Cauchemar au bout du monde : le voyage de la Belgica ans la nuit polaire
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (page 395-406) and index.

"En août 1897, le jeune commandant belge Adrien de Gerlache a voulu être le premier à atteindre le pôle Sud magnétique. L’expédition qu’il a lancée a rapidement dû faire face à une invraisemblable succession de revers et de périls, chacun plus dangereux que le précédent. Coincé dans les glaces durant la longue nuit antarctique, l’équipage de son navire, la Belgica, a peu à peu perdu le contact avec la réalité. Ce récit témoigne de l’inventivité dont ont dû faire preuve les explorateurs, au nombre de qui figuraient les légendaires Frederick Cook et Roald Amundsen, pour traverser une période d’isolement inhumainement longue." --publisher's website

"In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache's plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks, the commandant faced two bad options: turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating Antarctic winter, or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De Gerlache sailed on, and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, the ship's occupants were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness and besieged by monotony, they descended into madness. In this epic tale, Julian Sancton unfolds a story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica's men teetered on the brink, de Gerlacherelied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity: the expedition's lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook--half genius, half con man--whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship's first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice--one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean's bottom. Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica's crew and with exclusive access to the ship's logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars." --back cover (English large print version)