Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue

Two-time National Outdoor Book Award-winning author Buddy Levy's thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship―and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.

Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Yet, Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship.

In 1908–09, American explorers Dr. Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, in separate expeditions, both claimed they’d reached the North Pole first, but their claims were seriously questioned. There was enough doubt that Norwegian explorer extraordinaire Roald Amundsen—who’d made history and a name for himself by being the first to sail through the Northwest Passage and the first man to the South Pole—attempted to fly to the North Pole by airship. He would go in the Norge, designed by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile. The 350-foot Norge flew over the North Pole on May 12, 1926, and Amundsen was able to accurately record and verify their exact location.

However, Nobile felt slighted by Amundsen. Two years later, Nobile returned, this time in the Italia, backed by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. This was an Italian enterprise, and Nobile intended to win back the global accolades and reputation he believed Amundsen had stripped from him. The journey ended in disaster, death, and accusations of cannibalism, launching one of the greatest rescue operations the world had ever seen.

Realm of Ice and Sky is the riveting tale of the men who first flew the most technologically advanced airships of their time to the top of the world, risking and even giving their lives for science, country, and polar immortality.