Franz Josef Land is a forbidding place, isolated by geography and history. Lying above the Arctic Circle in the northernmost province of Russia, this remote series of islands was only discovered by Westerners in 1873, and remains little known today. A few intrepid explorers ventured there in the late 19th century as a stepping-stone in attempts to reach the North Pole. Chicago journalist Walter Wellman led the first American expedition to the archipelago as part of a polar expedition in 1898-1899. His second-in-command, Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, kept a journal documenting their trip. This...