Table of Contents

Foreword – Roger D. Taylor  

Part one: Bylot Island, Baffin Bay

I Plans and Preparations 

II To Godthaab 

III To Upernivik 

IV Baffin Bay 

V Bylot Island 

VI Pond Inlet 

VII Homeward Bound 

Part two: east Greenland

VIII The Objective and the Crew 

IX To the Faeroe Islands 

X Surtsey and Reykjavik 

XI Angmagssalik 

XII Homeward Bound 

Part three: Heard Island, Southern Ocean

XIII Fitting Out 

XIV To Albany 

XV To Kerguelen 

XVI Heard Island and Port aux Franais 

XVII Port Jeanne d’Arc, Heard Island and Sydney 

Part four: East Greenland, Return Engagement

XVIII To Iceland 

XIX Reykjavik and Angmagssalik 

XX Skjoldungen and Homewards 

Afterword: Tilman and Patanela—Outward Bound, 1964 – Philip Temple

About the Author

Harold William ‘Bill’ Tilman (1898–1977) was among the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering mountaineer and sailor who held exploration above all else. Tilman joined the army at seventeen and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery during WWI.

After the war Tilman left for Africa, establishing himself as a coffee grower. He met Eric Shipton and began their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro. Turning to the Himalaya, Tilman went on two Mount Everest expeditions, reaching 27,000 feet without oxygen in 1938. In 1936 he made the first ascent of Nanda Devi – the highest mountain climbed until 1950.

He was the first European to climb in the remote Assam Himalaya, he delved into Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and he explored extensively in Nepal, all the while developing a mountaineering style characterised by its simplicity and emphasis on exploration.

It was perhaps logical then that Tilman would eventually buy the pilot cutter Mischief – not with the intention of retiring from travelling, but to access remote mountains. For twenty-two years Tilman sailed Mischief and her successors to Patagonia, where he crossed the vast ice cap, and to Baffin Island to make the first ascent of Mount Raleigh. He made trips to Greenland, Spitsbergen and the South Shetlands, before disappearing in the South Atlantic Ocean in 1977.