skygiants

In 1912, the Saint Anna, led by Lieutenant Brusilov, sets out for the Northeast Passage (it's like the Northwest Passage but less interesting), which has been navigated once before; he's mostly interested in hunting walrus and polar bear, etc. They get iced in and drift north for over a year. Albanov, the navigator, is "dismissed from duty" in late 1913 (but is stuck on the ship with everyone else). Early in 1914 he asks to venture south on his own, to avoid being stuck in another winter. About half the crew volunteers to come with him. Most of his party makes it to the Franz Josef Archipelago to the south, but as they're moving east across the archipelago, people get sick or the party just gets split; only Albanov and Alexander Konrad survive. They get picked up by another Russian polar vessel that's also been out of touch for two years, and when they get back, they have to be informed WWI has started. Albanov kept a diary of his trek, and wrote this up in 1917 using that as a basis; he died two years later, from either typhoid or an exploding munitions boxcar (the Russian Revolution was a fun time).

They had to make their own sledges and kayaks before setting off, because Brusilov didn't have any of that kind of stuff, and Albanov spends a lot of time yelling at the guys not to just leave them behind and go on skis, we actually need these to navigate, fools. I can sort of visualize loading kayaks on sledges to cross ice, but lashing sledges to the kayaks to cross the water gaps is impressive! (Later he talks more about "we lashed them on crosswise," but it was hard for me to visualize at first. They start with five sledges and also five kayaks that take turns riding on each other, it's not five sledge-cum-kayak-vehicles.)

Albanov was definitely a member of the Fridtjof Nansen fan club; they have basically no books on the Saint Anna, but they do have a map of Nansen's travels from "Farthest North." He and Johansen had approached the Franz Josef Archipelago from the east (rather than from the west like Albanov), Albanov is trying to find the supplies where they'd made camp, in the middle.

There's one woman on the Saint Anna, Yerminiya Zhdanko. She was originally hired as a nurse, and apparently took very good care of Brusilov during his illness, but also is the crew's "hostess" at meals. Is this just men defaulting to "oh of course the woman will be doing the ~feminine~ jobs"?

Denisov, a harpooner who stays with the Saint Anna, gets about as much biographical background as anyone. He "was half Ukrainian and half Norwegian." But because this is a Russian narrator writing in 1917, Denisov's father's home is in "the Ukraine," oof.

There's probably a spectrum to draw rating all the expedition leader+second-in-command dynamics. But Brusilov is new levels of awful. His POV on the crew asking to leave:
AKA our supplies are so limited, he needs some of the crew to leave so the remaining supplies will go farther, and then too many people stayed back with him.

And here's Albanov shortly before their departure:
Albanov's general tone throughout (and I guess this is feasible to put into print if all but one of your comrades are dead) is "why am I surrounded by idiots, you are all so lazy, don't sleep, get up and start sledging." But when they leave someone behind who's dying and unable to be carried, he sends a sledge to go back for him. He says that he's become more religious; he carries an icon of Saint Nicholas, and has a dream of him that he interprets as miraculous.

As they're marching across the ice, two guys steal a bunch of supplies on the guise of a "scouting expedition" and disappear. Albanov is furious, but reasons that they can't waste time trying to track them down. A week later, they reach land, it's great, there is fresh food and flowers and everything is wonderful. Turns out the thieves are also there.
(But also, Albanov never mentions the names of the two miscreants. Was one of them the one who survived?)

You know how some people really bond together and become friends while facing ordeals together? Yeah nope:
I mean, personally, I've definitely...been there. It's just odd to find that expressed as a precept. Maybe it's a Russian thing.

Worsley when they're almost to Elephant Island :handshake meme: Albanov when they're almost to Northbrook Island
not like this, we're so freaking close
Illness triggers the third man factor:
But shortly after this, the narrative starts switching between a last-name and a first-name basis for Alexander. :)

The footnotes are detailed and useful, so is the index. (Every time he uses the phrase "white death," take a shot.)