The Man Who Mapped the Arctic

Peter Harmathy teaches fine arts in Victoria.

Peter Steele is a surgeon and adventurer who accompanied an Everest
Expedition in 1971 and settled in Whitehorse, Yukon, in 1975. His
previous books include Doctor on Everest (1972) and Eric Shipton:
Everest and Beyond (1998).

The Man Who Mapped the Arctic recounts the life of George Back, an
Arctic explorer who opened up the northern interior of Canada (now known
as the Northwest Territories and Nunavut) and some Arctic coastline.
Back was part of an overland Arctic expedition (1819–22) commanded by
John Franklin, during which 11 of 20 men died of exposure and
starvation. He was also part of a second Franklin expedition that led
them down the Mackenzie River where they succeeded in mapping the
coastline west and east of its delta. Back’s crowning achievement was
an expedition he led down an unknown river to Chantrey Inlet, exiting at
a point far east along the Arctic coastline. This remarkable feat of
descent and return along a treacherous Arctic river (now his namesake),
without loss of life, earned him a stellar reputation among the British
Royal Navy’s elite. His final expedition near Baffin Island was beset
with heavy ice, scurvy, and severe ship damage; thankfully, it was cut
short.

Drawing on the journals of Back’s contemporaries, the explorer’s
unpublished memoir, and many fine editions of Arctic lore, Steel
provides a superb view of the challenges and extreme hardships
experienced by early explorers of Arctic lands. His book, which includes
numerous maps and 16 pages consisting mostly of illustrations produced
by Back himself, is a testament to the tenacity and endurance of a proud
breed of adventurer that exists today only in myth.