The Unlucky Viking

Early in the twentieth century, adventurous Norwegians were drawn to the southern hemisphere, seeking their fortune from sealing and whaling.

This book tells the extraordinary tale of a young captain, Anders Harboe-Ree, who far from making his fortune was shipwrecked twice on subantarctic islands. The first shipwreck, in 1906, resulted in 14 men being stranded on the desolate and remote Crozet Islands, and to save them Anders and two companions attempted to sail a 5.8-metre whaleboat 7,300 kilometres to Australia across the wild Southern Ocean.

The second shipwreck, two years later, saw 75 men stranded on the equally bleak Prince Edward Islands.

These were the most dramatic, though not the only, misfortunes faced by this unlucky, modern-day Viking. Echoing the old Norse sagas, this book is a gripping story about shipwrecks and survival and an important contribution to sealing and Antarctic history.