The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1956, Blaðsíða 55

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
55
Great Adventures and Explorations,
edited by Vilhjalmur Stefansson
The Dail Press, New York, 1947. pp. 778
Great Adventures and Explorations
is an appropriate title for Vilhjalmur
Stefansson’s very interesting and
comprehensive account of world
exploration. From its starting point in
the Mediterranean some 30,000 to
40,000 years ago, the narrative proceeds
with the discovery by members of
Western civilization of one region
after another until the map of the
globe is filled in.
Stefansson is an excellent narrator.
The global point of view is maintained
throughout. From the Mediterranean
as a starting point, in very early times,
we proceed with the explorers to the
regions of North-Western Europe, as
far as the ice-fields of the Arctic; across
the equator, dispelling the popular
fallacy of a burning uninhabitable
zone around the equator; on a voyage
around the globe; to carve out the
continents; to probe our way through
the North-West and the North-East
passages, and conquer the two Ice-
caps of the world.
This is a comprehensive but a not
thinly spread account. The details
selected are significant and they give a
clear and realistic picture. Extensive
use of first-hand accounts, well edited,
gives the reader a sense of participa-
tion. Pictures of the scene, land and
people; sights, sounds, and smells,
make for realism. Through the eyes
of Pytheas we behold the sea lung of
the Arctic and “the evershining fire
(that) spreads out through day and
night;” with Orellana we travel 1800
leagues down the Amazon and with
Mackenzie on his toilsome and danger-
ous journey across the Rocky Moun-
tains. There are compelling and at
times moving accounts of courage,
determination and perseverance, and
hardihood, of human endurance
pushed to the limit, and of gambling
with death. We look forward to the
events unfolding, not backward on the
accomplished feat.
Scholarly evaluation of the evidence
is apparent and one has the feeling
that the picture is as true as it is ever
likely to be.
The great explorers of all time ap-
pear in perspective. Pytheas, who ven-
tured north to Iceland and to the ice-
pack one hundred miles beyond, about
330 B.C., “has been emerging in the
last decades as a towering figure both
in exploration and philosophy”. The
voyage of Magellan’s ship around the
world is indeed generally well known
as one of the most remarkable feats of
exploration, but not so well known is
the stature, as man and explorer, of
James Cook, whose exploits are
generally glimpsed in disjointed
fashion through the reading of history
texts. His great skill, scientific ap-
proach, breadth of vision, scrupulous
honesty, and sympathetic attitude to-
wards the natives are likely to come
as a revelation to most of us. Greatest
of all were Peary and Scott “Peary's
is the world's greatest success story of
men against the elements; Scott’s the
noblest.”
We follow the development of the
science and technique of Arctic
exploration, the total lack of which led
to the tragedy of Sir John Franklin’s
expedition and explains the failure of
Scott’s first gallant attempt at the
South Pole.. The early failures were
largely due to scurvy, when on all
sides there was fresh meat for the tak-