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Erebus” the story of a ship by Michael Palin
punlished by Random House, Canada and available as an ebook.
This is a gripping and fascinating story of the “Erebus” and its companion ship, “Terror”. Both were built as slow but strongly constructed and very stable bomb ships outfitted to fire shells against land-based armies. The older and slightly smaller “Terror” was actually used during the Napoleonic Wars but the war was over before the “Erebus” was ready for use. They were both then strengthened and adapted for polar exploration which remained their function and the two were always used together.
The first and longer section of this maritime biography of the “Erebus” details the three Antarctic expeditions under the command of James Clarke Ross (the Ross Ice Shelf is named after him). Palin follows his routes and details the remarkable places, events and dangers encountered. If you use Google Maps to look over some of these places you’ll find some quite interesting and serendipitous information. For instance try the “Kerguelen Islands”, still an incredibly remote location. The “Hotel” and tourist “reviews” are very funny.
The second part is a fine and often moving account of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition to traverse the “Northwest Passage”. It ends with the recent discovery of both ships which, owing to the intense cold, are in remarkably excellent condition.
I found it very hard to stop reading and the book is enhanced with superb illustrations. The ebook is available both in iBooks and Kindle. There is an excellent audio read by Michael Palin himself which is well worth a credit. However Audible’s edition is not synced with the digital ebook.
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