16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving ice. The men would spend the next year fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing hunger, and endless winter. Pitzer combines a tale of survival with a sweeping history of the great Age of Exploration -- a time of hope, adventure, and seemingly unlimited geographic frontiers.
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