Toward No Earthly Pole -- Preface

Here is the Preface of Toward No Earthly Pole: Letters from John Franklin's Last Expedition.  It will give you an idea of what I was trying to achieve with this book.


In May 1845, Sir John Franklin, his crew of 128 men, and his ships Erebus and Terror sailed north to seek the fabled North-west Passage. After their last contact with Europeans off the coast of Greenland in July, the expedition disappeared. It took a decade of searching through the labyrinth of islands that make up Canada's north to find evidence of what happened. The only relics of significance that were found included three marked graves, a trail of weathered bones, and a single piece of paper telling a sad tale (and, recently, the two ships, but they have yet to reveal their secrets). The mystery of what happened to Franklin and his men intrigues professional and armchair historians to this day. With global warming creating an increased interest in the Canadian Arctic and the future of the North-west Passage, the Franklin expedition is once again garnering public attention.

Why do we need yet another fictional account of the doomed Franklin expedition? The literature is rife with stories that stretch credibility and are inconsistent with historical fact (and, often, common sense). The truth, of course, is more prosaic and not as exciting. This book takes the factual record and fills in the gaps with events that are reflective of what may have happened. This is not new; books like John Wilson's excellent North With Franklin do a fine job of creating a believable tale of what may have happened. Given the vast literature on and relating to Franklin, an author who wants to tackle this subject needs to find a new angle for presenting an old story.

This book differs from what others have done in several ways.

• Fiction with Fact. This book intertwines historical fiction with historical fact. The fiction part comes from the "recent discovery" in the Arctic of documents (mostly letters) written by James Thompson, Acting Engineer 1st Class on the Terror. They tell of his experiences on the voyage. The fact comes from sidebars detailing information from contemporary sources (books, newspapers, etc.) allowing the reader to understand what was known at the time, and see how the historical record motivates the story. The fiction has been done before (e.g., Wilson); combining it with the contemporary historical documents is new.
• Maps. I find most exploration literature frustrating to read because in an expedition of discovery, the maps usually reveal all the answers in advance. Hence, I have the Thompson letters include maps that are reflective of what he knows at the time. The initial map shows the world at the start of the expedition (1845). As the story progresses, the map is updated by Thompson with the new discoveries.

• Excitement. The reader needs to experience the emotions of James Thompson. Hence a discovery for him has to also be a discovery for the reader.

• Life. I want to show the reality of a 19th century Arctic expedition -- things like life on ship,

• man-hauling sledges, extreme cold, the long polar night, and starvation. Since I have not experienced these things myself, I will base them, in part, on the written records of those who have.

• Realism. I have read books with fictional letters before, but they often lack realism. Frequently the letters become information dumps to the reader; no real participant of those events would write like that. Thus I try to avoid including in the letters information that one would normally not see. The sidebars present much of this information using the original sources.

• Emotion. Historical journals (real and fabrications) are almost always emotionally muted. I want to try to bring out the emotion, good and bad, that the men of the Erebus and Terror experienced.

• Conversation. Fiction-based journals that contain detailed conversations do not resonate with me. Who would possibly remember a conversation word for word and transcribe it in a letter? Hence, there are few conversations in this book.

• Tragedy. I want to recount the tragedy as it likely unfolded based on the historical record.

Because the story is based on the facts, it will have similarities to other works of fiction about the Franklin expedition. This is unavoidable, as in some cases the evidence points to a single likely scenario; everyone agrees what probably happened and hence the perceived duplication occurs.

To make the book seem more believable, it is presented as an edited book. The fictional editor, Bill Counter, gives the letters in an edited form complete with the historical context. This is a convenient way to interject information at appropriate places to give "glue" to the story. Again, I am trying to make the book appear believable. Any set of letters that contain enough detail so that glue is not needed lacks plausibility.

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Sometime before the age of twelve, I become fascinated by the history of geographic discovery. For some unknown reason, perhaps because I lived in Canada, I focused in on the exploration of the polar regions -- Arctic and Antarctic. I have a picture of myself at the age of thirteen proudly holding my first polar-related possession: a modern reprint of John Franklin's book on his first expedition (1819-22) to the Canadian Arctic coast, a gift from my parents. I devoured that book, and every other polar history book I could get from the school library.

