Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage-航位推算：西北航道的未知故事

作者：Ken McGoogan

书名：Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage《航位推算：西北航道的未知故事》

中文背景：航位推测法（英语：Dead reckoning，缩写：DR）是一种利用现在物体位置及速度推定未来位置方向的航海技术，现已应用至许多交通技术层面，但容易受到误差累积的影响。英语中“Dead”不是从“deduced（推导）”转化而来。航位推测法可以推定精确的位置，但容易受到细微误差影响。例如：利用轮子的旋转圈数来测定位移量，但轮子受到温度变化的收缩影响会产生细微误差。由于前面的估计值就含有误差，所以不断进行后续的推算会造成误差传播。

英文简介：With this book—his most ambitious yet—Ken McGoogan delivers a vivid, comprehensive recasting of Arctic-exploration history. Dead Reckoning challenges the conventional narrative, which emerged out of Victorian England and focused almost exclusively on Royal Navy officers. By integrating non-British and fur-trade explorers and, above all, Canada’s indigenous peoples, this work brings the story of Arctic discovery into the twenty-first century.

Orthodox history celebrates such naval figures as John Franklin, Edward Parry and James Clark Ross. Dead Reckoning tells their stories, but the book also encompasses such forgotten heroes as Thanadelthur, Akaitcho, Tattanoeuck, Ouligbuck, Tookoolito and Ebierbing, to name just a few. Without the assistance of the Inuit, Franklin’s recently discovered ships, Erebus and Terror, would still be lying undiscovered at the bottom of the polar sea.

The book ranges from the sixteenth century to the present day, looks at climate change and the politics of the Northwest Passage, and recognizes the cultural diversity of a centuries-old quest. Informed by the author’s own voyages and researches in the Arctic, and illustrated throughout, Dead Reckoning is a colourful, multi-dimensional saga that demolishes myths, exposes pretenders and celebrates unsung heroes. For international readers, it sets out a new story of Arctic discovery. For Canadians, it brings that story home.