The story of polar exploration begins, as most in Western thought, with the Greeks. They knew very well that the world is round, has a top and a bottom, regions suitable for life, and regions not suitable, including Terra Incognita, as the polar regions were called. Little accurate information about the Arctic was known until the 17th-century explorations for Northeast and Northwest Passages to Asia. A picture of the great northern reaches slowly began to emerge, and by the middle of the 19th century—after 250 years of lost lives and treasure—it became increasingly evident that there was no Northern Passage to the “wealth of the Indies.” Conversely, the Antarctic held little fascination for early explorers, and the vastness of the continent was not charted until the middle of the 20th century, when aerial observation made mapping possible.

From antiquity to the present, myth and fantasy have competed with scientific fact and exploration for popular attention. The “ends of the earth” inspired Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, and countless other writers to spin tales of unknown worlds and creatures in the desolate, frozen regions of the earth.

Join Arthur Dunkelman on a virtual tour of the history of polar exploration using maps, charts, books, and artifacts from the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Early Americas, Exploration and Navigation held in the Special Collections of the University of Miami Libraries. Dunkleman spent over 24 years working closely with Jay I. Kislak—prominent collector, philanthropist, and Miami resident for more than 60 years—to build a collection of rare books and historic artifacts focused particularly on Florida and the Caribbean, exploration, navigation, and the early Americas. Get a behind-the-scenes look into the world of collecting and learn more about how a collaboration of sensibilities between collector and curator helped to grow and enhance the Kislak collections.