Near Death In The Arctic: True Stories Of Disaster And Survival Edited by Cecil Kuhne

Cecil Kuhne continues his Near Death anthology series with …In The Arctic, a collection of fascinating tales that finds adventurers and explorers traveling to the figurative ends of the Earth.

The book’s foreword is taken from 1992’s Polar Dream by Helen Thayer, the first woman to travel solo to the magnetic North Pole. The excerpt throws the reader right into the harsh elements as she and her dog get caught in a savage storm. Hours later when she can assess her situation, she finds the wind ripped her tent, absconded with days’ worth of food, and left her face and eyes bloodied.

Valerian Albanov’s advice that “One should not poke one’s nose into places where Nature does not want it” from the appropriately titled In the Land of White Death, his account of the three-month journey across the Siberian Arctic in 1913 or 1914 after being trapped for almost 18 months on the ice-locked Saint Anna, proves wise though none whose exploits are documented here took his advice.

The reason why is best explained by Lennard Bickell in Mawson’s Will about Douglas Mawson’s expedition of Antarctica, which he organized after declining Robert Falcon Scott’s offer in 1910. Bickell writes, “Succinctly, clearly, the frozen continent said This is no place for man! Yet because it erected such barriers, the continent was spiced with the temptations of discovery and challenge.” However, high rewards usually have high prices, and death is not just near but right upon Mawson’s group as Belgarve Ninnis plunges into a crevasse. Bickell’s description of the moment would be fitting in a horror novel:

“The fine snow choked his eyes, ears, and throat, and he did not hear his own smothered death cry. Down in cold blackness, 150 feet down, his falling body smashed into a projecting ledge of ironclad ice. With the shattered remains of his sledge, with the doomed dogs, Belgrave Ninnis plunged deeper and deeper into the abyss.”

The best aspect of …In The Arctic, as opposed to the other books in the series, is seeing history from multiple viewpoints and the connections between the men. In the race to the South Pole, Captain Roald Amundsen was the victor and rightly used it as the title of his book. On the Fram, which contributor Dr. Fridtjof Nansen used almost 20 years earlier attempting to reach the North Pole in 1893, Amundsen had planned to go to the North Pole in 1910 until he heard Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, whose account we get in The North Pole, had beaten him. Although some historians now dispute both claims, Amundsen changed course and headed south, beating Scott by 35 days. Amundsen left a note for him among supplies left behind.

Scott’s Antarctica expedition ended tragically as he and the members of his team who journeyed to the pole never returned. The excerpt from his journal made clear that they knew “the end cannot be far.” Apsley Cherry-Garrard was a part of Scott’s expedition, which was dubbed The Worst Journey in the World, and the search party that discovered their remains. Cherry-Garrard not only mentions the impact Amundsen had, but uses passages from South Pole.

Another member of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration is Ernest Shackleton. His attempt “to be the first to cross the south polar continent from sea to sea” ended with the Endurance breaking apart due to damage from ice. Shackleton and five people took a lifeboat to South Georgia Island for help for the remainder of the team. The ship’s captain, Frank Arthur Worsley, was one of the five. They describe different parts of the adventure.

The book is filled with other stories, none spookier then the intense isolation experienced by Admiral Richard E Byrd in 1934 who spent five months alone at the South Pole Advance Base meteorological station, and David Lewis in a selection that could have been in the …On The High Seas as he became the first to sail around Antarctica in 1972 on Ice Bird.

After reading these harrowing tales, I find myself in complete concurrence with editor Kuhne who states, “the globe’s apexes are best observed from the relative comfort of the pages related here.” Make sure to dress warm when you cuddle up with this one, as you may feel an inexplicable chill no matter what your surroundings.

Near Death In The Mountains edited By Cecil Kuhne

Editor Cecil Kuhne’s second entry in his Near Death true-adventure series is set In The Mountains. It presents excerpts from stories of climbers in different parts and altitudes around the globe risking life and limbs to follow their passions.

While the motivation behind the drive and desire of the men On The High Seas may not, and possibly could not, have been clearly clarified in their writing, at least the accomplishment of traveling from point A to point B by boat made some logical sense. The mountaineers really have nothing to offer for their rationale that equals the sailor. Maybe if they were trying to get over or through the mountain, but there’s no need to traverse up and back down it other than George Mallory’s famous quote about why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest: “Because it’s there.” Felice Benuzzi’s No Picnic on Mount Kenya exemplifies that sentiment. He and two fellow Italian soldiers escaped a British POW camp in which they were imprisoned for two years during WWII, made the climb, and then returned until the war ended.

Walter Bonatti may offer the best explanation from the contributors in The Mountains Of My Life when he writes about conquering the impossible. In 1955 he made attempts with others to climb France’s Aguille du Dru, which at the time was “the last, great unattainable legendary challenge of the Alps.” He was repeatedly turned away by the elements until his third try when he went solo, which would be tough enough, but he rejected the use of spits, a type of piton that was rising in popularity but which he saw as a form of cheating against traditional alpinism.

The drive to be the first, to be an historical figure in the field, must compel these men as well. What else would explain Maurice Herzog’s trade-off in June 1950 of being part of the first team to successfully reach a peak over 8,000 meters, the crest of Annapurna in the Himalayas, in exchange for the amputation of frostbitten toes and fingers “in the field, and without the use of an anesthetic.”

Injury and death are accepted aspects of the endeavor. Peter Potterfield’s vivid description from In The Zone of his 150-ft fall in Washington’s North Cascades in 1988 and the results of “several compound fractures which protruded grotesquely from his body” may have the reader squirming in his seat. Others aren’t as lucky and it can end in a moment’s notice. In David Roberts’ The Mountain Of My Fear, an account of his 1965 climb of Mount Huntington in Alaska, he had the misfortune to see his friend die. “Suddenly, Ed was flying backward through the air," he wrote. "I could see him fall, wordless, fifty feet free, then strike the steep ice below.” Yet, Roberts continued climbing and became a prolific chronicler of his adventures.

Art Davidson’s account of his group’s 1967 winter ascent of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley in Minus 148° is breathtaking, figuratively for the reader and literally for one of the participants. Many veteran climbers refused the offer of Davidson and his friend Shiro Nishimae because “chances of success were zero” and “the combination of cold, winter, wind, darkness, and altitude could be the harshest ever encountered.” By the second full day on Kahiltna Glacier, Jacques “Farine” Batkin fell to his death in a crevasse because rather than being filled in “the wind-driven snow had covered [it] with a crust that concealed [its] presence.” This event understandably fractured the party moving forward; some persevered, but their return to the camp was threatened. They stayed in a snow cave as they waited days to maker their descent, which led to dire declarations, such as “Pieces are coming off my bad ear!” Different members of the expedition kept diaries, allowing for a more complete version of the events for the reader.

Joe Simpson’s Touching The Void was very controversial in the climbing community because his partner, Simon Yates, cut their rope to save himself as a severely injured Simpson hung helplessly over a crevasse in the Peruvian Andes and could have pulled them both in. The excerpt takes place before that crucial point in their story, which was later made into a film.

Near Death In The Mountains is a gripping collection for those who climb up mountains and those who climb into comfortable chairs to read. It will change the perspective of the latter the next time they gaze upon a mountain, and no matter what the color, its majesty will be better appreciated.