GALES, ICE AND MEN By Frank Wead
This is the biography (Methuen, 12S. 6d.) of the steam barquentine 'Bear,' thr sixty years engaged in work in Polar seas. It is primarily of interest to those who sail, but the general reader will enjoy the accounts of the expeditions in which the ' Bear ' played a leading part. Built at Dundee in 1873 for the Newfoundland sealing fleet, the ' Bear ' was from the first one of those ships which inspire the affection and con- fidence of sailors. She was bought by the American Government to go to the rescue of the Greely Arctic expedition in 1884. Afterwards she served the -..alers and whalers of the Behring Sea
"game-warden" and rescuer, and
mail and supplies carrier to the settle- ments and trading posts along the Alaskan coast. For years the lives of many Eskimo and white traders and hunters depended on the arrival of the Bear.' It was her reputation as a fighter
pack-ice, which destroyed so many of her contemporaries, that made Byrd noose the sixty-year-old ship for his ,:cond antarctic journey in 1935 and g,ve her the chance—which she took— 't adding still further to her reputation., lr. Wead has compiled his story from official documents, .first-hand reports ,nd other' original sources, and made a verY good job of it.
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