The Last Voyage of the Karluk : A Survivor's Memoir of Arctic Disaster

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Summary: Incredible story of courage and survival in 1915 Arctic
Review: This is the story of a scientist who joined the ill-fated Karluk expedition organized in 1913 by V.Stefansson. Poorly organized and ill-equipped,he tells the story of his survival extremely well. This book is very readable and you have to keep reminding yourself that this story is real and not from Hollywood. Arctic expeditions are dangerous enough- but pre-W.W.I they were even more so. That anyone survived this experience is truly amazing. Mr. McKinlay goes into great detail about their day to day struggle for survival. He writes extremely well, considering he was a scientist. I wish I could have met this man. Great Book!!

Rating:
Summary: A well-kept secret on adventure literature
Review: This superb little book is a well-kept secret on polar expedition literature. The ill-fated tragedy of the Karluk and her crew has never achieved notoriety, bacause its return ocurred right at the time of the stupefying return of Robert Scott's last expedition survivors, and also because Mr. Vilhjalmur Stefanson was proficient in concealing the veridical facts. If the usual clamour is that Scott's 1910-13 expedition was confused and wrongly conceived, what to say about Karluk's ? Three overloaded ships, but no man aware of which equipment was in which of them; the main ship tiny and fragile, predictibly crushed by the sea ice; a bunch of men without the essencial feature to survive the shortage and the wildness of nature in high latitudes: comradeship. The sixty years between the start of the journey and the writing of this book work as a filter, allowing the maturation of the author's memories and emotions - but it may have obstacled this astonishing narrative of endurance of turning itself into a classic. Nevertheless, it's never too late to rewrite history.

Rating:
Summary: The will to live
Review: Unliked the other reviewers thus far, I have not read other accounts of polar expeditions, never found the subject intriguing enough when there were so many other histories clamoring for my attention. I'm still not sure what persuaded me to buy this little book, but I am SO glad I did. I found it sufficiently detailed to give me the progressive pictures of ineptitude, boredom, labor, frostbite, incompatibility, isolation, hunger, despair, et al, without becoming bogged down in tedium. By virtue of having waited so many years to pen his account, McKinlay is probably more even-handed in the telling than he would have been otherwise, and makes the book a moving experience rather simply a bitter one. Kudos to the man, he was indeed a canny Scot, and has related a story worthy of being captured on film.

Rating:
Summary: Way better than I had hoped for!
Review: Unliked the other reviewers thus far, I have not read other accounts of polar expeditions, never found the subject intriguing enough when there were so many other histories clamoring for my attention. I'm still not sure what persuaded me to buy this little book, but I am SO glad I did. I found it sufficiently detailed to give me the progressive pictures of ineptitude, boredom, labor, frostbite, incompatibility, isolation, hunger, despair, et al, without becoming bogged down in tedium. By virtue of having waited so many years to pen his account, McKinlay is probably more even-handed in the telling than he would have been otherwise, and makes the book a moving experience rather simply a bitter one. Kudos to the man, he was indeed a canny Scot, and has related a story worthy of being captured on film.