Charting the Arctic and Antarctic (An Illustrated History of the Sea Charts of Polar Discovery)

A remarkable visual exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic using the sea charts and maps created through history.

Charting the Arctic and Antarctic tells the illustrated story of the exploration of the two seemingly-immeasurable polar continents, using sea charts and maps composed over centuries, often under extreme and unique weather conditions. These maps record how extraordinary men tried to find two apparently vital routes: first in the Arctic as early as the 9th century, and later in Antarctic, initially to prove (or disprove) the existence of some vast southern continent to counterbalance the land masses north of the Equator – an idea dating back to the beginning of classical geography.

Split into two sections, the book first focuses on Arctic exploration and the expeditions by, among others, Viking Eric the Red, Cabot, Barents, Hudson, Bering and Franklin and finally through to Amundsen's successful expedition of 1903-1906 through the Northwest Passage and early steam propulsion ships up to WWI. We then see how the myth of a southern polar continent drove Antarctic expeditions by Drake, Cook, Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton, to name a few. These showed extraordinary determination and fortitude in the most dangerous and difficult conditions, and the charts they made offer a lasting insight into their achievements, these remote continents, and the history of human exploration and mapping from the 800s onwards.