Arctic Foxes (Polar Animals)

Book Description

Animals in polar regions must be able to survive extremely cold temperatures. They have physical characteristics and behavior that enable them to deal with frigid Weather. Come discover the intriguing world of polar animals, including arctic foxes, penguins, polar bears, and seals.

Average customer rating:

Recommended for those who enjoyed Barrow's Boys

The Arctic Fox
David Murphy
Manufacturer: Dundurn Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Irish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Captain Francis Crozier: Last Man Standing?

ASIN: 1550025236

Book Description

The Shackleton of his day, Leopold McClintock (1819-1907) from County Louth was the leading Arctic explorer of the Victorian era. He undertook four major voyages, epic sledge journeys, and was the first to bring definite information on the lost Franklin party.

Customer Reviews:

Recommended for those who enjoyed Barrow's Boys.......2005-10-02

Leopold McClintock is one of many British Naval explorers of the Victorian era, a period which seems to becoming increasingly popular with historians. In exploration terms, Fergus Fleming started the recent trend with his book "Barrow's Boys", which for me popularized Arctic and Antarctic exploration of the Victorian era. The Arctic Fox is another excellent addition to the growing library of historical accounts of the pioneers of Arctic and Antarctic exploration. The author, David Murphy, is an Irish historian with an interest in British Naval and Polar explorers, and thus it is only fitting that he write this biography of McClintock, an Irishman. To do so he draws upon British Naval Reports of expeditions in which McClintock was a participant. He also uses McClintock's own writings, which include expedition reports, and letters to Lady Franklin. Contemporary sources are also referred to.

The Arctic Fox is not a particularly lengthy book, numbering fewer than 200 pages, so readers will quickly run through this book in a couple of solid afternoon reading sessions. The brevity of the book is also partly explained by the fact that McClintock's claim to fame stemmed largely from (as the subtitle of the book suggests) being "The discoverer of the fate of Franklin". Prior to this, he had not enjoyed quite the same profile as other British Naval officers serving on expeditions to the North, such as Ross (leader of the first expedition to try and find Franklin in 1848, and under whom McClintock served), Back, and Parry.

The main focus of the book is on those expeditions mounted by the British admiralty and later by Lady Franklin to try and find survivors or determine the fate of Franklin's ill-fated expedition. In fact, the subtitle of the book is a little misleading, as it was John Rae who really determined the probable nature of the demise of Franklin's expedition, much to the displeasure of Lady Franklin. McClintock merely confirmed the suspicions of Rae by finding human remains in 1859, which Rae had failed to do. There is more discussion of this in the final chapter of The Arctic Fox. McClintock certainly made the most of his opportunity in the public eye following the successful expedition, writing numerous accounts of his exploits, with the British public clamoring for Arctic heroes. However, the book does discuss McClintock's life, both his younger years, and touches briefly on his post arctic career.

Although there are no glossy pictorial plates, there are numerous black and white illustrations throughout the book. The Arctic Fox is an easy read, and I would recommend it to anyone who had enjoyed "Barrow's Boys".

Driving to Mars: In the Arctic with NASA on the Human Journey to the Red Planet

Average customer rating:

Exploration, Science, and Art: Driving to Mars

Driving to Mars: In the Arctic with NASA on the Human Journey to the Red Planet
William L. Fox
Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Astrophysics & Space Science | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Mars | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Solar System | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books

On to Mars 2: Exploring and Settling a New World (Apogee Books Space Series)
Is Pluto a Planet?: A Historical Journey through the Solar System
Roving Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet
Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space
Postcards from Mars: The First Photographer on the Red Planet

ASIN: 1593761112

Book Description

Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic is the world’s largest uninhabited island, a place the size of West Virginia nine hundred miles from the North Pole. In its center is the world’s only impact crater in a polar desert, a hole twelve miles across and almost a thousand feet deep formed by an asteroidal comet hitting the Earth 38 million years ago. Every July, two dozen scientists set up camp on the rim of the Haughton Crater, a setting which duplicates as close as any place on Earth the barren Martian landscape. It’s one of a handful of analog environments for Mars — places where the harsh climate, severe geology, and unfamiliar terrain mimic conditions of the planet. Its environment is so hostile that no one has ever colonized more than small areas of its coastline for brief periods, and it's where the NASA practices people on Mars.
Driving to Mars recounts William L. Fox's three trips to Devon, working with the NASA Haughton-Mars Project. This book tells why we explore, how we see the world, and how we see ourselves in it. The flip sides of a single issue will ultimately determine whether or not we can stay alive on Earth.

