Sep 28, 2023 - Sale 2646

Sale 2646 - Lot 49

Price Realized: $ 780
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(ARCTIC.) George Shorkley. Letter from the physician of the Ziegler Polar Expedition. Autograph Letter Signed to friend Ned [Lincoln?] on Ziegler Polar Expedition letterhead. 2 pages, 11 1/4 x 8 3/4 inches; folds, minimal wear. Trondheim, Norway, 17 June 1903
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George Shorkley (1871-1945) of Lewisburg, PA attended Bucknell University and practiced medicine in Camden, Maine. In 1903 he signed on as the physician for the American-led Ziegler Polar Expedition, which hoped to be the first to reach the North Pole. He wrote this letter home to a friend shortly before the expedition left Norway for the High Arctic.

"We are almost ready to start on our long cruise. Are loading our stores & expect to be away in a few days. It is difficult for you to realize the immense amount & variety of supplies required in a venture of this sort. Over a thousand tons of everything imaginable. . . . Mrs. Shorkley is here with me. May go as far as Tromsö, or even Archangel, with me. We stop at Tromsö for dogs & some additional supplies, & at Archangel for ponies & dogs. As far as the exp'd is concerned, I am very enthusiastic over it. For my wife's sake, I'd give five yrs of my life (if I have so much remaining to me) & be over it & return quietly to my practice down in Maine. . . . When I signed with this outfit, my little girl was as eager over it as I was. Now, when the time for separation is at hand, her courage is almost gone & she is well-nigh broken down in health as well as spirit. . . . Of course, in a game of this sort, one has no license to bank very heavily on getting back, & the more she sees of our party & the nature of our preparations, the more Mrs. Shorkley realizes this."

The expedition reached the uninhabited Russian-held Franz Josef Land two months later, reaching a furthest north for a steamship under its own power. Wintering there, the ship was crushed in the ice with loss of most of their supplies. Several dashes for the Pole met with failure. The relief expedition was delayed by a year, but they were rescued with the loss of only one man in August 1905, and Dr. Shorkley returned home safely to his wife. His journals and reports held by Dartmouth College are one of the leading primary sources on the expedition.