In the Great White Land

In the Great White Land by Gordon Stables

A tale set in the polar regions follows Captain Mayne Brace, commander of the aging whaling barque Walrus, who has spent a long and ultimately unsuccessful season in Arctic waters. Wintering in a frozen bay in the far north, his crew includes two orphaned boys, Charlie and Walt, who are learning the seafaring trade under their uncle's care. Early in the spring, a dramatic arrival transforms the expedition. A tall, long-haired American, who goes by the stage name Ingomar, emerges from the ice with his squat companion Humpty Dumpty, having lived for months among a wandering tribe of Eskimos called the Yak-Yaks. Ingomar reveals himself to be Hans Armstrong, the estranged son of a Chicago millionaire, who fled his comfortable life out of pride and a desire to prove himself. He has kept two million pounds untouched in a New York bank, resolved not to return to his father until he has achieved something genuinely worthy. He confesses his dream: to fund and join an expedition to the Antarctic, the least known and most forbidding region on earth. Captain Brace and Ingomar strike an immediate accord. Brace, an honest man who refused his owners' hints to deliberately wreck the ship for insurance, negotiates the sale of the Walrus to Ingomar at a fair price when they reach Shetland. A specially built exploration vessel, the Sea Elephant, is commissioned from Dundee shipbuilders. The two ships are eventually fitted out with a remarkable cargo: Arctic Eskimo hunters, teams of trained sledge dogs, four Polar bears named Gruff, Growley, Grumpey, and Meg, two Shetland ponies, and a magnificent Newfoundland pair, Nick and Nora, alongside a collie named Wallace. The expedition sails south from England with little fanfare. The two vessels part at Gibraltar, the Sea Elephant heading via Suez and the Indian Ocean, the Walrus sailing around Africa. They reunite at the desolate island of Kerguelen, deep in the southern ocean. Here the Walrus crew encounters king penguins, sea elephants, and dramatic icebergs, and the young naval officer Lieutenant Curtis nearly dies after falling into a crevasse during a shore excursion. Ingomar risks his own life to rescue him by rope descent into the abyss. During Curtis's slow recovery, it emerges that he is in love with Ingomar's sister Marie, a discovery that binds the two young men like brothers. After extensive observations at Kerguelen, the animals and Eskimos are left ashore under a trusted officer while the two ships divide to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent from opposite directions, gathering scientific data as they go. The Walrus sails west through ferocious storms, past volcanic island groups, along ice-cliffs of staggering scale, and into seas teeming with strange life. Charlie and Walt grow hardened by cold, danger, and responsibility. Ingomar keeps the boys' spirits high with stories and his instinctive warmth. The two ships eventually reunite at Kerguelen, where the animals and men have wintered tolerably under Slap-dash's steady leadership, though with some losses. With the expedition reunited and reprovisioned, the main thrust of the venture begins. The ships press southward into Ross Sea, pushing through the ice pack toward Victoria Land. A shore camp is established in a fiord near Mount Murchison, and the full party undergoes a month of rigorous physical and logistical training under the energetic Doctor Wright. Sledges are packed and repacked with military precision. The bears, dogs, and ponies are exercised and drilled on the great snowy tableland above the camp. Charlie and Walt ride bareback across frozen plains, sleep in double bags with the Newfoundlands, descend into luminous ice caves lit by electric light, and watch bears hunting penguins on the floes. By the end of the training period, the entire force is hardened, organized, and ready. The Walrus will remain as a base in the fiord while the Sea Elephant continues exploration at sea. The land party, led by Ingomar, Brace, Curtis, and Wright, will push deep into the Antarctic interior with their dogs, bears, ponies, Eskimo hunters, and all the provisions that months of careful preparation have made ready, bound for a record-breaking penetration of the Great White Land.

By Gordon Stables · First published 1888 · Genre: Adventure Fiction, Historical Fiction, Survival Fiction · 25 chapters · 69,471 words

First lines

"Is it a man, or is it a young Polar bear standing on end?"

Had any one seen that strange figure, shuffling slowly to and fro on the snow-clad Polar ice on this bitterly cold morning late in winter, he might have been excused for asking himself that question.

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In the Great White Land is listed on Textopian as a novel by Gordon Stables, dated 1888 CE.

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Genres

Tags

Antarctic exploration · polar adventure · juvenile fiction · Victorian literature · maritime adventure · sea voyage · survival · expedition · icebergs · whaling · seafaring · shipwreck

Contents

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