Boreal Ties comprises the annotated diaries and pictures of two participants in the expedition, Clarence Wyckoff and Louis Bement, close friends from Ithaca, New York, who paid $500 each to join the voyage. As Wyckoff and Bement embarked, they looked forward to what twenty-first-century travelers would call adventure tourism. They envisioned themselves hunting wild game, admiring and photographing magnificent scenery, and escaping the stresses of their lives as businessmen. The scenery did not disappoint, as the photographs assembled here testify, but the stress of sailing in polar seas was worse than the travelers imagined. They endured maggoty food, head lice, and hives. The ice and the incompetence of the ship's crew threatened their lives on more than one occasion. In addition to the drama of the journey and the magnificent Arctic scenery, this travelogue is a valuable record of the American explorers' encounters with Inuit people, many of whom they identified by name.