Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer

Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer by Loomis, Chauncey C.. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780803279377.

A Cincinnati businessman named Charles Francis Hall set out for the Arctic in 1860 to search for members of Sir John Franklins expedition, missing for fifteen years. An amateur explorer without scientific training, Hall was extraordinary in his determination, independence, and energy. Drawing on surviving letters and journals, Chauncey C. Loomis has reconstructed in atmospheric detail his daring forays into the inhospitable Far North. The last one brought Hall in 1871 closer to the Pole than any other Westerner had ever been and resulted in his death under mysterious circumstances. Ninety-seven years later, in 1968, Loomis headed an expedition to Halls grave in northwestern Greenland. The results of the autopsy on his frozen remains suggested that a naval board of inquiry long ago had nervously sidestepped rumors and suspicious evidence. In weighing new revelations, Weird and Tragic Shores tells a story to chill the blood. In his new afterword to the Bison Book edition, Chauncey C. Loomis, a professor of English at Dartmouth College, writes about the Arctic of the imagination, which is the Arctic that first summoned Hall.