Commander Jacob "Jack" Bursey (1903–1980) was a polar explorer, U.S. Coast Guard officer and a lecturer. He was born in Newfoundland Colony. Biography Early years Bursey was born in 1903 in a small village called St. Lunaire in Newfoundland. He grew up fishing on the Grand Banks from his father's schooner, driving dog teams across the frozen land and bay, and skinning seals for food and clothing. He had two brothers and three sisters. His family members worked six days a week, gardening in the rocky soil and fishing in the summer, and mending nets, dogsledding, and catching seals in the winter. Bursey's family was a little better off than many of his cousins, aunts, and uncles because of their schooner and their family-owned store where the other residents traded. They also bought and sold all the fish in the village. With assistance from a doctor in St. Anthony, a neighboring community, Bursey left home at 21 and enrolled at a Boston institute in the United States. First Byrd expedition In 1927 Bursey read in a newspaper that Commander Richard E. Byrd was planning an expedition to the Antarctic and needed dog drivers and skiers. Bursey was one of 50,000 American males to apply. While Bursey was not initially selected, he brought a letter of recommendation from his employer to the expedition office and appealed to one of Byrd's men. The departure was scheduled in less than two weeks. In two days Bursey was granted an interview with Byrd. "I was disappointed when I first saw Commander Byrd," he recalled in an interview in 1979 in the Grand Rapids Press. "I had pictured him as a 7-foot giant with fire in his eyes. Instead, he was a slight man. Looking at me from across the desk, he seemed humble and friendly. It was probably the shortest interview on record." Byrd then told him that all his men were hired, but that he would see what he could do. Luck and experience were with Bursey. He was signed on as a seaman on the barque the SS City of New York, one of two ships Byrd was taking on the expedition to the Bay of Whales, Antarctica. The City of New York, a sailing vessel, was probably one of the last of her kind in the world. Built of wood in Norway in 1882 for the Greenland sealing trade, with sides