Customer Reviews:

Exploration, Science, and Art: Driving to Mars.......2007-06-17

When it comes to exploration, there's nothing like being there. Yet at some point, all explorers need to tell others what they have seen - as well as find a way to understand and recall the experience themselves. Exploration is pointless if it is not shared.

The first humans to explore new places would return home with verbal descriptions of where they had been and what they had seen. These stories would fade and lose accuracy with each retelling, yet they still had the power to inform and inspire. Over time, the invention of writing and art allowed these tales to take on a greater amount of clarity.

Soon, professional illustrators and then photographers would be enlisted. Accurate as these captured impressions were - they were just that: captured impressions - by someone else. Of course, the only way to get beyond that barrier is to go to these places and see things for yourself.

Yet even when someone makes the trip, they have to take in what they see before they can appreciate where they are. Some vistas and locations are so utterly alien and novel that explorers need a context with which to integrate what they see. And of course, even the most incredible adventure will fade over time in the mind of an explorer. As such recorded impressions also serve to aid one's own memory of events in years to come.

It is the process whereby explorers put new vistas and experiences into a context they can internalize - and then how these impressions are shared with others that fascinates author William Fox. This book chronicles a writer as he sees things for the first time. Yet it is also a book on polar science, astrobiology, planetary exploration, ecology - and art history. Weaved together as part travelogue - part natural history, these books are eminently readable. This book serves as a tutorial for anyone seeking to visit and explore other worlds.

As I was reading this book, I was reminded of the way the James Michener often opened his books so as to give readers a portrait of a certain place and time. Michener also sought to show how that place came to be over a broad canvas of history - covering thousands and (sometimes) millions of years. Fox also makes sure that you know who visited these places first - and how these first feats of exploration echo forward to the present day.

You also get a sense of the future in what Fox writes. It was little surprise to see such an influence given Fox's friendship with author Kim Stanley Robinson and the referencing of his books "Red Mars" and "Antarctica". People are learning as they explore. They also seek to apply what they have learned - here and off world.

In Fox's book you find descriptions of people who are often quite ordinary - yet in many ways are extraordinary, placed in utterly alien and hostile locations. In some ways how they adapt is unusual - yet they also bring a surprising amount of their lives back in the real world with them.

Yet despite attempts not to spoil the very location they have come to study, these modern explorers transform these locations (or at least small portions) nonetheless. This is an issue that concerns Fox - and it will be an issue that will face us as we travel outward from Earth to explore and live on other worlds.

The arctic offers many locations that are analogous to what we may find on Mars - and elsewhere in the solar system. In particular, Devon Island, home to the Haughton Mars Project (HMP) is such a location. While you can fly to the hamlet of Resolute Bay in an hour - and to full-fledged civilization in a few more hours, this logistics chain can be cut at a moment's notice - and you are left with what you have on hand to survive. The veneer of connectivity to the rest of Earth is much, much thinner here. That is part of the value - and the allure.

HMP base camp is located next to the 38 million year old Haughton impact crater in a polar desert less than a thousand miles from the North Pole. Devon Island is largest uninhabitable island on Earth and is located in a region visited by many expeditions in the 19th century in search of knowledge - and the fabled Northwest Passage. Past, present, and future exploration co-exist in this place.

Visiting Devon Island evokes some truly alien impressions on all who visit. Having spent two one-month stints there myself, I speak from experience. There are places where your brain has no problem grappling with the idea that you are on Mars. It is there where I first met Fox who was researching Driving to Mars.

