“We did not all come back.” Thus begins the rare firsthand account of the extraordinary ordeal of the Karluk, the flagship of explorer Vilhjalmar Stefansson’s Arctic expedition of 1913-1916. When ice trapped the Karluk, Stefansson abandoned Captain Robert A. Bartlett and the crew—eleven of whom perished—to their fate.
When the ice crushed the Karluk and sank her, Bartlett led the shipwrecked survivors safely to Wrangell Island. From there, with one Inuit companion, he journeyed across 700 miles of frozen seas and Siberian wilderness to return with rescuers. It is a feat that rivals Shackleton’s own celebrated efforts to seek for the crew of the Endurance.
Bartlett tells, with a liveliness of detail, of an adventure during which untold dangers and sufferings were experienced…Bartlett tells his story with an earnestness that comes only from one who has fought with the stern forces of nature in the frozen seas. Yet it is touched here and there with a humor that lightens the grim perils of the Arctic.
An authoritative record of polar exploration and a narrative of dangerous adventure….The rough bark on Bartlett’s story, his honesty and avoidance of sentimentality, is not the least of the book’s many virtues. From every page shines forth unconsciously the genial, unselfish and indomitable spirit of the born leader and explorer.
