EMPIRE OF ICE AND STONE

The gripping account of a fatal polar adventure.

Journalist Levy, the author of River of Darkness and Labyrinth of Ice, chronicles the tale of an Arctic expedition that featured a great deal of heroism as well as disaster. Its leader was Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962), an experienced polar explorer who was perhaps better at self-promotion than organization. In 1913, he convinced the Canadian government to finance an expedition to investigate Inuit people on its northern coast and the poorly charted sea and islands beyond. A veteran of the exploration genre, Levy capably describes the backgrounds of a dozen significant figures and the complex job of buying ships and stocking them with supplies sufficient for several years. In a hint of what lay ahead, the author notes that the ships were not designed to break through sea ice and were stocked hastily to meet an obligatory spring departure date. Sailing north during a particularly cold summer, Stefansson’s ship became icebound. After a few weeks, he abandoned it, leaving for a purported hunting trip but then walking to land in an attempt to resume the expedition. Drifting east, the ship was crushed, forcing 25 crew members to survive on the ice and then struggle across 50 miles of frozen sea to a desolate island north of Siberia. Their only advantage was their captain, Bob Bartlett, an Arctic veteran and superb leader who kept them together and, with an Inuit companion, walked 1,000 miles to Alaska to summon ships that rescued 14 survivors. Many fascinating histories of exploration stick to the evidence, but popular writers often novelize their material, inventing dialogues and their subjects’ inner thoughts. Levy belongs to this group, but his tale is entertaining and probably more or less what happened. The author includes maps, a list of characters, and a timeline of “Relevant Arctic Exploration, Expeditions, and Disasters.”

Hair-raising suffering and heroism in the Arctic.