I have been a fan of polar history for four decades now and have always wanted to turn my passion into something tangible. As a university professor of computing science, there was no easy way to combine my hobby with my profession. After mulling over many possible ideas, I decided to stretch my abilities and try my hand at writing fiction. This is my first attempt at such an endeavour, and no doubt some of my amateurism shines through. However, writing this book fulfills a dream of mine. If this book instills the excitement of discovery in some readers -- in this case geographic, but it could as easily be scientific -- then the book will have been a success.

I tried to be true to the historic record and the body of evidence with respect to the important events that (likely) happened to the expedition. All the crew member names and their positions in the expedition are accurate. However, the personalities and interactions of the crew members are fictional. Franklin purists will undoubtedly point out factual errors in this regard. This book is telling a story, and my priority was to get the story right. Doing the research to ensure that all characters are represented in the correct historical light is peripheral to the goal of the book. However, there may be living descendants of people mentioned in this book that are cast in an unfavourable light. This was done for purposes of building an interesting story, and does not reflect who these people were in real life. For any difficulties that this causes, I truly am sorry.

All the "discovered" documents reported in this book are fictional. The sidebar content is factual and is mostly taken from contemporary sources. The story is intended to be true to what is known about the expedition, but the places where I deviated are given in Appendix A.

Although I have tried to be true to the historic record, undoubtedly some mistakes or omissions will have occurred. For this, I accept full responsibility.

Toward No Earthly Pole

I am delighted to announce that after eight years, I have finally finished my book on Sir John Franklin's last (spoiler alert: and fatal) expedition. It is now available for sale from Amazon. Treat yourself and buy a copy. Better yet, treat your friends and family too!

Since I was young, I have been fascinated with tales of geographic exploration. Early on, my interests focussed in on the Polar regions, likely because of the Canadian connection. I read every book in my local library on the subject. Around the age of 12, I received my first Polar book as a present, a modern reprint of John Franklin's first expedition to chart the Canadian North (Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the Years 1819, 20, 21, and 22, Hurtig, 1969). From that day on I started collecting modern books on the exploration of the Polar regions.

For my birthday in 1985, my parents gave me the book: The Polar Regions by John Richardson. Not a reprint; the original edition from 1861! It is not a rare book, but no matter. It was over 100 years old. I could "touch" history. John Richardson was on Franklin's first (and second) expedition and parlayed this into an amazing scientific career. This book was from the time when Richardson was alive. Perhaps he even held this book. It made history come alive for me.

For the last 34 years I have been building a library of antiquarian and modern Polar literature and ephemera. In 2010 I decided it was time to use it. I had a dream of contributing in a meaningful way to the vast Polar exploration literature. I wanted to write a book and, as a true academic, have it be cited. I did not see a good way of writing an interesting book through the use of my computer science background. A history book would be better, but I quickly realized that I would either have to write a popular mass-market book (of which there are hundreds) or an academic history book (for which I was not qualified). I put my dream on hold.

A couple of months later I hit on the idea of writing a historical fiction book. Take an expedition and create a story around it that educated and entertained the readers (once a teacher, always a teacher). But I wanted this to be a serious effort, so I decided to intertwine the historical record with fictionalized events. What expedition should I choose? The choice was obvious: John Franklin's third and final command. In 1845, he and his crew sailed into the Canadian Arctic to find a path through the labyrinth of islands seeking the fabled North-west Passage. They were never seen alive by Europeans again. There are few facts as to what happened and lots of speculation. It was the perfect opportunity for me to achieve my goals.

With huge efforts in 2011 and 2016, the book was completed. Now all I needed to find was a publisher. I have published several books before that have been well received (in particular, One Jump Ahead, 1997 and 2008 -- another great opportunity to treat yourself). They were computer science related books and I have the professional credibility that appeals to publishers. But when it comes to historical fiction, well, quite frankly, I am a nobody. After over two years of trying to find a publisher, I gave up. Toward No Earthly Pole is self published through Amazon.

I am thrilled that I have finally completed this project. I really do not care if it sells 10, 100 or 1,000 copies. All that matters is that I have now contributed -- yes, in a small way -- to the literature that I so enjoy reading.

There is one thing left to do. Will someone please cite the book, hopefully in a positive way?