The Cruise of the Northern Light

Breaking the role of Chicago socialite as wife of John Borden, heir to the Borden’s Condensed Milk fortune, Courtney Borden accompanied her husband on hunts and became adept at shooting and fishing. The couple, along with a small party, took a five-month voyage to hunt Alaskan brown bear, walrus, and polar bear trophies, some of which would become specimens for Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Courtney Borden recorded the events of the trip, and this book is her account of the Arctic adventure, from hunting walrus from a kayak to visits to Native settlements and frontier communities in Alaska.