The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage Of The Karluk (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
The year was 1913, polar expeditions had become the Last Great Adventure, and the names of Scott, Peary, and Shackleton were household words. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a lesser-known Arctic explorer, persuaded the Canadian government to fund an expedition that he hoped would raise him to the same pantheon, for he meant to discover the vast continent he was sure lurked beneath the polar ice cap. Stefansson was one of those figures in history who are too sincere to be considered con men, too impressive to be written off as charlatans, and too dangerously self-assured to be trusted with other men's lives.In appearance, the scale of the expedition was awesome: a flotilla of boats, the largest scientific staff ever taken on such a journey, several dog teams, tons of supplies, and loads of scientific equipment. In reality, afraid that someone else would beat him to the discovery of his imaginary continent, Stefansson bought supplies without examining them, hired almosst anyone who put themselves forward whatever their experience, and stuffed everything helterskelter into any boat he could hire that would float. Even so, they set sail too late, steaming out of the Esquimalt Naval Yard (Victoria, BC) in June. Six weeks later, the Arctic winter began, and the lead -- and largest -- boat, the H.M.C.S. Karluk, found itself frozen solid in the pack ice.At that point, Stefansson, taking the best of the dog teams and his closest associates, abandoned ship. He assured the crew and the less favored members of his expedition that he was only going for help and would soon return, but in fact he never looked back, leaving the party to almost certain death. As he knew, the ice itself was slowly moving west, bearing the ship with it deep into the stormy and desolate Bering Sea.Ironically, the Karluk carried with it an extensive library of books on polar exploration; among the collection was a volume recording a Russian expedition that had perished in just this way. One of the many poignant passages in The Ice Master tells of the members of the expedition, one after another, reading that book, each gradually realizing that they were eerily retracing the exact course of that doomed voyage.For five months, the Karluk remained frozen in a massive block of ice, drifting further and further west. Then, in January 1914, the ice began to crush the boat, and order was given to abandon ship. With nothing but the stores they managed to offload onto the ice, Captain Bartlett, twenty-one men, an Inuit woman and her two small daughters, twenty-nine dogs, and one pet cat were now shipwrecked in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, hundreds of miles from inhabited land.Captain Bartlett and one of two Inuit hunters began a desperate trip to Siberia, hundreds of miles away, to seek help, leaving the others, all in varying degrees of bad shape, to make their way to nearby Wrangel Island to await rescue. The island was barren and windswept, but at least there they would be off the ice (the shifting and breaking of which is a constant and terrifying threat) and possibly find game.What follows is a riveting story of defeat and despair. Like evil, disaster, too, is ultimately banal, and the story builds in power through creeping increments of small failures -- moments of bad judgment and even worse luck, compounded by inexperience and incompetence. Supply dumps disappear in snowstorms, never to be found; seals roll off the ice and sink when shot; the canned food they have rescued at the risk of their lives is slowly poisoning them; their clothing has been so often shredded by the sharp ice that it has become all but impossible to patch.As supplies and hope diminish, the men turn on each other, stealing, hoarding food, lying, and, in one instance, most likely commiting murder. Their eyes fail from the blinding brightness and the grit that is always blowing into them; their limbs swell up like balloons; their flesh becomes frostbitten and has to be hacked from their bodies. The one month of Arctic summer comes and goes, leaving them with only rotting seal pelts to eat and a sagging tent to protect them from the increasingly severe weather.When a ship finally arrives (Bartlett heroically manages to get to Siberia and then to find his way back to Canada, where he organized the rescue attempt), it is almost beside the point -- although some do survive, including the Inuit woman and her two little girls (one of whom is alive today), one dog, and the pet cat. But as touching as their return to civilization is, they are less survivors than salvage, and they know it.The Ice Master was passed on to me by a friend, and once I started it I couldn't stop, although I often wanted to. I would read a chapter a night, and dully lie in bed afterward, beset by that impersonal sense of despair that comes from witnessing men forced to bear the terrible consequences of someone else's folly. Furthermore, Jennifer Niven hasn't a clue when it comes to telling a story and her prose can be almost embarrassingly bad. But she has done her research (almost everyone on the voyage seems to have kept a journal of sorts) and eventually the narrative simply shrugs her aside and propels itself along on its own. The result is peculiarly compelling where by all rights it should be merely depressing. Tragedy has a logic and a meaning all its own.
