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Was it a mere feeling of duty that impelled me? Oh, no! I was simply a child yearning for a great adventure out in the unknown, who had dreamed of it so long that at last I believed it really awaited me; and it has, indeed, fallen to my lot, the great adventure of the ice, deep and pure as infinity, the silent, starlit polar night, nature itself in its profundity, the mystery of life, the ceaseless circling of the universe, the feast of death, without suffering, without regret, eternal in itself.¹

The Earth has two polar deserts, the Arctic polar desert (covering the North of Alaska, Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden, and the ice-covered Arctic ocean) and the Antarctic polar desert (covering the entire continent of Antarctica). 

The history of Arctic exploration is long enough that much of it has been lost to the mists of time. The earliest person who might have reached the Arctic circle, and whose name survives to us, was Pytheas, an Ancient Greek sailor who sailed north in 325 B.C. looking for tin. However, the exact details of his journey, including how far north he reached, is unknown. His own account has not survived to the modern day, so we must rely on quotations and commentary in the work of ancient historians such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder.² The next known explorers north were the Vikings, who reached Greenland, North America, and probably Svalbard. 

By the sixteenth century, explorations northwards were in aid of trade: the hunt for the Northwest and Northeast Passages had begun. The Northwest Passage is the route which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. For a long time its existence was hypothetical, but European explorers were convinced that its discovery would revolutionise trade with Asia. A great many expeditions were sent in search of this passage over hundreds of years; Sir John Ross (24 June 1777 – 30 August 1856) led two such attempts. Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-west Passage documents the four years of his second expedition, which made it further than any Europeans had previously, in part because he befriended and learned from the Inuit. On meeting them for the first time, Ross writes:

We could now easily see that their appearance was very superior to our own; being at least as well clothed, and far better fed; with plump cheeks, of as rosy a colour as they could be under so dark a skin. […] This was a most satisfactory day; for we had given up all expectations of meeting inhabitants in this place; while we knew that it was to the natives that we must look for such geographical information as would assist us in extricating ourselves from our difficulties and in pursuing our course.³ 

The Inuit’s skills and techniques when it came to clothing, diet, shelter and transport were uniquely adapted to the cold environment, and by adopting some of these (such as purchasing garments made from skins from the Inuit), they were able to survive four Arctic winters. During this expedition, on 1 June 1831, James Clark Ross (John Ross’ nephew) reached the North Magnetic Pole, the first European to do so. Unfortunately, eventually Ross’ ship became caught in the ice, and the expedition had to abandon her. The men were retrieved and sailed back to England by a whaling ship.

A long range << Heading north >> In search of Franklin

1. Fridtjof Nansen, Fridtjof Nansen's Farthest North (Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1897), 493–494.
2. For more information on Pytheas, see: Barry Cunliffe, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek (London: Penguin Books, 2002). .
3. John Ross, Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-west Passage (London: A. W. Webster, 1835), 245-248. .