The question I posed myself before setting out to read The Ice Master was simple: Why isn’t this story, this leader, this expedition, as well known as the story of Shackleton? Afterall, the crew went through a similar and even more so tragic battle. The voyage was just as daunting, in the exact same time period as the voyage of The Endurance. What is it about this story that doesn’t compare to Shackleton’s story?

The author, Jennifer Niven, does a great job at compiling all of the data, logs and news articles about this voyage and her crew. She credits the survival of 9 members of the Kurluk (the ship in our story) to the ship’s captain “Bartlett, and the death of 16 of the ship’s company to the expedition’s leader,  Stefansson. Unlike the book Endurance, and more like the book The Lost Men, The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk aims to retell the story of the Karluk and the heroic deeds of the ship’s captain, despite the popular and public versions of the story.

Stefansson knew Shackleton. In the world of the early 20^th century, with few unexplored regions of the world, ripe with interest and rising literary rates, there was a large market for adventure stories. The two were competing for shelf space in that market. That is it. Both Stefansson and Shackleton were salesmen of adventure stories – where their heroic tales were the prepackaged good. They both sold their endeavors before they set sail – shit!, one of them even named their vessel Endeavor before it set sail.  Everything about these men and the expeditions they designed was about the sales of the story before the story existed. Both men were interested in insurmountable human feats, tragedy, success, news, awe, gory detail, and glory. Unfortunately for the men that followed Stefansson, many wound up dead or demoralized by ridicule, lawsuit, and lie from their leader.

The Ice Master unfolds the story of the Kurluk’s last adventure chronologically. By chapter two, she is stuck fast in the ice ten miles from Barrow Alaska, as the winter approached, and the leader of the expedition abandons the crew with a select group of men. Of course he said he was only going on a “reconnaissance mission,” but the remaining crew all realizes the truth within a few days. Within a week their doomed ship was drifting away from Alaska, away from their leader, and away from chances of survival. Over the course of a winter, the ship’s crew fights the cold, the boredom, and the chaos of a shit plan with growing dire consequence. When their ship become squeezed to splinters, they abandon her for the ice of the Artic, where they make camp and hope. The ship’s company, split into two competing cultures – the crew vs. the scientists – fight over supplies and strategy. The ship’s captain holds the reigns as best he can, keeping order and keeping sanity. As the floating ice camp spots land, the competing teams lose their ability to remain disciplined. The captain’s orders are abandoned by the scientists, who leave camp on their own to reach land – they are never seen again. The ship’s crew devises a strategy to reach land, which works relatively well, until they realize the land they go for is not the land they think. With four of the crew now in a condition to not go further, without communication, they bail to that desolate small plot of land – to be found as bones a decade later, boxed as artifacts, and sold on eBay in the year 1999. The remaining crew follows their captain to an even further mountain peak, over the terrifying melting ice, over ice mountains and pressure ridges, and across thinly frozen artic seas.

12 men make it to a small island of North Russia, including the captain. Most of the men are frost bitten, starving, and delirious. There is little food on the island, mostly seal meat. The winds howl every second. Their location would never be guessed by rescue ships. Their lives are worth more dead than alive, to their leader who abandoned them.

Back in Alaska, Stefansson sends reports of the “heroic crew of the Karluk,” saying it was on an adventure to find new land when it became lost and stuck in the ice. He suspected the crew had been lost at sea for good. He did not initiate a rescue plan.

Captain Bartlett, with the help of a 18 year old Eskimo, decided to hike across the remaining portion of the frozen artic, to find help. His plan led him 800 miles on foot in the heart of the artic winter. He reach Russia. Leaned on “Russian Eskimos” for survival. Traveled further. Defying deathly illnesses, temperatures below negative 50, and distances that make professional hikers squirm. Bartlett made it. He reach a modern port in Russia. Hitched a ride to Alaska. Recruited help. And arrived back to his crew in time to save seven of them.  Nine survivors, including two children and a cat. Three dead men. And thirteen men lost on the ice for ever. One man completely crazy. Many missing limps and gangrene infested skin.

While Bartlett was headed for Russia. The remaining survivors had nothing to do but hope he’d make and try to stay alive. They broke into isolated teams, which competed with each other for resources. One man was suspected of shooting his crew member and killing him as he slept. They all though they were stuck on a frozen island with a lunatic murderer. Their supplies ran low. They couldn’t stay warn and their toes froze solid, and they had to cut them off of each other to prevent body rot from spreading. The wounded faired worse, and the two who had broken legs from earlier in the trip both died. They waited more. Their rescuers never arrived. They cried. They built stone and driftwood boxes to die in as they prepared for the next winter. The son was up 24 hours a day. No darkness. The ice came and went. The animals came and went. One gun shot would scare the animals away for days, the birds would abandon their nests.  Then a steamship on the horizon. It turned around a headed away. They jumped and shouted and ran across the brittle ice chasing it. The ship blew its horn. They were saved.

Stefansson later told the papers that the Captain, Bartlett, was responsible for getting the ship stuck in ice. He blamed Stefansson on everything that happened. Only the crew stood beside Bartlett. But the crew could not legally talk to the press. Their stories were owned by Stefansson. If their versions, the true versions, were published, they risked breach of contract, lawsuits, and then the torment of what would follow – gutters, jail, unemployment. Bartlett took the blame. The stories of Stefansson’s adventures were published.

So why did Stefansson not become as famous as Shackleton?  The answer is because of Stefansson’s decision to tell the world he had raised a flag on an uncharted island, claiming it for Canada. The three men who died from the Karluk’s crew and were buried on their frozen island, were buried beneath a raised Canadian flag. Stefansson read the charts wrong, and interpreted the story to be a success story in that the Canadian flag, which is crew raised, was raised on a newly found island.  The simple truth was that the island was not an undiscovered island. It was a Russian island, and no one was about to argue this point. Maybe Stefansson knew this, and he just wanted attention – some fragile leaders say ridiculous things for attention. But it back fired on Stefansson, and the world saw through his childish ignorance and tactics. Stefansson fought back, and sent a crew of four to the island, to colonize it for Canada. Three of the crew died that first winter. Stefansson was done for. His story and that of the Karluk faded from view. Shackleton was a better salesman.

Jennifer Niven wrote a great book her. The Ice Master is a much-needed story from a much-needed perspective. The author is empathetic to the physical and mental trials and horrors of prolong entrapment of the sea. She gives us the sympathetic version of the sailor and the ice. She writes with fascination of her subject, and desire for understanding and truth. Check her out. We hope she writes more!