#Julian Sancton

[terrorcamp]

SUNDAY KEYNOTE ANNOUNCED

We’re thrilled to announce that on Sunday 8th, we’ll be joined by JULIAN SANCTON, author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth.

In the Antarctic winter of 1898, Belgian naval officer Adrien de Gerlache, captain of the Belgica, made the glory-seeking (and ill-advised) decision to sail deep into the ice, ultimately stranding his ship and and its multinational crew for months in the polar night.

In Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton chronicles the mayhem that unfolded under those most extreme circumstances. He’ll be joining us for our Sunday keynote to talk all things Belgica, as well as answering questions from the audience!

❄��� Register now!

[semper-legens]

156. Madhouse at the End of the Earth, by Julian Sancton

Owned: No, library Page count: 331 My summary: August 1897. A crew from Belgium is setting out on an ambitious journey - to reach the South Pole. But when the ship became stuck and was forced to winter in the ice, the crew were pushed to the brink of madness and starvation. Would they survive the Antarctic winter? And would they be able to escape when spring finally came? My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

Well. See. The thing is. I have a fascination with Things Going Wrong On Ships - survival cannibalism is a particular interest of mine, so you better believe I’m really into the tragedy of the Terror and the Erebus. This voyage didn’t go quite that wrong. In the end, they only lost two people. But still, this book is a fascinating look at the late Victorian exploration mindset, and a hugely interesting telling of a little-known tale.

The book is written in a narrative non-fiction style, drawing from contemporary sources such as the accounts of the voyage written by the crew after the fact. I cannot overstate how engaging the narrative of this book is. I got sucked in from the start, barely even suffering from the usual problem these sorts of narratives have for me where I can’t tell the main players apart. The book did a great job of characterising each person involved in the story well enough, and in particular de Gerlache, the leader, and Cook, the doctor who ended up saving everyone’s lives. I particularly liked how, though Sancton clearly had a lot of respect for Cook, he still pointed out when Cook’s recollections of events are dubious, clearly embellished, or hard to verify. It’s a balanced view of the events while still being coloured by Sancton’s own viewpoint.

However, while reading this book, the main question I had on my mind was...why? What drives people to put themselves through such arduous things, risk their lives, and risk the lives of others in order to...gain a record? It’s the mentality that has people climbing Mount Everest today. de Gerlache’s story is a mix of toxic masculinity, nationalism, the evils of capitalism, and the problem with ambition. He wanted to be a big man who survived an extreme situation, he wanted to have a good story to sell back home, he wanted to Uphold Belgian Pride, and he made some very bad decisions on the way. It’s absolutely fascinating, and I appreciate how the narrative does sympathise with him, while still criticising him when appropriate. It’s a nuanced view of a messed up situation!

Next up, more graphic novels and intrigue, with a young woman playing host to a dark secret.

[snapbookreviews]

Spring 2024 Behind-the-Scenes Reading

Have a gander of what I spent my spring reading. It's a lot of history and archives.

I swear I have had multiple posts eaten by websites in the past month. I had a whole bunch of Tweets scheduled and they disappeared and I had this post queued and it disappeared. I’m already so busy and scattered, websites losing my queued posts is literally the last thing I need. Anyway, a few weeks belatedly, here’s the quarterly Spring post. *shakes fist at the rapidly enshitifying…

[irenydraws]

extremely silly belgica pacific rim AU drawn shortly after reading madhouse at the end of the earth for the first time aaallll the way back in early 2022. you can tell it was early days because i was still trying to get the hang of roald and he's way too hot here

'ireny is roald's and fred's jaeger just a cone' yeah it is

guys who are drift compatible: fred and roald, raco and artocho, danco and lecointe

guys who can't drift: melaerts

[roaldamundsen]

I don't even know the time schedule for terror camp. or the timezone

[monstrousdaughter]

begging all my followers who are not yet polarpilled to look up frederick cook. no I can't give you any context it's funnier if you go in blind enjoy ❤️

[oceancamp]

managed to finally hunt down madhouse at the end of earth at the library woohoo

[areyougonnabe]

ALFRED LANSING ENDURANCE YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS

Listening to a non-fiction book about maritime disaster and the way this author is describing the ship sinking is so sexual

[jesslovesboats]

I guess it's time to start moving some content from twt over here! For those who don't know me, I'm a public librarian with a special interest in polar and nautical history, and I love nothing more than connecting readers with good books. I've managed to convert some friends to my way of thinking, and one of them coined the phrase "sad boat books" to describe the types of books that I'm always reading and recommending. Here is my first list of sad boat books-- I can personally vouch for all of them!

