The captains and crews of the whaling ships had sometimes very well-deserved reputations as scoundrels.

But the harshness of a whaler's character was often more than matched by the unforgiving winters of the Arctic.

In 1876, for example, winter came early and trapped a whaling fleet at Point Barrow, Alaska. Twenty vessels were caught in the ice. Most of the crews sought refuge on shore, but 70 who tried to over-winter on the ships were never seen again.

Some say the ships are still drifting in the ice of the polar seas, carrying corpses frozen in time...