Julian Sancton

Fireless Snow

Read by Vikas Adam
Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins

This book is a narrative account of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–99, its “planning”, execution, and aftermath. The expedition was Led by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery aboard the RV Belgica, and was the first Belgian Antarctic expedition. It is considered to be the first expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Madhouse at the End of the Earth is a well-researched and competently-written book, but for me it failed to convey the claustrophobia and dread that is so often engendered in such sea tales.

There’s a lot of detail of the members of the crew and their quarrels that threatened the success of the expedition, but I just didn’t get the feel of the sea and the extreme conditions of Antarctica that I was expecting. There was no fire for me in this book, despite the catchy title.

But perhaps I had unrealistic expectations. One of my earliest memories is of listening to Douglas Stewarts’s play, Fire on the Snow on the radio in Australia. Australians are perhaps more aware than others of Antarctica. Especially those of us from the southern coast. We feel Antarctica’s cold winds in winter. And even travelling by boat from the mainland to Tasmania can be a rough experience. All things considered please take my 3.5 rating with a grain of sand.… (mais)

In 1897, Belgium tried to make history by being the first ship to find the South Magnetic Pole. The author focused on 3 important men on the trek: Commandant Adrien de Gerlache, Norwegian Roald Amundsen, and American Dr Frederick Cook—all heroes in their own right. But the Commandant purposefully took the ship too far onto the continent in the year, causing it to get locked in ice for a long long winter. He thought it’d put him that much closer to his goal once the ice thawed. What he didn’t take into account that it could stay iced in for years. And he told his men they were heading north when in fact they were heading south (the readings were all messed up thanks to their location and the lack of GPS in 1897). Then it became a matter of life and death and sanity. The Commandant became so ill from scurvy he rarely made an appearance. Thanks to Amundsen’s leadership and Cook’s ingenuity, very few died or became insane and they were able to escape the ice at the beginning of the next winter—but a harsh existence otherwise. It was the excellent training though for Amundsen to eventually be the first man to reach the South Pole. A few years back I toured the Fram Museum in Oslo, and to see the ship he took to Antarctica, an extraordinary experience. This was an excellent book backed by exhaustive research.… (mais)