{"product_id":"the-last-voyage-of-the-karluk-a-survivors-memoir-of-arctic-disaster-9780312206550","title":"The Last Voyage of the Karluk: A Survivor's Memoir of Arctic Disaster","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn astonishing narrative of disaster and perseverance, \u003ci\u003eThe Last Voyage of the Karluk\u003c\/i\u003e will thrill readers of adventure classics like\u003ci\u003e Into Thin Air \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Climb\u003c\/i\u003e. In 1913, explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson hired William McKinlay to join the crew of the \u003ci\u003eKarluk\u003c\/i\u003e, the leading ship of his new Arctic expedition. Stefansson's mission was to chart the waters north of Alaska; yet the \u003ci\u003eKarluk\u003c\/i\u003e's crew was untrained, the ship was ill-suited to the icy conditions, and almost at once the \u003ci\u003eKarluk\u003c\/i\u003e was crushed-at which point Stefansson abandoned his crew to continue his journey on another ship. This is the only firsthand account of what followed: a nightmare struggle in which half the crew perished, one was mysteriously shot, and the rest were near death by the time of their rescue twelve months later. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWritten some sixty years after the fact, and drawing extensively on his own daily log, McKinlay's narrative of this doomed expedition is rendered with remarkable clarity of recollection, and with a combination of horror and a level of self-possession that, to modern eyes, may seem incredible. Like most of his companions, McKinlay was inexperienced, without a day's training in the skills essential to survival in the Arctic. Yet he and many of his fellow crewmen, with the help of an Eskimo family accustomed to such conditions, survived a year under the harshest of conditions, enduring 80-mile-per-hour gales and temperatures well below zero with only the barest of provisions and almost no hope of contact with civilization. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNearly a century later, this remains one of the most compelling survival stories ever written-an extraordinary testament to man's overpowering will to live.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilliam Laird McKinlay \u003c\/b\u003ereturned from the Arctic to serve as an officer on the Western Front during World War I, and spent much of his life thereafter as a school headmaster in Scotland. His account of the \u003ci\u003eKarluk \u003c\/i\u003edisaster was first published in 1976, when he was eighty-eight years old.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"St. Martin's Griffin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50491667022098,"sku":"9780312206550","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_dff8dbe7-3328-468a-b6de-f80fc67f9a0c.jpg?v=1730547781","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-last-voyage-of-the-karluk-a-survivors-memoir-of-arctic-disaster-9780312206550","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}