Polar Dance: Born of the North Wind

Customer Reviews:

Simply a stunning book!!.......2002-01-26

I found Tom Mangelsen's gallery in Jackson a few months ago, and while I was there, I had a chance to see many of his just downright stunning images.

As an aspiring wildlife photographer, I truly appreciate the superb work of Tom Mangelsen. Also, while in his gallery, I had the chance to talk to as well as meet Mr. Mangelsen himself.

This book is just simply stunning. I cannot think of any other description. The many different images of the polar bear in its natural environment has to be seen to be appreciated.

What I like the most about this book over so many other "nature" books is that we get to see the many facets of the polar bears life, from the tender side with a mother and her babies, to the savage nature of these beautiful animals...not just some glossy expose that says nothing.

I would encourage anyone who loves nature photography, whether you are a "couch" photographer/explorer or are planning on a career in wildlife photography.

Heartily recommended!!!!

The best book of the best nature photographer.......2001-02-14

I discovered the work of Thomas Mangelson about ten years ago in Jackson, Wyoming, when I stumbled across a gallery devoted to his work. The most famous image there, the one of two grown polar bears "dancing," is on the cover of this book.

The book encapsulates all the artistry of this outstanding photographer. As difficult as it is to capture wildlife images, it's doubly so when you are photographing white animals against snow! Mangelson spends some four months a year in the Arctic, enlarging his huge repertoire of images. I can't begin to imagine the patience and meticulous attention to detail that is required to gather these pictures, but I'm glad Mangelson can!

I love the fact that this book shows the chronological sequence in the life of a bear family, and also that it doesn't have captions on each page. That allows you to follow the sequence of images undisturbed by human intrusion - you become a part of the life cycle, so to speak. Mangelson's work enables the viewer to see the bears as a complex family unit in addition to their usual portrayal as hardy predators. It cannot fail to move the viewer; this is a book to savor again and again.

I'm a huge fan of just about every image this photographer has ever published, and this book is, to me, the culmination of his work. I recommend it to everyone, bear fan or not!

Essential, wonderful personal story, captivating photos.......2000-05-02

This is an essential book for polar bear and nature photography lovers alike. There are over 250 photos of polar bears, and arctic wildlife captured in the beautiful frozen world they live in.

I found the photography truly captivating. The adorable bears are shown splashing in the water, dancing, taking afternoon naps & wandering through the snow. There is even one of the mother making friends with a sled dog.

I was deeply touched by the many images of the cubs snuggling close to their mother. I found the other wildlife photos featuring many foxes and birds equally impressive. The captions for all the images are in the back of the book.

Along with the pictures, there is a wonderful story of a year in the life of a mother polar bear & her 2 cubs. The author switches pleasingly between factual accounts of the arctic world, folklore, & the personal story of the bear family.

breathtaking, impressive photography of the arctic.......1998-12-30

Mangelsen has created an outstanding work of art that can be appreciated by polar bear lovers and nature lovers alike. The intentional ommission of captions until the end of the book allows the reader to view each photo as a work of art, absorbing the beauty and magic of each piece. It is an essential coffee table book for those intrigued and mystified by the polar bear, and strongly recommended for anyone who enjoys nature photography. A definite bargin in the world of nature photography books.

An absolutely stunning wildlife book.......1998-04-25

Polar Dance is in my opinion the most mind-blowing book on bears I have ever seen. I am an artist who works with faux fur, specializing in the creation of all species of bears. Polar Dance is the most treasured of all my wildlife books. The photographs of the ice bear taken so sensitively evokes my deepest emotions each time I turn the pages. I can almost feel the cold and snow out there on the Arctic. I reach for this book often for inspiration and even comfort. I never cease to be amazed at how beautifully Thomas Mangelsen has portrayed the "Tiger of the North". Certainly he has done justice to perhaps the most magnificent of God's creatures. Polar Dance is more than a book. It is a work of art.

Land-Ocean Systems in the Siberian Arctic: Dynamics and History

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Land-Ocean Systems in the Siberian Arctic: Dynamics and History

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540656766

Book Description

The Arctic and its surrounding marginal seas are considered some of the most sensitive elements of the global environment, which may respond rapidly to climate change. However, due to various reasons, our knowledge of the processes which drive the Arctic system today and in the past is still relatively sparse. Based on a multidisciplinary approach, German and Russian scientists describe in this book the natural paleorecords and modern data which were collected over the past 6 years. These marine and terrestrial datasets provide important new insights into the causes, impacts, and feedback mechanisms of this extreme Arctic environment.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land

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Environmentalists versus Big Oil interests
Beautiful book, sad exhibition
Entire US Congress Should read this Book
captures the essence and grandeur
why I want to see this book

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land
Subhankar Banerjee
Manufacturer: Mountaineers Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Rayovac SPHLTLED 3-in-1 LED Head-Lite

ASIN: 0898869099

Book Description

It is a land of pristine wilderness, pulsing with life even in the depths of white subzero winter. Entirely unscarred by roads or signs, it is the place in all Alaska where the polar bear most often prefers to den. It is host to more than 180 resident and migratory bird species that journey from six continents and all fifty states to nest and rear their young. Because of the massive herds of Porcupine caribou who converge upon the coastal plain to calve each spring, it is known as "the American Serengeti." To the Gwich'in people, who call the refuge their home, it is "The Sacred Place Where Life Begins."

