shipwrecks

The Terror is a fictionalized account of the real historical event known as Franklin's Lost Expedition. The expedition, a crew of 129 men split between two British Royal Navy ships, set out in 1845 to discover a new route through the Arctic for trade between England and China - a route deemed the "Northwest Passage." Over a year after the expedition initially set sail, both ships (HMS Erebus and HMS Terror) became trapped in thick ice off the northern coast of Canada. The crew, utterly isolated and unprepared, were left to fend off the unrelenting cold of the Arctic with few provisions and

Published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe is an oldie but a goodie! Robinson Crusoe is a young man bent on experiencing sea adventure. He finds himself shipwrecked on a small deserted island and survives for many years. His thought process and perspective alters greatly as the years pass on the island. He reckons with God and begins to realize that God has provided great blessings to him while he has resided there and, indeed, he does live quite comfortably on the island. I enjoyed this immensely more than Defoe's Moll Flanders. 

In the latter half of the 19th century, many scientists believed that there was an Open Polar Sea that could be reached by ship once they had pushed past the outer ring of ice.  A race between many of the wealthier countries began to see who could claim the route for both trade purposes and bragging rights.  The U.S.S. Jeannette expedition was a joint venture between eccentric newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. and the U.S. Navy.  Consisting of 31 officers and crew, the Jeannette aimed for the North Pole but was quickly locked in shifting ice floes, dragging them far off course for