"I glanced at a couple of pages of Arctic Hell-Ship and became so engrossed in it that I started to read parts of it. What I thought would be an erudite analysis of the journey was, instead, a story 'brought to life'. What a fabulous adventure!" Mr. David Karpeles, Karpeles Manuscript Library
"William Barr has brought together official and unofficial accounts of the voyage for the first time. For example, he has the ship's log and other records, officers' diaries and Collinson's own accounts. These together give us a view of life on a 'Hell-Ship' in the Arctic, held together only by Royal Navy discipline. The book is worth reading for this alone. In addition, it contains glimpses of Russian Alaska, of the Inuit and Indians of Alaska and Western Canada and of the orderly and efficient way in which Royal Navy ships were prepared and managed for voyages, lasting years, to any part of the globe....I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Arctic or the Navy." Peter Adams, Peterborough Examiner, Aug 18, 2007.
"Lifetime Achievement Award-winning Canadian historian William Barr presents Arctic Hell-Ship, the story of Richard Collinson's sea voyage to the Arctic in search of the missing Franklin expedition. Collinson and his crew approached the Northwest Passage from the west, hoping to find and rescue the Franklin expedition; yet as time passed, relations between Collinson and his officers deteriorated so badly that three of them spent much of the voyage under arrest, though they were later exonerated of wrongful charges in the UK. A handful of color paintings by the ship's assistant surgeon, Edward Adams, illustrate this absorbing true story of bitter and unpredictable survival on the harsh arctic seas." Wisconsin Bookwatch, October 2007
"Three parts northern exploration and one part The Shining, William Barr's Arctic Hell-Ship tells the astonishing story of the HMS Enterprise..... Barr's compelling account shows a captain who was an oblivious explorer, a lucky navigator, and an unbalanced man....The real strengths of Arctic Hell-Ship are the depth and meticulousness of Barr's research. His judicious inclusion of primary source material, most of it previously unpublished, gives the narrative additional colour and urgency." Jared Bland, The Walrus, November 2007
"The title of this work clues the reader immediately to the author's judgment of Enterprise's captain. Collinson, an officer largely overmatched by his assignment, is revealed as an indecisive martinet....The excellent nature of the primary source scholarship mirrors the care and expense taken to add colour plates of Assistant Surgeon Edward Adams' painting to the volume....The author is an exemplary polar historian.... As for Richard Collinson, he should never have been taken away from his chart table to be put in charge of men on a desperate mission in a remote and hostile landscape." P.J. Capelotti, The Northern Mariner, April 2007
"[A] vivid memoir of Arctic conditions, exploration, and struggles to survive." August, California Bookwatch
