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An astonishing tale of being stranded in the Arctic Ice.“While floating down on the ice-floe, in the midst of dirt and darkness, hungry and cold… I wondered at myself that I could have learned, in a few short months, to have eaten such things, and submitted to such practices, as but few civilized persons have ever been called to endure.”In June of 1871, navigator George E. Tyson and the Polaris sailed forth from New York to pursue an American dream—to be the first expedition to explore the icy waters of the North Pole. Led by Captain Hall, veteran Arctic explorer, and funded with a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Congress, it seemed the Polaris would not fail. But the voyage was doomed from the start: impassable ice-floes, a crew that couldn’t get along, and eventually the poisoning and untimely death of Captain Hall.