Armitage was captain both with the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition to Franz Josef Land in 1894-7 (the expedition that rescued Nansen and Johansen in the Arctic), and with Scott's Discovery expedition to the Antarctic, 1901-4. His autobiography, which devotes three chapters to his polar experiences, has become a somewhat scarce book, and provides a useful accompaniment to the same author's Two Years in the Antarctic (1905).