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In the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, HMS Erebus undertook two of the most ambitious naval expeditions of all time.
On the first, she ventured further south than any human had ever been. On the second, she vanished with her 129-strong crew in the wastes of the Canadian Arctic.
Her fate remained a mystery for over 160 years.
Then, in 2014, she was found.
This is her story.
I liked that the book took a different slant, to tell the story of the ship, from her construction to her fateful ending, rather than that of the men who sailed her. Their stories are told, but they’re not the main event.
Her story started in June of 1826 in a shipyard in Wales. Her first years weren’t auspicious; she would spend the first thirteen years of her life patrolling the Mediterranean. But in 1839 she would be refitted and paired with Terror for James Ross’s Antarctic expedition. Though it was Terror that had sailed in the ice, Erebus was bigger and newer, so was made the flagship.
They would return to England in 1843 and be refitted for their voyage north to find the Northwest Passage. They wouldn’t succeed, but they would become two of the most celebrated ships of their time.
Interspersed with the story of the ships (it’s as much Terror’s story as Erebus’s, is the author’s voyages as he revisited many of their more famous ports of call.
A solid and well-researched book, and a must-read for anyone interested in Arctic and Antarctic exploration.

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
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5. The Fateful Lightning (Civil War: 1861-1865, Western Theater #4) by Jeff Shaara
6. Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
7. The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing
8. Lily Pond: Four Years with a Family of Beavers by Hope Ryden
9. Running with the Demon (The Word & The Void #1) by Terry Brooks
10. The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (Giants #2) by James P. Hogan
11. Ararat (Ben Walker #1) by Christopher Golden
12. If It Bleeds by Stephen King
13. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White Jr.
14. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
15. Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell Adventurer, Adviser to Kings by Janet Wallach
16. Snowblind by Christopher Golden
17. Women of Ashdon (Bridges Over Time #3) by Valerie Anand
18. Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt
19. The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
20. The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa (translated by Nick Caistor)
21. Roses are White by Lesley Lambert
22. Giants' Star (Giants #3) by James P. Hogan
23. Duma Key by Stephen King
24. Magic In My Shoes by Constance Savery
25. The Breach by M.T. Hill
26. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
27. In the Region of the Summer Stars (Eirlandia #1) by Stephen R. Lawhead
28. Later by Stephen King
29. The Bone Doll's Twin (Tamír Triad #1) by Lynn Flewelling
30. The Threshold by Marlys Millhiser
31. Echoes of Home: A Ghost Story by M.L. Rayner
32. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Talking Classics) by Oscar Wilde, Martin Shaw (Reader)
33. The Reign of Wolf 21: The Saga of Yellowstone’s Legendary Druid Pack (The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone #2) by Rick McIntyre, Marc Bekoff
34. A Knight of the Word (The Word & The Void #2) by Terry Brooks
35. The Mummy (Ramses the Damned #1) by Anne Rice
36. City of the Lost by Will Adams
37. The Summer Queen: A Medieval Tale of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France by Elizabeth Chadwick
38. Last Train from Perdition (I Travel by Night #2) by Robert R. McCammon
39. Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
40. The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
41. Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin



Read a book with a boat on the cover - Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin (ship, boat, whatever *g*)
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Date: 2021-07-29 12:10 pm (UTC)And, yes for Bill Bryson! I loved A Walk In the Woods, and am in the process of reading In a Sun-burned Country right now.
Oh, and, yes, I remembered this is an interest of yours, too, so I figured I'd be hearing from you. *g*
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Date: 2021-07-29 03:38 pm (UTC)I look forward to reading the book. I wish there were more of his travelogues!
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Date: 2021-07-30 12:12 pm (UTC)The Mount TBR link for the book takes you to his website. Maybe there are some new ones.
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Date: 2021-07-31 03:32 pm (UTC)Probably should go back and watch the documentary. I think Palin's book is the more recent of the two, though.
Honestly, when you think of where they went, and what with? That's insanity, not courage. Yikes. Terrifying. Someone was going to do it, though — that's how humans roll.
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Date: 2021-08-01 01:05 pm (UTC)I've always thought they had to be nuts to do what they did. Wearing only wool coats into sub-freezing weather? Not me!
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Date: 2021-08-01 03:26 pm (UTC)And hoping it will protect you against the Arctic? No way. The guys who took on the ways of the Inuit were far wiser (and presumably less ... ethnocentric, to put it politely).
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