South By Northwest

For many, Antarctic history begins and ends with the race between Scott and Amundsen for the geographic south pole, but they were late to the start and only briefly on the course. By then, another polar race had already been in progress for 70 years, and it would continue for even longer. Tat race, for the south magnetic pole, was a marathon rather than a sprint and its starting point was suitably distant from Antarctica, in the ice of the fabled Northwest passage. 303 pages HB