The Giant of the North

Name: The Giant of the North
Author: R. M. Ballantyne

#105 in Adventure this month #92 in Children's this month

The Giant of the North, also known as Pokings Round the Pole, is a novel written by R. M. Ballantyne and first published in 1882.

In this story, Captain Vane along with his son Benjamin and his nephews Leo and Alf set out in search of the North Pole. Obviously this will not be an easy task and it will also be complicated when their ship gets trapped in the Arctic ice.

The youngsters will try to overcome these adventures under extreme cold in the frozen tundra and the icy waters of the Arctic Sea. They will meet Eskimo peoples, including the giant Eskimo Screekinbroot, and their customs and way of life.

The story will even have a surprise with the discovery of an Eskimo elder who will have a relationship with the main characters...

The book explores the discovery of the North Pole before it actually happened, so the details of the exploration are totally fictitious. Still, it presents some quite interesting conjectures and highlights the author's great imagination.

Why Read The Giant of the North in 2026?

Sledges, sea-ice, and survival. Ballantyne’s polar adventure trades comfort for craft as a crew learns to read weather, ice, and themselves. It is brisk, practical, and full of field-tested know-how—reminding us that competence is a story’s best special effect.

Today's connection

Read as a window on nineteenth-century exploration and a conversation starter about resilience and respect for Arctic knowledge. Pair with modern accounts to contrast imagination, risk, and the ethics of encountering other cultures and extreme environments.