I bought this book because of two reasons: there is "ice" in the title and the day I bought this, the temperature in Manila was averaging 36 deg Centigrade. Teethering below fever temperature. So, I said why not read something that is set in a snowy or icy land? When I saw this book being sold at P45 ($1), I bought it right away and cracked it open after few days. But tough luck, it took me two weeks to finish this and when I was winding down, the rainy season has just started and the weather was no longer unbearable. In fact, while typing this review there is an on-going typhoon Butchoy that is flooding the streets and my daughter cannot decide whether to go to school or not.Anyway, the other reason why I picked this up is sea adventure. Since I read Kon-Tiki three years ago, I am amazed how man and the sea could either get along well or hate each other. This love-hate relationship is like the most fascinating that man has with nature. Then there is ice in this book that imprisoned the crew of the ship called Karluk. So, it was like Kon-Tiki meeting Titanic or Poseidon. I have read and liked all of these.HMCS Karluk was an American built whaler that was bought by the Canadian government for the Canadian Artic Expedition in 1913. It was trapped in ice, sunk in January 1914 after floating for several months. Out of the 25 crew members, 11 died before they got to their temporary refuge in an island called Wrangel. This is the story of the ship and the hardship and triumph of the ship's crew.The good thing about reading survival stories is that they are always inspiring. No matter what kind of problem we have in our daily lives, there are always stories that are worst than what we are having. If your are short of cash to buy something, you think of these people who are ice-camping while trying to reach land (after Karluk sunk) who have no food except for dried meat and since they have no other food, they suffer from nephritis because of too much protein. So, the food that sustains them is also the food that kills them, writes Niven towards the end of the book. While, we here in the city, we complain about the traffic, the flood, the temperature but we have lots of available food. Yet, we normally choose the wrong ones: fatty or sugary.If you love survival stories, i.e., man's triumph against adversity, go for this book. It is well-written and not bogged-down with many cold historical facts. There is a nice revelation that has a lesson in the end that makes it not really your usual survival story.
What do You think about The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage Of The Karluk (2001)?
After reading, Endurance, Unbroken, Island of the Lost, and The Lost City of Z, it seems I should be sick of reading about people getting shipwrecked, marooned on deserted islands, stranded on the ice, and scrambling to survive in hostile environs after all plans go awry -- so far, I haven't. In part it's the thrill of the narrative and finding out what men are capable of under duress. Another attraction is the mental gymnastics and introspection that go with placing yourself in a similar situation. Which character would I be? Would I snap? Would I be the one who goes above and beyond and discovers talents and reserves of energy that defy logic? The fact that I read and enjoy this type of book probably says more about me than anything, but the fact is I love living vicariously through these adventurer stories. This one in particular is more harrowing and bleak than expected, but when the subtitle has the word "doomed" in it, I shouldn't be expecting a happy ending. Regardless, the story is gripping and it's a fairly quick read despite the endless setbacks and horrible, withering deaths.
—Rick
I am not normally drawn to books like this, but have enjoyed Niven's fiction writing so much, I wanted to see how she handled non-fiction. This was Niven's first book and one for which she has since received much acclaim. With the help of journals, historical documents and conversations with family members of the survivors, Niven chronicles the doomed voyage of the H.M.C.S. Karluk which set sail in June 1913 on the most elaborate Arctic expedition in history. Due to delays and all-around poor timing for the expedition, the Karluk eventually became frozen on a massive block of ice. After floating adrift for months, the group was forced to abandon ship and make do the best way they could. None of the crew or scientific staff were crack survivalists, so it is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit that any on the expedition survived. The hardships the men faced brought out the worst in most of them, including the expedition leader who abandoned the group to face their fate alone. The story is unbelievably compelling and tragic. I keep drifting back to it in my mind. The characters and all they experienced have a way of haunting you. My hat is off to Jennifer Niven for writing a marvelous piece of creative non-fiction - and to have it be her first published book! Amazing!
—Sharon
This account of early western-arctic exploration and misadventure is marred by Niven's transparent bias toward some crew members and against others. She details the transgressions of her villains in exquisite relief, even hinting broadly at murder without a shred of forensic evidence, while glossing over or conspicuously failing to recount the daily behavior and disposition of her chosen "good guys". The discrepancy is even more glaring as her principal source is the written - and rewritten - recollections of one of her protagonists.As such, much of the book reads like "gotcha" journalism, particularly in bringing down multiple notches the reputation of famed American anthropologist, expedition leader, and probable egotistical ass Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Stefansson may have been a callous, disloyal jerk who was careless of his underlings' well-being and more than willing to sacrifice others' lives for scientific progress and his own acclaim. It is well-documented that he did some vicious and self-serving bad-mouthing of his own, particularly regarding the Karluk's Captain Robert Bartlett, so maybe Niven feels that turnabout is fair play and "sets the historical record straight". But those who signed on for this voyage, particularly his fellow scientists, were anything but babes in the woods, and they undertook the risks of high-arctic sea travel knowingly and willingly. That caution aside: what a story this is! The two-year wanderings of the staff and crew of the Karluk, much of the time without even the footing of solid ground, make the trials of the Donner Party look like an afternoon tea. There is true nobility in these pages. Too bad it had to be juxtaposed against the author's clearly inflamed opinion about the sometimes-contentious relationships between those who set out together on the doomed ship.
—Lori
