it explored previously unknown areas of the Arctic. Bellot kept extensive notes about his journey in this remote region; they originally appeared in French in 1854 and were translated into English in 1855 and published in two volumes. In Volume 2, Bellot, who was regarded as a hero in both France and Britain, describes how the crew survived the harsh climate of the Arctic winter, his exploration by dog-sledge of inland polar regions, and his eventual return to Britain.

In 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a secret mission - to persuade the islanders of Run to grant a monopoly to England over their nutmeg, a fabulously valuable spice in Europe. This infuriated the Dutch, who were determined to control the world's nutmeg supply. For five years Courthope and his band of thirty men were besieged by a force one hundred times greater - and his heroism set in motion the events that led to the founding of the greatest city on earth. A beautifully told adventure story and a fascinating depiction of exploration in the seventeenth century, NATHANIEL'S NUTMEG sheds a remarkable light on history.

From the sharp, comic voice of Haunted Inside Passage, Never Cry Halibut is a collection of humorous and thoughtful short essays about hunting and fishing in Alaska. Accompanied by photographs, each story reflects the author's three-decade relationship with the wildest places left in North America as he interacts with brown bears, wolves, wilderness, commercial fishing, and the nearly forgotten act of harvesting food from the wild. From hilarious tales of his nieces outfishing him to reflective ruminations on the human connection to nature, Bjorn captures the liveliness that comes from living so close to the Southeast Alaska wilds.

Following his participation in James Cook's circumnavigation in HMS Endeavour (1768-71), Joseph Banks developed an extensive global network of scientists and explorers. His correspondence shows how he developed effective working links with the British Admiralty and with the generation of naval officers who sailed after Cook.

In late July 1776, fathers Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Francisco Velez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe to chart a route to the new Spanish missions in California. The Fransiscans planned to scout the country for mineral wealth and locate the Ute and Navajo tribes for conversion. In present-day Utah, however, the dangers of starvation and hypothermia forced them to turn back. By November the friars were reduced to survival mode: stymied by the raging Colorado River, they had to kill their horses for food. In this adventure-history, David Roberts travels the Spaniards' forgotten route, using Escalante's first-person report as his guide. Blending personal and historical narrative, he relives the glories, catastrophes and courage of this desperate journey.

On August 1, 2008, no fewer than eight international teams of mountain climbers--some experienced, others less prepared--ascended K2, the world's second-highest mountain, with the last group reaching the summit at 8 p.m. Then disaster struck. A huge ice chunk came loose above a deadly three-hundred-foot avalanche-prone gully, destroying the fixed guide ropes. More than a dozen climbers--many without oxygen and some with no headlamps--faced the nearly impossible task of descending in the blackness with no guideline and no protection. Over the course of the chaotic night, some would miraculously make it back. Others would not.

In this riveting work of narrative nonfiction, journalist Graham Bowley re-creates one of the most dramatic tales of death and survival in mountaineering history.

This volume aims to advance the analysis about Amerigo Vespucci by considering and connecting several fields of study such as literary history, philology, the history of science and cartography, economic history, and the history of ideas. The multifaceted research frames guide the reader through the complex vicissitudes of Amerigo Vespucci's life. The receptions and implications explore the intense cultural and historical dynamics that shaped the decades between the end of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century.

In this fascinating biography, author Lisa Baile provides a detailed portrait of John Clarke, the man who became British Columbia's most renowned mountaineer by doing it his way. Clarke had no interest in "trophy climbs" and never did ascend many of BC's highest peaks. On the other hand, he explored more virgin territory and racked up more first ascents than any other climber -- perhaps more than any climber who ever lived. Although he came to be honoured far and wide and is one of the few mountaineers to be awarded the Order of Canada, he was a modest man who pursued his passion without fanfare, frequently embarking on gruelling expeditions into unknown territory by himself. His reputation spread and grew to legendary proportions, not just owing to the prodigious scale of his achievements, but because of the way he carried them out -- he travelled light and scorned technology, wearing cotton long Johns and eating home-made granola. He dedicated his life to exploring the numberless, nameless peaks of the Coast Range and worked at odd jobs just long enough to pay for the next season's climbing. He was charismatic and famously attractive to women, but none were able to compete with his first love and he didn't marry until he was almost fifty. Always a popular lecturer, in his later years he devoted his considerable energies to the cause of environmental education. After he succumbed to cancer in 2003, the BC government named Mount John Clarke in his honour -- fitting recognition for the man who had himself named many BC mountains. This book covers this remarkable life from beginning to end, examining Clarke through his own words and pictures as well as through the words of his many friends. All agree it was an honour to have known him, and readers will find it equally inspiring to meet him through these pages.

UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIAL FROM THE AUTHOR In The Curse of Oak Island, longtime Rolling Stone contributing editor and journalist Randall Sullivan explored the curious history of Oak Island and the generations of people who tried and failed to unlock its secrets. Drawing on his exclusive access to Marty and Rick Lagina, stars of the History Channel's television show The Curse of Oak Island, Sullivan delivers an up to the minute chronicle of their ongoing search for the truth. In 1795, a teenager discovered a mysterious circular depression in the ground on Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, Canada, and ignited rumors of buried treasure. Early excavators uncovered a clay-lined shaft containing layers of soil interspersed with wooden platforms, but when they reached a depth of ninety feet, water poured into the shaft and made further digging impossible. Since then the mystery of Oak Island's "Money Pit" has enthralled generations of treasure hunters, including a Boston insurance salesman whose obsession ruined him; young Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and film star Errol Flynn. Perplexing discoveries have ignited explorers' imaginations: a flat stone inscribed in code; a flood tunnel draining from a man-made beach; a torn scrap of parchment; stone markers forming a huge cross. Swaths of the island were bulldozed looking for answers; excavation attempts have claimed two lives. Theories abound as to what's hidden on Oak Island. Could it be pirates' treasure or Marie Antoinette's lost jewels? Or perhaps the Holy Grail or proof of the identity of the true author of Shakespeare's plays? In this rich, fascinating account, Sullivan takes readers along as the Lagina brothers mount the most comprehensive effort yet to crack the mystery, and chronicles the incredible history of the "curse" of Oak Island, where for two centuries dreams of buried treasure have led intrepid treasure hunters to sacrifice everything.

Laika began her life as a stray dog on the streets of Moscow and died in 1957 aboard the Soviet satellite Sputnik II. Initially the USSR reported that Laika, the first animal to orbit the earth, had survived in space for seven days, providing valuable data that would make future manned space flight possible. People believed that Laika died a painless death as her oxygen ran out. Only in recent decades has the real story become public: Laika died after only a few hours in orbit when her capsule overheated. Laika's Window positions Laika as a long overdue hero for leading the way to human space exploration. Kurt Caswell examines Laika's life and death and the speculation surrounding both. Profiling the scientists behind Sputnik II, he studies the political climate driven by the Cold War and the Space Race that expedited the satellite's development. Through this intimate portrait of Laika, we begin to understand what the dog experienced in the days and hours before the launch, what she likely experienced during her last moments, and what her flight means to history and to humanity. While a few of the other space dog flights rival Laika's in endurance and technological advancements, Caswell argues that Laika's flight serves as a tipping point in space exploration "beyond which the dream of exploring nearby and distant planets opened into a kind of fever from which humanity has never recovered." Examining the depth of human empathy-what we are willing to risk and sacrifice in the name of scientific achievement and our exploration of the cosmos, and how politics and marketing can influence it-Laika's Windowis also about our search to overcome loneliness and the role animals play in our drive to look far beyond the earth for answers.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Volume 4 was edited by William Desborough Cooley, one of the founders of the Society, who stressed the importance of historical accounts to modern exploration. First published in 1849, it contains the eye-witness account by Thomas Maynard of Sir Francis Drake's last voyage across the Atlantic (1595-1596) and his failed attack on San Juan in Puerto Rico, together with a Spanish account of the attack, and an English translation. The text is accompanied by explanatory notes.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This compilation by R. H. Major of the British Museum (published in 1859) brings together various manuscript and published sources, some of them anonymous, which provide a picture of European exploration in the Southern Ocean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It includes passages from the writings of William Dampier, who not only surveyed part of the coast of Australia ('New Holland'), but also made detailed notes of the fauna and flora he encountered there.

Following his participation in James Cook's circumnavigation in HMS Endeavour (1768-71), Joseph Banks developed an extensive global network of scientists and explorers. His correspondence shows how he developed effective working links with the British Admiralty and with the generation of naval officers who sailed after Cook.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. The two-volume account by Juan Gonz lez de Mendoza of the history and geography of China was translated into English in 1588. It was the first detailed description of China available in English, though the introduction to this 1853 edition reviews several earlier reports by western travellers. Mendoza did not himself visit China; his first volume is derived largely from the papers of Martin de Rada, an Augustinian friar who went to China on a missionary expedition in 1575.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This volume contains two narratives about Russia: Of the Russe Common Wealth by Giles Fletcher, Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to the Russian court in 1588, and a transcription of the manuscript account of the travels of Sir Jerome Horsey, who lived in Russia from 1575 to 1591, firstly as an agent of the English Russia Company, and later as a diplomat. Appendices include Horsey's description of the coronation of Tsar Fyodor I in 1584.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. The two-volume account by Juan Gonz lez de Mendoza of the history and geography of China was translated into English in 1588. It was the first detailed description of China available in English, though the introduction to this 1853 edition reviews several earlier reports by western travellers. Mendoza did not himself visit China; his second volume concludes the account based on de Rada's writings and also describes the missionary travels of the Franciscan friar Pedro de Alfaro.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This volume (published in 1855) contains three narratives: Frederick Martens' description of a voyage to Spitzbergen in 1671, first translated into English and published in 1694 in a book of voyages dedicated to Samuel Pepys, then Secretary to the Admiralty; the Relation du Groeneland of Isaac de la Peyr re (published anonymously in French in 1663 and specially translated for this book); and the extraordinary account of the survival of eight Englishmen 'left by mischance in Green-land' for nine months in 1630.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Volume 1, published in 1847, contains Sir Richard Hawkins's account of the voyage by which in 1593 he planned to sail to 'the Ilands of Japan, of the Phillippinas, and Molucas, the kingdomes of China, and the East Indies, by the way of the Straites of Magelan, and the South Sea'. The version of the book printed in 1622 was edited for the Hakluyt Society by Captain C .R. Drinkwater Bethune of the Royal Navy, and includes an editorial preface, explanatory footnotes and an index.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Volume 2, published in 1847, consists of letters of Christopher Columbus to the Treasurer of the King and Queen of Spain, describing his first, third and fourth voyages, and a letter from Diego Alvarez Chanca, a royal physician who went on the second voyage and reported his experiences to the town council of Seville. In this edition by R. H. Major, the letters are given in the original Latin and Spanish with an English translation, editor's preface, explanatory notes and index.

