A Wretched and Precarious Situation In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier [Paperback]

From a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, famed Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary spots a line of mysterious peaks dotting the horizon. In 1906, he names that distant, uncharted territory Crocker Land. Years later, two of Pearys disciples, George Borup and Donald MacMillan, take the brave steps Peary never did: with a team of amateur adventurers and intrepid native guides, they endeavor to reach this unknown land and fill in the last blank space on the globe. What follows is hardship and mishap the likes of which none of the explorers could possibly have imagined. From howling blizzards and desperate food shortages to crime and tragedy, the explorers experience a remarkable journey of endurance, courage, and hope. Set in one of the worlds most inhospitable places,Welky is a superb writer, and he mines the interpersonal relationships of the expeditions participants  the loyalties, the friendships grown or torn asunder, the cultural insensitivities  as effectively as he describes the travel, the exploration into unknown territory, and the constant flirtation with death at the hands of the elements.What a book!....Excellent writing that combines some of the serious novelists techniques with information that can only come from hundreds of hours with long-forgotten diaries, letters and newspaper accounts.Polar historians&will be grateful to have the Crocker Land expedition properly documented.Unravels the strange story of one of the worlds greatest discoveries that never was.A penetrating study of human character in a challenging environment....His seamless narrative, chilling at times and always thought-provoking, transports the reader to a time when the Arctic was virtually as harsh and inaccessible a place as the Moon or Mars.Welky's fast-moving, evocative narrative paints a vivid portrait of the men who, along with their Inuit companions, risked their lives for dreams of lost continents awaiting discovery. Drawing on extenl&