Race to the Polar Sea: The Heroic Adventures of Elisha Kent Kane

In the mid–1800s, geographers revived the ancient idea that at the top of the world, encircling the North Pole, lay a temperate "Open Polar Sea." Without doubt, the voyager who discovered this balmy basin would etch his name forever in the annals of exploration. Among those drawn to the challenge was Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, a handsome, charismatic figure from a leading Philadelphia family who was already a well–known adventurer and explorer. In 1853, Kane sailed to the Arctic to seek both the...