[.ca] Ghosts of Cape Sabine: The Harrowing True Story of the ... (ISBN 0595409695)

From Amazon.com:
In May 1884, huddled in a tent on the northwest coast of Greenland, Private Roderick R. Schneider looked around at his companions and wrote in his journal: "It is horrible to see eighteen men dying by inches." One month later, Schneider was dead, a victim of starvation. Schneider was one of 24 men sent to establish a scientific base in Lady Franklin Bay in 1881. A combination of poor planning, bad weather, weak leadership, and a lack of support from the government that had sent them north caused all but six men to perish. Historian Leonard F. Guttridge tells the story of the ill-fated Greely expedition in Ghosts of Cape Sabine. The expedition got off to a rocky start, underprovisioned and manned with soldiers who had never been to the Arctic. Still, once established at Lady Franklin Bay, the team performed its scientific studies and even made a foray north, breaking the British record. Personality conflicts between Lieutenant Adolphus Greely and several of his men were intensified by the fact that the ships supposed to resupply and, after two years, relieve them, never came. Dangerously low on food and supplies, the party was forced to attempt to retreat on its own. After weeks of travel, much of it spent drifting on the ice pack in Kane Basin, the party arrived at Cape Sabine and made camp. As the weeks passed and the food ran out, the men subsisted on leather from their boots, miniscule shrimp, bits of moss scraped from the rocks, and--as the days grew longer and the party grew smaller--the bodies of their fallen comrades. "In the wan light of an unsetting sun during those early Arctic summer weeks, one or more of the desperate men at Cape Sabine had been up on the ridge of the dead, busy with scalpel or hunting knife." Guttridge utilized journals, reports, and personal correspondence to create an almost day-to-day account of the expedition, and he excels at bringing to life those desperate months waiting for rescue ships that came too late for most of the Greely expedition. Juicy details and a mastery of the subject make Ghosts of Cape Sabine read like a suspenseful novel. --Sunny Delaney

The Ghosts of Cape Sabine - Major League Screw-up:
I loved the book. If you enjoy adventure, history and reading about explorers and expeditions into extreme climates and dangerous places then this is a good book for you. I have read many books dealing with both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions as well as exploration, mountain climbing and military history. This is the story of an Army Signal Corp expedition and a series of screw-ups which left them stranded in the unforgiving climate of the Arctic. The extremes that these men were subjected to and the pressures brought to bear on them are mind boggling. We wonder what we would do under similar circumstances. I came away thinking that there were really no "good guys" in this book, but lots of "bad guys" and just people who couldn't/wouldn't get along. Some had personality quirks that only magnified their plight and made things worse for everyone. No heroes in this account, only survivors. A good read.

It was OK (2.5 stars really):
I've read alot of pole exploration books lately. This one fell into the OK catagory; alot of names, dates, flashbacks, wordy sentences etc. Hard to follow sometimes. It was an OK read but by far the best book I've read on this subject is Endurance : Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.

Ego and Politics Doom A Valiant Expedition:
Over the last couple of years, I've read quite a few books dealing specifically with mankind's assault on the Arctic, and this title is one of the best. In all my other readings, the Greely expedition was a curious one, in that no one really knew what happened. Guttridge does a splendid job of taking the reader to frostbitten camps where food is scarce and the environment unforgiving. While sitting outside on a warm Southern California day, I swear I felt goosebumps on my arms.

Dispair...:
Anyone interested in the discovery and exploration of the Artice regions will find this book to be a fun read. The author takes you to the edge of dispair and back. Can be a little slow in some parts but overall a good read. RECOMMENDED.

Another Fine Addition to the Arctic Struggle:
Ghosts of Cape Sabine has everything one has come to expect from an Arctic adventure from heroism to cowardice, sacrifice to betrayal, incompetence to perseverence. It tells the tale of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, which was planned to set up a scienitic base at Lady Franklin Bay with supply ships arriving in the summers to replenish the explorers. When those ships do not arrive, an interesting story of beauracratic incompetence on its own account, the explorers travel down the coast to meet their fate. Thanks to the journals left by the explorers, their long struggle against starvation can told, with forays into murder, suicide and cannibalism for the more bloody-minded. Leonard F. Guttridge does a superb job of bringing this tragedy to life for the reader. These arctic misadventures are enormously popular right now and fine examples such as this one help to explain their popularity.