Northern Ice

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28512, 15 February 1958, Page 3

Northern Ice

High Arctic. The Story of the British North Greenland Expedition. By Mike Banks. Dent. 276 pp. Index. Men Against the Frozen North. By Ritchie Calder, C.B.E. Allen and Unwin. 279 pp. Index.

In recent years several expeditions have explored the northern parts of Canada and Greenland, mostly with the idea of providing bases for air routes. As a result several dull books have been published about Arctic exploration. It is refreshing to find two new > books alive with a sense of fun and joy of life, both of them adequately illustrated with helpful maps, line drawings, and photographs. Of these the better is ‘iHigh Arctic,” a Book Society recommendation. It is Captain Mike Banks’s story of two years in Greenland as a member of the British North Greenland expedition of 1952-54, the largest British expedition in these parts for nearly 50 years. Captain Banks led one of the snow tractor teams from one side of Greenland to the other, across 800 miles of barren, utterly featureless desert of snow and ice, to the fabulous American air base at Thule. He describes this jourhey with force and humour, and with equal candour and humour describes the activities of his companions cooped up in the base hut midst the'* boredom of the long, totally-dark winter, after all the niceties and artificialities of civilisation had long been discarded. He writes pungently and feelingly, and yet presents concisely a coherent story with the slang and humour of a Marine officer. Ritchie Calder’s “Men Against the Frozen North” is likewise written with gusto. His story is of five huge “sweeps”' totalling 40,000 miles across northern Canada, using aeroplanes, dog sledges and snow tractors. He recaptures the - romantic pioneering spirit which opened up the Hudson Bay Company’s territory. His journeys took him on tours with the Mounties, Arctic doctors and geologists to the northernmost inhabited places in the world—the weather stations within a few hundred miles of the Pole, and to the North Pole itself.

In his two concluding chapters, Ritchie Calder describes the Eskimos very interestingly (one amazing impression is of their adaptability and potentialities as motor mechanics) and the boundless natural resources of the Arctic. He brings the reader a wide landscape absorbing in its wealth of interesting detail. Like Mike Banks he visited the secret American base of Thule on the north-west coast of Greenland, and found an establishment there of over 4000 men! This account of the vast area which straddles the strategical and civil air routes between the hemispheres will rouse many misconceptions and excite the reader’s imagination and awe.