The most surprising thing I learned from reading Russell Shorto’s “Island at the Center of the World” was that Henry Hudson attempted to sail across the “top of the world”, on a wooden boat with only 11 other people onboard and powered only by the wind, an excursion that Shorto comments is “pure madness” (p. 20). Not only did he attempt the voyage, tackling the calamitous storms and potential whale encounters that came with it, but he survived, making it within six hundred miles of the North Pole.  Part of their food source according to Shorto was bear and seal meat, and the crew members got sick at one point from eating rotten bear meat. Hudson made this journey in an attempt to find the Strait of the Three Brothers, which was thought to provide a short passage to Asia. The importance of this passage rests on the fact that Englishmen would have been able to trade their wool to the northerners, consequently removing the Portuguese and Spanish monopoly on the southern hemisphere. Many believed this strait to exist for some reason, and after Mercator drew it on his map, it became a reality to anyone who looked at it. Hudson initiated his northward journey after reading Mercator’s maps, acknowledging that since the sun shines for five months at a time near the north pole, the trip might be possible. Unfortunately, Hudson notes at the end of his journey that “there is no [Strait of the Three Brothers]” (p. 21). It must have been devastating to make such a treacherous voyage to no avail, risking their lives and acquiring illness along the way. The excursion was not entirely fruitless however; a large whaling corporation arose due to Hudson’s reports of many whales near the Spitzbergen Islands. But even more surprising than making such an endeavor and failing is that Hudson did not consider it a failure and was actually very excited to go for another voyage northeast; he never gave up, and looked forward to his second attempt.