Driving to Mars is focused on this one location - and the natural history that makes it a good analog for Mars. You get to travel with Fox - on ATVs, modified Humvee rovers, and leap frogging in Twin Otter airplanes as he traverses the island. His travels take him to various locations where astrobiologists and geologists seek to understand this place on Earth - and yet place it into the broader context of comparative planetology. You also get to meet people who are trying to figure out how spacesuits need to be outfitted so as to allow people to truly explore the surface of Mars.

As you roam across Devon Island with Fox, you meet a variety of characters along the way (yes, I am one of them) who come from a variety of backgrounds. Everyone comes to this island every summer to not only study the place, but also learn how to conduct scientific and engineering research in a remote, hostile other worldly environment. All of these people also need to take something back from this place when they leave - their recollections being one of the most important.

Reading this book, you get a very good sense of place - not just what it is like to be there - but also what it is like for current visitors to walk in the footsteps of explorers who came before them - and (in the case of Devon Island) the indigenous peoples who explored the area thousands of years earlier.

The core theme of this book is how people take in what they see and then how they convey the experiences to others. Having spent two months myself doing precisely that in one of the locations Fox portrays (Devon Island), I have to say that he has aptly captured what it is like to be there - and the process whereby those experiences get interpreted and distributed.

As I write this review, new pictures are arriving on Earth from Mars. One set of imagery comes from the rim of Victoria crater as the Mars rover Opportunity seeks to find a way down inside. Meanwhile overhead the newly operational Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has begun sending back stunning high-resolution images of Mars. The first color image to be sent back shows the stunning vista of Victoria from above - including a recognizable speck on its rim - Opportunity itself. Yet as stunning and enticing as these images are - they are being sent back to us by a robot - without a human context. It can't tell us what it is like to be there.

Right now we are exploring Mars by proxy using our amazingly resilient rovers. One day we will go there ourselves. Only then will we truly begin to know the planet in a human context. And when we do go there we will make the planet our own as we explore it, understand it, and then tell folks all about it back home. In so doing we'll always be trying to strike a balance between what it is we have come to visit, what we bring with us, what we leave behind, and what we take back with us.

If you want to understand the people who are trying to figure out how to do this - and travel to remote locations on Earth in order to do so, then I heartily recommend this book.

To the Top of the World: Adventures with Arctic Wolves

Average customer rating:

awesome book
Very informative, fabulous photos
Great information and picture source

To the Top of the World: Adventures with Arctic Wolves
Jim Brandenburg
Manufacturer: Walker Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Chased By The Light
Look to the North: A Wolf Pup Diary
Once A Wolf : How Wildlife Biologists Fought to Bring Back the Gray Wolf (Scientists in the Field Series)
Looking for the Summer
Dog Friday

ASIN: 0802774628

Book Description

A wildlife photographer records in text and photographs two visits to Ellesmere Island, Northwest Territories, where he filmed a pack of Arctic wolves over several months.

Customer Reviews:

awesome book.......2005-10-17

This book has beautiful pictures and is so captivating, you can't help but love it. This seems as if you are there with the wolves. An excellent book for learning more about wolves.

Very informative, fabulous photos.......2002-09-02

"To the Top of the World" is essentially a condensed version of Brandenberg's fantastic book, "White Wolf," and is perhaps a better book to acquaint younger readers with wolf-related issues. This brief volume contains information about human-wolf relations, myth-busting, and of course much about wolf behavior and pack relations. It's also a great way for someone of any age to learn about this magnificent, keystone predator.

The wolf has been maligned for centuries, and it's absolutely crucial that we teach our children the importance of the wolf's role in nature; we have only to look to Yellowstone for a direct object lesson in what losing the wolf does to an ecosystem. In 1930, the US Government proudly shot the last wolf in Yellowstone, and that began a 60-year slide into an environmental disaster. Now, with the wolf replaced only seven short years ago, the park is almost completely back in balance again. It's crucial to understand that there are no "extra" animals in nature, and this book is a wonderful way to begin that learning path.

