Yachting in the Arctic seas or notes of five voyages of sport and discovery in the neighbourhood of spitzbergen and novaya zemlya

In March1869 the schooner ‘Diana’ was launched in the Clyde. A cross between a yacht and a Scottish whaler, she was the creation of James Lamont, a Scottish member of Parliament and a man of some wealth. Lamont had earlier travelled north to Spitzbergen and had published a book about his adventures there. This had fuelled his interest and he consequently commissioned the building of the Diana; designed specifically for yachting in the Arctic Seas, and resigned his hard-won seat in the House of Commons to pursue this activity.
A prime example of the popular conception of a gentleman hunter and explorer, Lamont and his crew, with no particular scientific agenda in mind, voyaged to Novaya Zemlya and the Kara Sea, the Barentz Sea and Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen. This enabled him to ‘enjoy months of exciting hunts, and days and nights, never to be forgotten, in earnest contemplation of some of the grandest and most interesting phenomena of nature’. The book includes many plates taken straight from their sketches and is an engaging travelogue from one of the earliest Arctic Tourists.