Madhouse at the End of the Earth

 

Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night- Julian Sancton

Crown

Release Date: May 4, 2021

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: In this epic tale, Julian Sancton unfolds a story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica’s men teetered on the brink, de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity: the expedition’s lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook—half genius, half con man—whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship’s first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice—one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean’s bottom.

Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica’s crew and with exclusive access to the ship’s logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an unforgettable journey into the deep.

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I've read several books about expeditions to the Arctic (Labyrinth of Ice), as explorers search for the Northwest Passage and brave polar bears to reach the North Pole. But this is the first book I've read on exploring Antarctica. By the late 1890s Antartica was one of the last places on earth to be explored, a blank space on a map to fill in. Adrien de Gerlache of Belgium wanted to fulfill a boyhood dream of being a polar explorer and saw Antarctica as a way to claim glory for himself and Belgium. What followed was perhaps one of the first international exploration efforts, as the crew of the Belgica sailed to Antarctica to claim new records for Belgium's glory and scientific research.  As the book's title suggests (and anyone who has read anything on polar exploration already knows) this voyage cannot possibly go smoothly. The Belgica becomes trapped in the ice and the crew is forced to winter in Antarctica.  Between inactivity, months of darkness, and scurvy, the men suffer to various degrees both physically and mentally.  

Julian Sancton's tale of the Belgica and her crew is well-written, well researched, and utterly captivating.  From the beginning when the reader is questioning the sanity of men who want to explore Antarctica and suffer the inevitably harsh conditions, to the shock and awe of the crew on seeing icebergs for the first time; from the rank stench of penguin colonies that virtually leaps off the page in his descriptions to the horrors of the darkest and longest nights the crew are trapped on board the Belgica, Sancton brings the entire expedition to life for the reader.  Equally as interesting to me (as an archivist) was Sancton's Author's Note at the end of the book, describing his journey to the archives in Belgium to read the diaries of the crew themselves and his trip to Antarctica to discover the polar land for himself. His comments on the damage current tourism and climate change is causing to the area, and its inevitable conclusions, comes as both a dark warning and a well timed reminder that there is still much we don't know about the world and how we as humans react in certain situations (expeditions like the Belgica's are apparently being studied by NASA for how space explorers might react) but that there are other situations we can understand, and can hopefully still work together to solve.

An excellent book on an amazing expedition. A must read for polar armchair explorers. In addition to the fascinating story, the photographs taken by Belgica doctor Frederick Cook are absolutely gorgeous.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review