In addition to his achievements as a doctor, meteorologist, and cartographer, Richardson was the first great naturalist to study the North American Arctic. His journal made such an outstanding contribution to ornithology, ichthyology, botany, and geology that much of modern Arctic research is founded upon his observations. Enhanced by fifty-six line drawings and eight maps, Arctic Ordeal will interest a wide audience as well as medical historians, geographers, anthropologists, and botanists.