Rescue at the Top of the World

Winter came early to the Arctic in 1897. Frigid temperatures brought pack ice that filled the waters north of the Bering Strait. As a result, virtually the entire North American whaling fleet was trapped, stranding 300 men to die of starvation and exposure. Three escaping ships raised the alarm. Answering the call, three officers from the early U.S. Coast Guard and two missionaries volunteered to travel over 1,500 miles through the Arctic winter to reach the shipwrecked whalers. The rescuers' perilous four-month journey, through mountainous territory and barren sub-zero landscapes never before traversed, was fraught with blizzards, wolves, steep terrain, unstable ice, hunters, and bone-piercing cold. Unaware that a rescue team was on the way, the shipwrecked men endured freezing temperatures, malnutrition, and scurvy before falling into general lawlessness. Their struggles and those of the rescuers are meticulously recreated here from century-old journals.This extraordinary chronicle of hardship and heroism will take you to the heart of one of America's greatest maritime disasters-and the greatest Arctic rescue story in history.