Antarctica, Or Two Years Amongst the Ice of the South Pole

Nordenskjöld (1869 – 1928) was a Finnish and Swedish geologist, geographer, and polar explorer. He led the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1901-04), in the ship ‘Antarctic’, on the opposite side of the continent from Scott's British National Antarctic Expedition. The expedition visited the Falkland Islands before the ship, commanded by Antarctic veteran Carl Larsen, dropped Nordenskjöld's party off on Snow Hill Island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Nordenskjöld overwintered on the island, while Antarctic returned to the Falklands. The following summer Larsen brought her south, intending to retrieve the Nordenskjöld’s party, but she became trapped in ice which eventually crushed her hull, forcing Larsen and his crew to overwinter in a hastily constructed shelter on Paulet Island. Larsen and Nordenskjöld finally rendezvoused at their fall-back rescue hut at Hope Bay in late 1903, where they were picked up by the Argentine Navy corvette Uruguay which had been dispatched when ‘Antarctic’ had failed to make her appointed return to South America the previous year. Despite its end and the great hardships endured, the expedition was considered a scientific success, with the parties having explored much of the eastern coast of Graham Land, including Cape Longing, James Ross Island, the Joinville Island group, and the Palmer Archipelago. The expedition, which also recovered valuable geological samples and samples of marine animals, earned Nordenskjöld lasting fame at home, but its huge cost left him greatly in debt. This edition does not have the four color plates nor are the maps in color.

Rosove 240.B2, Spence 861.