🇨🇦 Winner of the 2026 William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books announced

The Polar Libraries Colloquy is pleased to announce the winner of the 2026 William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books is For Glory, Not Gold: Expeditions through Arctic Lands by Hubert Sagnières (published by Éditions Flammarion).

For Glory, Not Gold is author and adventurer Hubert Sagnières’ impressive examination of what he has identified as perhaps the most historically important British and American expeditions undertaken in what is now the Canadian Arctic, during a period of intense exploration from 1818 to 1876. Sagnières, who has traveled widely in the region, is ably assisted with this book by advisors Mike Beedell and Eric Brossier, and photographer Paul Nicklen, all three of whom possess extensive experience living and working in the Arctic.

The expeditions and leaders selected by Sagnières were primarily engaged in the elusive search for a navigable route through the storied Northwest Passage. They mapped islands and mainland coastal areas across the Arctic and, in the later stages of this period, investigated areas conducive to opening a practicable way to the North Pole. Also included are numerous expeditions during the 1850s searching for Sir John Franklin and the lost crews of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

The book features many well-known expeditions. It also includes some expeditions that are nearly forgotten but that deserve consideration.

Appropriately, Sagnières and colleagues pay tribute to the Inuit, “resilient masters of survival” and the first explorers of the Arctic, who were often actively involved in aiding expeditions.

This gorgeous, large-format, superbly designed book, totaling 399 pages, is richly illustrated with period maps, diaries and logbook entries, as well as drawings and paintings created by expedition members themselves.

Rights to the book have been donated to La Guilde, the non-profit organization offering the History & Explorations Scholarship, initiated by Hubert Sagnières himself. The scholarship “…supports people with an exploration project with a historical dimension, striving to understand the past in order to better build the future.”

Two other nominations were awarded honorable mentions:

The Awe of the Arctic: A Visual History edited by Elizabeth Cronin (published by Hatje Cantz and The New York Public Library)

The Awe of the Arctic is a companion book to a 2024 exhibition of the same name presented by The New York Public Library. The book surveys “…images of the Arctic over the past 500 years as visual works in and of themselves.” It features historic and contemporary images, drawn from important collections. The images are artistic, unusual, and sometimes eccentric, but always fascinating. They are accompanied by well-documented and researched original essays.

Awe of the Arctic “…invites readers to contemplate the way in which visual representations of the Arctic, which were mostly found in books, created stereotypes and amplified the allure of the far North.” This attractive book is well worth owning.

Cold Words: A Polar Dictionary by Bernadette Hince (published in Australia by CSIRO Publishing; also published in the UK as A Polar Dictionary: Cold Words by CABI)

Cold Words is the second polar dictionary by Bernadette Hince. Her first, focusing on the Antarctic, appeared in 2000. Cold Words: A Polar Dictionary defines and geographically locates each term and gives one or more appearances, with dates, from expedition accounts, literature, periodicals, etc. “Each word entry includes the earliest example found of its use, followed by later examples.” The term ‘Hoosh’ includes five examples stretching from 1877 to 2006. The terms covered in 455 pages “…relate to weather, ice and snow, auroras, clothes, food, housing, social structures, wildlife, plants, politics, as well as many other aspects of polar life.” Available in several formats, this is a useful addition to any polar reference shelf.

Thirty remarkable books were nominated for the 2026 Mills Prize. A full list of all titles nominated for the 2026 William Mills Prize, including those titles that were shortlisted, is available on the Polar Libraries Colloquy website.

The William Mills Book Prize is awarded every two years and honours the best Arctic and Antarctic non-fiction books published in English throughout the world. The prize was first presented in 2006. It is named in honour of William Mills, a polar librarian and author, and a core member of the Polar Libraries Colloquy during its formative years.

For more information, please contact: Julia Finn

Originally published on June 11, 2026 by Polar Libraries Colloquy.