Northwest to fortune

The timing of this tremendous book, the history of the Northwest Passage by the author of The Friendly Arctic and one of America's most famous explorers, could scarcely be improved: on his last page he remarks ""for all this writer knows, both the USA and the USSR may have crossed the Arctic Sea (by submarine) by the time this volume is published, ""- a project, first envisioned in 1648, which was accomplished in this August of 1958! The ""sailor dream"" of centuries, ""The near way to the Far East is North,"" actually started with the ""globular thinking"" of the ancients and with their explorations, the knowledge of which was passed on through the years. In the 6th century navigators had sighted Greenland's glaciers; by the 9th century the Vikings were colonizing Iceland and sailing westward to North America. When in 1299 Marco Polo published the story of his journey to China the real impetus for the discovery of a passage to Cathay began, a dream which never failed and which led to extensive scientific exploration and to romantic commercial ventures: the Canadian fur trade, the effort in the 1870's, almost successful, to encircle the globe by telegraph, the building of the Union Pacific, and to the planes flying across the Pole today and to Nautilus and Skate diving under it. The Passage itself as a commercial land and sea route was discovered more or less haphazardly in the last century by men of the Hudson's Bay Company searching for an easy way to transport furs westward and eastward across Canada. To give the full scope and flavor of this wonderful book is impossible; beautifully documented, based on vast personal knowledge and a lifetime of research and study of little-known records, it must stand as the definitive work on its subject. Too long and possibly too specialized for lazy readers, it will appeal to explorers and Arctic adventurers, practising and armchair, to students of navigation and commercial communications, to sailors, historians, and to those who merely enjoy good adventure of all kinds. A must for all public and historical libraries, the name of its author should also insure it a place in lending libraries.