Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night
Categories: History, Sports & Outdoors
In August 1897 the Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache sailed the Belgica toward Antarctica, hoping to reach the magnetic South Pole. Pushing deeper into the ice, the ship became trapped in the Bellingshausen Sea through the polar night. Julian Sancton draws on crew diaries and the logbook to follow the men's slide into scurvy and madness, and the efforts of the ship's doctor, Frederick Cook, and its first mate, Roald Amundsen, to keep them alive and plan an escape (Crown, 2021).
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