Donald Brown

ISBN 1590480597

The author of “Journey From the Arctic” was apparently, as Voltaire put it, “A perfect Englishman – traveling without motive.” Yet Brown had a deeply personal reason to ride by horseback from Lapland, through Sweden, into Norway during the winter of 1954. He believed that a journey on horseback was the most absorbing and eventful way to travel, a way to discover the world that becomes a mode not just of travel but of life.

What follows is a truly remarkable account of how Brown, a Danish companion, and their two trusty horses attempt the impossible, to cross the silent Arctic plateaus, thread their way through the giant Swedish forests, and finally discover a passage around the treacherous Norwegian marshes. Though he was often busy dodging snow storms or trying to find shelter with skeptical Laplanders, Brown tells a vivid tale inhabited not just by the native people of the Far North, but their neighbors, the trolls, goblins, and giants of Nordic legend as well.

“Journey From the Arctic” is thus more than an amusing adventure story. It is the true account of the only equestrian expedition in the late twentieth century to make a winter passage across the fabled Arctic Circle.

Amply illustrated with photographs Brown took while traveling, the book is sure to be of interest to students of both horses and history.

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Captain Robert Scott

ISBN 1590480694

A world of words has been written about this book, and none of them got it completely right! For while this is certainly the true story of how Captain Scott and his team of British explorers died trying to reach the South Pole, it is also the hitherto overlooked story of amazing equine courage in the face of certain death.
When Captain Perry of America reached the North Pole in 1909, all eyes, especially English eyes, turned to the  South Pole. The British Empire was at its zenith and national expectations were high that an Englishman should be the one to claim the other ice-bound crown. Captain Robert Scott was elected to carry British honor to that forbidden spot known as the South Pole.
Yet not only did Scott enlist men, in an unlikely move, he also recruited nineteen Yakut ponies raised by Siberian tribesmen in Russia’s frozen forests. These little equine heroes had no idea where they were heading when Scott’s brother-in-law loaded them on a ship and sailed them away from Russia to the far off shores of Antarctica. What followed is an under-reported and over-looked example of supreme equestrian sacrifice. First the ponies survived howling gales on the sea. Upon arrival, they donned special snow shoes and pulled their guts out to get Scott’s sleds through. Some of them were lost on a break-away ice berg and eaten by killer whales. The others starved. They suffered. In short, these 19 little heroes gave their all, and all for naught, for as we know Scott and his men died as well in their attempt to claim the Southern Crown.
Thus “Scott’s Last Expedition” is not only a story of men. It is but another example of that link between mankind and equine-kind that has stretched back 30,000 years. It is a remarkable and heart-moving story of men and horses who paid the ultimate sacrifice.  

The South Pole Ponies

Theodore Mason

The men of the expedition called them "devils" - those headstrong, mischievous, untrained ponies brought from the top of the world.  The little horses made the lives of their handlers miserable during the initial stages of two attempts on the South Pole, yet endeared themselves so much that the men shared their own precious rations with them.  Each handler could hardly bear it when his pony's turn came to be sacrificed for the good of all.

The names of the men of these expeditions are well-known - Scott, Shackleton, Mawson, Cherry-Garrard, Ponting, Wilson, Bowers, Oates - but few know the names of the ponies, or even that there ever were Manchurian and Siberian ponies in Antarctica.

Through meticulous research, the author brings Nobby, Snatcher, Snippets, Bones, Socks, Chinaman, poor Jimmy Pigg and the other ponies alive again while telling of the two trouble-plagued expeditions to the South Pole.

This edition is being produced in an effort to raise awareness of the need to preserve the four huts in Antarctica used by the British explorers, along with all of the remarkable memorabilia and ice-bound supplies preserved within their frozen walls.  Having endured nearly a century of harsh weather and official government neglect, the scientific headquarters still symbolise the nobler aspects of human nature which took these talented and brave men to Antarctica.  The tiny buildings are now listed as some of the most endangered sites in the world.

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