Ernest Oberholtzer (1884-1977) is one of the great unsung heroes of the American conservation movement of the twentieth century. Selected as one of the 100 influential Minnesotans of the twentieth century by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a friend and contemporary of both Aldo Leopold and Sigurd Olson, and one of founders of The Wilderness Society, "Ober" was best known for his pioneering work to preserve one of the last remaining wilderness areas east of the Rockies--the Quetico-Superior region of northern Minnesota and southern Ontario.
The long campaign by Ober and many others to preserve this area made a significant and lasting impression on conservation and wilderness preservation efforts around the world. Keeper of the Wild is the first book to document and explore the life of the man who led the fight to save the area that eventually became Voyageurs National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (today the most visited wilderness area in the United States), and the successful effort to preserve Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario as a protected wilderness area.
Drawing on a lifetime of notebooks, letters, and speeches, as well as interviews with the people who knew him best, Paddock maps Ober's transformation from a daring young outdoorsman and adventurer to an equally fierce defender of our country's disappearing wilderness areas.
Along with his desire to preserve the natural beauty of the boundary waters, Ober was also committed to preserving the culture of the native peoples of the northern wilderness. He befriended and traveled with them, learned to speak Ojibwe fluently, and began a life-long study of the legends and oral tradition of their culture. Because of his efforts on their behalf, the Ojibwe called him "Atisokan," meaning "legend" or "teller-of-legends."
JOE PADDOCK is a poet, oral historian, and environmental writer. A founding member of the Land Stewardship Project, he is the principal author of Soil and Survival: Land Stewardship and the Future of American Agriculture. His poetry collections are "Handful of Thunder: A Prairie Cycle," "Earth Tongues," and "Boars' Dance "and he edited the oral history collection "Things We Know Best."

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This volume, edited by Robert Schomburgk and first published in 1848, presents documents written by Sir Walter Raleigh following his expeditions to Guyana in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The title text recounts the events of Raleigh's first voyage, including his encounters with the Spanish and the quest for the legendary city of Manoa, and is accompanied by two documents that had not previously been published. The book also includes a detailed introduction and extensive explanatory notes, providing key biographical and historical information.

One bright April morning a dozen years ago, Clarence Wood and I stood on the crest of a birch knoll, looking out over the upper Kobuk valley. Before us, thousands of caribou grazed, dark specks trailing off into the blue-white distance. Clarence turned, his weathered Eskimo face split by a wide grin. "Lots," he said quietly. "Lots." The longer I live here and write, the more I find myself following Clarence's cue-turning to simpler words, and fewer of them. My hope, in these twenty-eight brief essays about life in the Alaskan arctic, is to find words not big enough, but small enough for a landscape and a place without end. ---- In A Place Beyond, Nick Jans leads us into his "found" home-the Eskimo village of Ambler, Alaska, and the vast wilderness around it. In his powerful essays, the rhythms of daily arctic life blend with high adventure-camping among wolves, traveling with Inupiat hunters, witnessing the Kobuk River at breakup. The poignancy of a village funeral comes to life, hordes of mosquitoes whine against a tent, a grizzly stands etched against the snow-just a sampling of the images and events rendered in Jans's transparent, visual prose. Moments of humor are offset by haunting insights, and by thoughtful reflections on contemporary Inupiaq culture, making A Place Beyond a book to savor.

The lifeline for all the writers collected here is the ocean's edge. Stephen Crane, Frank Stockton, Norman Duncan, Thomas Raddall, Alistair MacLeod, Silver Donald Cameron and others share blustering tales about ready ships and sailors longing to put to sea. The stories cover both modern and historical events.