An exhibition once frozen for 300 years now heats up a classic 16th-century tale of survival against all odds (and a few polar bears), finds Benjamin Roberts.
In late 1596, 17 Dutch mariners found their ship locked in the ice near the Arctic Circle, stranded in a near-perpetual night at a bitter 30 degrees below zero. The clock in their cabin was the only way the men could count the days before spring came to release them.
