Labyrinth of Ice by Buddy Levy

Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition
by Buddy Levy
St. Martin’s Press

Throughout the 19th century, the siren song of the Arctic has lured many an explorer and adventurer to a tragic fate more often than an unparalleled triumph. The most notorious example being the ill-fated expedition of Sir John Franklin to discover the fabled Northwest Passage in 1845. He and his crew of 129 men vanished, despite the efforts of numerous rescue expeditions to find them—many organized by Franklin’s indomitable wife, Lady Jane. They weren’t the last to lose their lives in the forbidding polar hell they found themselves in—there would be others.

One such nightmarish venture is rivetingly recounted in Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy. Levy, the author of seven books including River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana’s Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon, is no stranger to spinning an engrossing adventure yarn. In this latest book, he digs deep not only into the archival sources but also the psyche of men exposed to the worst privations imaginable.

In 1881, an American contingent of explorers and scientists took to the North Atlantic Sea to head as far north as possible, despite the known dangers of choking ice packs, subzero temperatures, and the mental strain of prolonged isolation, often termed “polar madness.” The official title of the venture was the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, but it soon became known as the Greely Expedition, named after its commander, 1st Lt. Adolphus W. Greely. Greely was a disciplined, hard-working, and conscientious army officer who survived the American Civil War, after which he set out West to help string telegraph wires connecting the country. Ironically, it would be these same communication wires that would electrify the nation when two years would pass with no word from the expeditionary force.

Amply illustrated with maps and photos showing the routes of the initial expedition, the retreat, and the various rescue ships sent (unsuccessfully) to rescue and/or provide provisions, Levy takes us on a long journey. Embarking from Newfoundland, we follow the expedition all the way to Grinnell Land on Ellesmere Island, where Greely and his crew construct Fort Conger, the large bunkhouse the 25 men will share for two years. In May 1882, a three-man contingent achieved the main mission of the expedition when they reached Farthest North, thereby breaking the 300-year-old record held by England. The men returned to the fort to await the relief ships that would carry them and news of their epic achievement back to the world. For two years those ships never appeared, due to impassable ice floes blocking the channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island. The decision to strike out on foot to meet the ships is taken (with some dispute), and thus the nightmare unfolds. Of the 25 men who tromped out of Fort Conger southward toward perceived salvation, only six would survive.

Levy’s narrative of the arduous trials that follow vividly transports the reader to the farthest reaches of the inhabitable earth, as we observe the horrors the Greely Expedition in detail: the inconceivable cold, starvation, near mutiny, and the dimming hopes of rescue as the ice packs groan and explode around them. Amid the steady mental and physical deterioration of the group, Levy paints with pathos a picture of the expedition’s members, from commander to the lowliest private. In these portraits-in-miniature, their character and personalities reveal both the best and worst of humans in crisis: heroism, grit, selflessness, but also dishonesty, disobedience, and callous self-regard.

It is a tale as old as time, but never gets old in the telling—and Levy does it superbly. Labyrinth of Ice takes the reader to the forbidding Farthest North in the best way possible as we avidly turn the pages, sipping hot tea from a cozy, warm chair.

—Peggy Kurkowski holds a BA in History from American Public University and is a copywriter living in Denver, Colorado.