New to sad boat? Start here to see if it’s for you!

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton

The Worst Journey in the World- The Graphic Novel Volume 1: Making Our Easting Down adapted by Sarah Airriess from the book by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger

Terra Nova, A GREAT first expedition!

The Worst Journey in the World- The Graphic Novel Volume 1: Making Our Easting Down adapted by Sarah Airriess from the book by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston

Robert Falcon Scott Journals- Captain Scott’s Last Expedition by Robert Falcon Scott

“I Love Ernest Shackleton” starter pack

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Shackleton’s Boat Journey by Frank Worsley

The Endurance by Caroline Alexander

“I Hate Ernest Shackleton” starter pack

The Lost Men by Kelly Tyler-Lewis

Polar Castaways by Richard McElrea and David Harrowfield

Roald Roald Roald!

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen by Stephen Bown

The South Pole by Roald Amundsen

The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford*

*DISCLAIMER: this guy hates Captain Scott and gets most of the Scott details wrong, read for Roald only!

The Franklin Expedition

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger

Erebus by Michael Palin

May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Expedition edited by Russell A. Potter, Regina Koellner, Peter Carney, and Mary Williamson

Non-polar sad boats

The Bounty by Caroline Alexander

Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

In The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

Sometimes a sad balloon can be a sad boat

The Expedition by Bea Uusma

The Ice Balloon by Alec Wilkinson

Karluk/Wrangel Island, the expeditions of my heart

Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk by Buddy Levy

The Ice Master by Jennifer Niven

The Karluk’s Last Voyage by Robert A. Bartlett

The Last Voyage of the Karluk: A Survivor’s Memoir of Arctic Disaster by William Laird McKinlay

Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven

Miscellaneous sad boat books that are well worth your time

The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance by Mensun Bound

In The Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides

Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton

Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration by David Roberts

Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy

If you read and enjoy any of these, please let me know!

[fullcolorfright]

Sketch collage inspired by the 1897-1899 Belgian Antarctic Expedition, after reading Madhouse at the End of the Earth (Julian Sancton, 2021) and My Life as an Explorer (Roald Amundsen, 1927)

[terrorcamp]

Have questions for our keynote speakers?

Now’s your chance to submit them!

As a reminder, here are our keynote speakers:

Jessica Houston, artist and Beyond Her Horizons expedition co-leader, who sailed the Northwest Passage with an all-female team to explore, document, and honor the untold stories of Inuit and non-Indigenous women in the history of Arctic exploration.

Jared Harris and Liam Garrigan, who played Francis Crozier and Thomas Jopson in The Terror.

Julian Sancton, writer and editor whose book Madhouse at the End of the Earth chronicles the mayhem of the 1898 Belgica expedition.

❄️ Submit your questions here!

[jeyneofpoole]

hello as a resident franklin expedition person do you have any recommendations for further reading about it/polar history in general?

yes!!!!! for dipping your toes into the franklin expedition specifically i would start with erebus: the story of a ship by michael palin (yes, the guy from monty python. this book contains more anecdotes than hard facts but is a fun introductory read and it’s honestly really funny). probably the most well-known book about the franklin expedition is frozen in time by dr. owen beattie + john geiger, some of the information i believe has been disputed in the years since publication (published in the 80’s) but the descriptions of the exhumations of the beechey bodies are gorgeous and visceral and it’s by far one of the most ethical and humane exhumations/studies on gravesites that i’ve ever read about. THEN you can graduate to real freak territory and read may we be spared to meet on earth, a collection of all of the letters that the members of the expedition sent before and during the first portion of the journey. others to hit that i haven’t read yet are james fitzjames: the mystery man of the franklin expedition (again, some information like that concerning jfj’s birth has since been disproven, but it’s by far the most comprehensive biography of him that exists. battersby reallyyyyyy loved the guy), unraveling the franklin expedition: inuit testimony (this one is on my shelf! deals, obviously, with the widely disregarded testimony of the indigenous people of the region), and the man who ate his own boots.

