The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle

The weekly magazine of William Parry's Arctic expedition of 1819–20 offers unique insight into nineteenth-century polar exploration.

This weekly magazine was written to boost morale among members of the first British expedition to overwinter in the Arctic (1819–20). The publication was filled with jokes, poems and stories, offering unique insight into what polar exploration in the nineteenth century was actually like.Alone, months of sailing separating them from home, in the polar winter where the sun never rises, the two ships of Captain William Parry's expedition lay encased in ice from November 1819 to March 1820. In order to fully chart the North-West Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, it was necessary to overwinter in the Arctic, something that no other British expedition had done before. To boost morale in these uncomfortable circumstances, Captain Edward Sabine (1788–1883), a senior scientist carrying out measurements of natural phenomena, founded and edited a weekly magazine, which ran for twenty-one issues and was made available to the wider world in 1821. Offering jokes, poems, stories and thinly disguised gossip, the members of the expedition contributed to the magazine with enthusiasm (after having first thawed their ink). This little book offers unique insight into what polar exploration in the nineteenth century was actually like.