An Arctic Boat-Journey in the Autumn of 1854

This 1860 first-hand account by surgeon Isaac Israel Hayes (1832–81) records a gruelling episode in Greenland during the second Grinnell expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. With the expedition's ship Advance trapped in ice, Hayes set out with a party of men towards Upernavik. Their struggle for survival is vividly recounted.

After the expedition of Sir John Franklin went missing in the Arctic, a series of search missions were sent out in an attempt to discover its fate. Two of these were funded by, and named after, the American shipping magnate Henry Grinnell (1799–1874), the second of which was launched in 1853. With the brig Advance trapped in ice off the coast of northern Greenland, the expedition's surgeon Isaac Israel Hayes (1832–81) set out in August 1854 with a party of men towards Upernavik. This 1860 publication traces nearly four months spent struggling against horrendous Arctic conditions. Also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection are The Open Polar Sea (1867) and The Land of Desolation (1871), Hayes's account of a more leisurely cruise along the coast of Greenland. Also available is Arctic Explorations (1856), a two-volume account of the second Grinnell expedition by its leader, Elisha Kent Kane (1820–57).