Leonard F. GuttridgeCritiques

Interesting story, poorly told. I feel like this is one that could have benefited from a solid editor with a timeline.

Last year I read North by Roger Hubank, a fictional account of the Greely expedition. Afterwards, I wanted to read an historical account of the Greeley expedition. In this book, I learned more about problems with the first two relief attempts. I liked Guttridge's detailed end notes describing the sources from institutions such as the National Archives and the Library of Congress.

Unfortunately, I found Leonard F. Guttridge's "Ghosts of Cape Sabine" too poorly written to enjoy. This should have been a great, epic tale of the Greeley expedition's misfortunes while spending years exploring the arctic. The story itself is fairly dramatic and interesting-- there is plenty of source material to make this a story worth telling.

Under Guttridge's pen, the story is extremely difficult to follow and unskillfully woven. (I defy you to find a paragraph in this book that does not mention at least three different people... it just becomes a confusing jumble of names all to frequently.) I found myself skimming and skipping page after boring page before I finally put down the book for good.

I love a good arctic (or antarctic) exploration story... there are tons of great books out there focused on the trials and tribulations of different expeditions. Unfortunately, this is not one of them.½

Leonard F. Guttridge is drawn to exciting events. Too bad they aren't drawn to him.

Guttridge has written books about two sad events of nineteenth century Arctic exploration, the Greeley expedition (The Ghosts of Cape Sabine) and the Jeannette expedition. Both were attempts to reach the North Pole, or at least explore northern latitudes; both involved problems with ships; both resulted in losses of many of the men on the expedition.

Of his two books, this strikes me as the better one, perhaps because the story of the Jeannette is more coherent: The expedition was organized, it set out, the ship got trapped, the crew abandoned ship and split up, and some survived and others perished. There is more action, and the action has a direction. But I still found myself slightly lost as the narrative proceeded. The characters seemed ever so slightly unreal.

This isn't really a complaint. This is a useful book showing the difficulties which nineteenth century explorers faced -- and the consequences of biting off more than they could chew. But I feel as if there is a truly great book about the Jeannette waiting to be written, and this isn't it.

Whom the Arctic destroys, it first drives mad.

That is the sad truth of nineteenth and early twentieth century Arctic exploration. From John Ross's sighting of the non-existent "Croker Mountains" to the crew of the Karluk a century later, the tales of officers making absurd decisions, of sailors out of control, of choices made for no known reason are endless. There are a lot of reasons. Scurvy leads the list. Seasonal affective disorder certainly doesn't help. Other dietary problems may contribute.

Sometimes, the problems began before the expedition even sailed. The Greeley expedition to Ellesmere Island in 1881, one of the more ambitious attempts to reach the high arctic, is a case in point. The planning was simply fuddled. This left the members of the expedition with no means of survival and little hope of timely rescue. As a result, the majority died, miserably, and charges of cannibalism flew.

The tale is certainly dramatic, needing only a good telling.

This telling is, well, fair. It was simply too easy to get lost. Two or three times it seemed as if everybody was about to die and we must be at the end of the actual expedition. Then -- surprise! -- everybody goes on doing whatever they were doing. People died, periodically, but it seems as if the narrative bounces back and forth from the end to somewhere in the middle. It may be strictly chronological, but if so, it loses the thread of the chronology.

This probably still qualifies as the best popular account of one of the disastrous miscalculations that have so marred Arctic explorations. But you might want to take notes as you read it. It's too easy to get lost otherwise.

The annotation of this book promises "a nonfiction narrative that reads like a novel." That statement more aptly describes "Iceblink" or "Trial by Ice" than "Ghosts of Cape Sabine", however.
That is not to say that it did not have its own points of interests. The diary excerpts were interesting, as they tell of the several different points of view, as well as show how one can choose to remain in the dark about something obvious to everyone around them.
As stated much in the book, Greely may have been a good commander for the most part, but not on this particular expedition. Even though "the expedition, after a retreating voyage of 500 miles, landed as its assigned rendezvous with every man in health, all records intact, all scientific instruments preserved", it does not mean that he could not have handled his people better. How often had he threatened to demote or arrest men over trivial matters? Moreover, what of his insane dislike of other explorers such as Nansen & Peary? Not to mention his harsh opinion of Garlington. Garlington & his group could just as easily have suffered the same fate if the Yantic had not changed her course to rescue them.