Great information and picture source.......1999-08-22

The book is written about Jim Brandonbrug's year spent with the artic wolves. He gets to know the wolves personaly and they begin to trust him completly. A great book for doing reports on artic wolves

Average customer rating:

Arctic Foxes
Downs Matthews
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Zoology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Arctic Foxes (Polar Animals)
Amazing Arctic Animals (All Aboard Science Reader)

ASIN: 0689802846

Harcourt Science - National Version: Arctic Fox

Average customer rating:

Harcourt Science - National Version: Arctic Fox
Michael J. Bell
Manufacturer: Harcourt School
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Harcourt Science - National Version: Grade 1
About My World
Harcourt Math - Grade 1
Lab Manual for Harcourt Science Grade 1
Reading Support and Homework (Science, grade 1)

ASIN: 0153400609

The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the discovery of the fate of Sir John Franklin and his companions

Average customer rating:

The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the discovery of the fate of Sir John Franklin and his companions
Francis Leopold McClintock
Manufacturer: Adamant Media Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Atlases | Atlases & Maps | Reference | Subjects | Books

Science & Mathematics | Health & Science | Historical Reproductions | Formats | Books
Similar Items:

Frozen in Time

ASIN: 1402163797
Release Date: 2001-08-23

Book Description

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1859 edition by John Murray, London.

Mystery in the Frozen Lands (YA Historical Novels)

Average customer rating:

Mystery in the Frozen Lands (YA Historical Novels)
Martyn Godfrey
Manufacturer: Lorimer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Short Story Collections | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

jp-unknown2 | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 1550281372
Release Date: 1988-01-01

Book Description

In 1845 Sir John Franklin and his crew, in the stout ships Erebus and Terror, fortified against ice and provisioned for a three years' journey, set off into the Arctic in an attempt to be the first to sail the North West Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. They were never seen again.

Twelve years later 14-year-old Peter Griffin joins the crew of the tiny steam yacht Fox on an expedition to discover their fate. Peter resolutely endures the close quarters on board ship, the cold and the dark, and the dangers of the forbidding Arctic landscape. As they travel further and further from home they find strange fragments, traces of men who have travelled before them. Soon they make discoveries that suggest the terrible fate suffered by Franklin and his men.

Based on historical accounts, Mystery in the Frozen Lands offers one boy's perspective of one the greatest of all Canadian disasters.

The Arctic Fox: Francis Leopold McClintock, Discoverer of the Fate of Franklin

Average customer rating:

The Arctic Fox: Francis Leopold McClintock, Discoverer of the Fate of Franklin
David Murphy
Manufacturer: Collins Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1903464587

Average customer rating:

The Arctic Fox
Mary Ellis
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews:

Chintz Quilt Collectors will LOVE this!.......2000-03-04

As a collector of early 1800's chintz quilts, I found this book very important, informative, and most of all beautiful. The quilts are gorgeous and quality of photos is top-notch. If you like early chintz, you will love this book!

Comprehensive information on cotton printing........1999-07-20

In addition to pictures of lovely quilts, this book provides a comprehensive treatment of the history of cotton printing before 1850. Quilt enthusiasts will find this useful for dating fabrics, but it also provides a handy summary for textile historians.

Calico and Chintz: Antique Quilts From the Collection of Patricia S. Smith

Average customer rating:

Calico and Chintz: Antique Quilts From the Collection of Patricia S. Smith
Jeremy Elwell Adamson , and Patricia S. Smith
Manufacturer: Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Textile Arts | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006F71WE

Book Description

Imagine building a waterfall, romantic fountain, or beautiful pond in your own backyard. All you’ll need is a vision, and this wonderfully simple, detailed do-it-yourself reference. From design and planning through to construction and maintenance, here are complete instructions for turning your ideas to reality. Establish an environment for fish or plants; add bog gardens; and more.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books