Wife of self-proclaimed North Pole discoverer Robert Edwin Peary, Josephine Peary was the first white woman to take part in an Artic exploration. Unavailable for nearly a century, this book is her account of Peary's 1891-92 expedition, of her adventurous experiences and cultural encounters, and of her extraordinary treks across the world's upper reaches. This rare, firsthand account--the only Arctic memoir composed by a woman--provides an accurate, elaborate picture of Arctic geography and Inuit culture.

The subzero temperatures were only one of the dangers explorer Frederick Cook (1865-1940) faced in his attempts to reach the North Pole. During his extraordinary and harrowing journey, he fought off arctic wolves and polar bears, lived through ice storms, almost starved on several occasions, and faced long and lonely hours of isolation. His book relates how he learned from Eskimos how to survive in the Arctic, hunting musk ox to survive, harpooning walruses, and traveling by dog sled. After his journey, he defended himself against the charges of fellow explorer Robert Peary, who claimed that...