Sailor on Ice:  Tom Crean: with Scott in the Antarctic 1910-1913
David Hirzel landed at Sky Ranch overlooking Pacifica, California at the end of 30 years of wandering that started in West Virginia, with extended stops in Florida, Virginia, Lake Tahoe and various points between.  In the course of time he has published numerous poems, stories  and articles, two plays and an online audiodrama attomcrean>, but his true calling has always been the history of polar exploration in the “heroic” age.  The fascination began with a first reading of Shackleton’s Valiant Voyage in 1961, and never ended.  One result has been the book Tom Crean:  Sailor on Ice, a labor of love that started in 1996 and hasn’t ended yet.  Two more books are due in the series, covering Crean’s early days in Scott’s first expedition, and his triumph against all odds in Shackleton’s “Endurance” expedition. He lives at Sky Ranch with the cat Bellerophon (named for the ship of the line in Nelson’s navy), watching the whales and the Pacific sunsets.