now for miscellaneous polar books i would start with endurance by alfred lansing, it’s a classic and was written at a time when members of the endurance crew were still alive, so lansing had exclusive access to multiple firsthand accounts. the only nonfiction that’s ever made me cry. my most recent polar read was madhouse at the end of the earth by julian sancton and i can’t recommend it enough. about the dysfunctional belgica expedition, but also a great introduction to roald amundsen’s whole… thing. super fun. i’m also about to start the worst journey in the world by apsley cherry-garrard, which deals with the scott expedition from the point of view of someone who was actually there. it’s mostly a memoir. for a fun one i have a polar fiction rec that is NOT the terror. where the dead wait by ally wilkes was a super fun read and it’s obvious that they watched the terror and went down the same pipeline that i did. evil gay situationship in the arctic circle supplemented by cannibalism and psychosis is always very fun, they have a second book about antarctica i believe, it’s on my shelf but i haven’t gotten to it yet. thanks so much for asking ily 🫶🫶🫶

[snapbookreviews]

Fall 2022 Behind the Scenes Reading

History consumed much of my fall reading from #Hamilton to the Belgian Antarctic Expedition to the history Judaism in China.

We’re back to our normal sections of “In Progress” and “Finished,” though I’m still making a few tweaks to post structure. I think I’m going to include an ongoing “Partial” section going forward, for books that don’t necessarily get read cover to cover, such as D&D books or when you revisit a single chapter/essay/story in a book you’ve already read. That seems like a better way to handle books…

[roaldamundsen]

this happened julian sancton told me

[heavenlyyshecomes]

misc reads pt. 11

The legend of the music tree, ellen rupell shell, smithsonian magazine

The depths she'll reach: freediving's alenka artnik, xan rice, longlead

Sufi Islam thrives humorous, eloquent and poetic as ever, nile green, aeon

Mars is a hellhole, sharon stirone, the atlantic

Obliterating the natural world, nathan j. robinson, current affairs

What lies beneath, julian sancton, vanityfair

A winelike sea, caroline alexander, lapham's quaterly

The centuries-long quest for the scent of god, john last, noema magazine

Hayao miyazaki and the art of being a woman, gabrielle bellot, the atlantic

The death of the ‘chic’ writer, barry pierce dazed digital

All about eve—and then some, lili anoulik, vanityfair

The archive of a vanishing world, grace linden, noema magazine

In the land of living skies, suzannah showler, harper's magazine

Daydreams and fragments: on how we retrieve images from the past, maël renouard, lithub

The haunted city, azania imtiaz khatri-patel, aeon

Princes of infinite space, kyle paoletta, baffler

Humans are overzealous whale morticians, ben goldfarb, nautilus

immortal by default, jared farmer, lapham's quaterly

Short fic:

Morning, Noon & Night, claire louise-bennett, the white review

Office hours, ling ma, the atlantic

Nights at the hotel splendido, sam munson, granta

shanghai murmur, te-ping chen, the atlantic

The hydraulic emperor, arkady martine, uncanny magazine

Goodnight, melancholy, xia jia, clarkesworld magazine

[areyougonnabe]

hi!! apologies if you’ve answered this before but do you have any good book recs for polar expeditions that aren’t the Franklin expedition? im very behind on the many other Polar Incidents and would love to catch up!

YES OF COURSE

the classic trifecta to start with is endurance by alfred lansing (endurance expedition), a first rate tragedy by diana preston (terra nova expedition), and madhouse at the end of the earth by julian sancton (belgica expedition). if you want help choosing one, try alice's quiz!

because i am so terra nova pilled i would also highly recommend the worst journey in the world by apsley cherry-garrard, either the full thing or the first volume of the graphic novel adaptation by @worstjourney :)

once you've read a few of these you will probably have a good idea of who your faves are/what topics you're most interested in and can chase that further down the rabbit hole, but they're all good starting points!