PRELUSIONS
St. John's, Nf.,
Feb. 9, 1922
Sealing trip arranged on Terra Nova with famous sealing captain. No passenger accommodations. You will be quartered with three junior officers. Be prepared to rough it.
EDWARD J. PENNEY
This telegram of good hap put a spur to my preparations and set me packing my warmest kit. It arrived as the climax to long negotiations, for this matter of getting permission to go out with the sealers of the Newfoundland fleet had been rather a business.
Observers and writers are not wanted by the seal hunters. Nobody is wanted among those men of bood and iron, in those far and frozen vacancies - nobody who cannot actively take part in the Saga of Slaughter.
"Three junior officers" sounded encouraging. The words seemed to couple with brass buttons and a smart little stateroom.
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And so begins George Allan England's tale of sailing to the ice with Captain Abram Kean on the Terra Nova in 1922. Vikings of the Ice, being the log of a Tenderfoot on the Great Newfoundland Seal Hunt was published in 1924 by Doubleday.
The unabridged audio edition of Vikings of the Ice narrated by Frank Holden is brought to you by Rattling Books.
