I’ve been watching the TV Show The Terror, and I was curious as to how ships in that era (1800s) were able to keep warm or at least insulated against extreme temperatures.
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The short version is, they didn’t.
They literally froze – frostbite and death from the cold were both common, the winter clothing they wore was ill-suited to the climate and often inadequate, and fires were extremely dangerous on wooden ships waterproofed with tar and pitch.
They kept from freezing to death by the most primitive means – huddling together to keep warm, packing lots of bodies in small spaces to maximize the effects of body heat, and getting help from the Inuit when they could.
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