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a touchstone for all people, one of the few remaining ecosystems on our planet unaltered by human impact, where true wilderness can still be experienced. But now the refuge is showing signs of global warming: immense McCall Glacier, measured to have lost more than thirty feet in depth in the last forty years; the northward march of the dwarf willow, moving at a pace not seen in 8,000 years; the alarming decline of the muskox, forced to forage where their calves are vulnerable to predators. And the refuge is further threatened by oil development, which would forever unravel the delicate pattern of nature found here.

Award-winning photographer Subhankar Banerjee devoted two years of his life to documenting the land, its wild species, and its Native peoples. With Inupiat guide Robert Thompson, Banerjee traveled 4,000 miles through the refuge on foot and by raft, kayak, and snowmobile during all four seasons. With more than 200 breathtaking color images, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land makes this case: leaving the refuge intact in all its mysterious beauty is vital to the survival of this unique ecosystem. Banerjee's photos are paired with six essays and a foreword by former president Jimmy Carter.

Customer Reviews:

Environmentalists versus Big Oil interests.......2005-01-06

If you want to read a book about the environmentalists fighting big oil interests in NE Alaska, this book is for you...As was promised, it has very little to do with a computer scientist/photographer who supposedly quit his day job and barely avoided bankruptcy to write/photograph this book...The author is nothing more than a pawn of the Sierra Club to save the environment in NE Alaska who has thrown in some very nice pictures for effect...It's obvious that he has been heavily financed by outside interests with their own agenda...They are worried about drilling for oil and saving the pristine area...That doesn't stop them from driving their gas powered quad runners/snowmobiles through the previously pristine tundra...To top it off the Alaskan Eskimos show there appreciation for the animal kingdom by having their children dance on top of a dead whale while wearing a L.A. Lakers jersey...This book is hypocrisy at its finest...No thanks...

Beautiful book, sad exhibition.......2004-05-05

I bought this book because there was no other way to understand the photos that were on display at the Museum of Natural History. I was not alone; several people walked around Banerjee's exhibition with their books in hand. The curator had removed all descriptive labels, and the introductory plaque emphasized how small the Arctic refuge is compared to other such reserves throughout the country. The photos were mounted in a corridor leading to an elevator. It was poorly lit, and crowded with people passing through. It was in the back of the building, and hard to find. It was a startling contrast to the Eliot Porter exhibition in one of the main exhibition halls above the ground floor. That exhibition was well designed, well described, and included copies of books like "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, hardly a neutral text. The only message I could take away was that environmentalism is "safe" to the Smithsonian curators only when it's at least 30 or 40 years old.

The treatment of Banerjee's photos was so troublesome that Congress held hearings on the matter. But no news report could compare to the feeling of being there, near the elevator.

I took the book home with me, trying to understand whether or not the poor installation was due to poor material or to poor museum administration. Banerjee's photos, and the stories and writings around the photos, are greatly compelling. The story of how hard he worked to get those photos, and of how in the process, he became a better photographer, stood out to me. I highly recommend the book, but I hope I have helped some enthusiasts know just how controversial the notion of natural beauty can be, and how the Smithsonian does play politics. Apparently, reading Banerjee's book can be considered an act of protest.

Entire US Congress Should read this Book.......2004-03-31

The entire US Congress should read this book before voting to allow oil drilling in ANWAR. The pictures alone make this book worth owning. I am ordering another copy for my daughter in Boston and will share my copy at a family reunion in April. It will be an important part of my extensive library.

captures the essence and grandeur.......2003-09-30

I am struck not only by the photographs but also the essays that convey just a sprinkling of what the ANWR is really like. But, what a sprinkling. I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in the ANWR and many photographs are ones from places I haved hiked and people I have met. Many of the rivers shown are rivers I have been on. What I have not done is been there in the truly cold times and his photographs and words do great justice to those times. The drawbacks are few and perhaps it is nitpicking but there is a concentration of pictures taken on the Hula Hula. While the Hula Hula is a wonderful river to do, the Jago covers the heart of the calving grounds and the pictures there were in short supply. However, the pictures are inspiring and the only thing not captured is the sense of vastness that one gets setting foot in the ANWR. But, I have never seen a photograph that can capture that. For those who may never set foot in the ANWR, or even for those who have been there, this book is a must add to anyone's collection. The book does make me want to seek out the hot spring on the Okpilak River, however.
Kongakut, Icy Reef, Bernard Spit, Jago, Hula Hula, Kaktovik, Arctic Village, the bird life and animal life --all places I have been and things I have seen, and a wonderful book with which to revisit those places.

why I want to see this book.......2003-09-17

The is not a true review: indeed, I have not yet recived the book for Amazon.

I just came home from a dinner with Peter Mattiessen at the University of Tulsa, at which he spoke passionately of the phyiscal and finacinal effort Mr. Banerjee undertook to create this work, the reaction in Congress to the book, the pressure upon the Smithsonian and the American Muesum of American History to quash display of Mr. Banerjee's photographs, and his personal fears of deportation or worse by the Justice Department under the Patriot Act. A most frightening portral of the reach real or reasonably feared of this Adminstration when an individual, spcially an alien, dares question its motive. As Senator Stevens(R)Alaska, chair of the Senate Appropriate committee was reported to say to his colleages after Banerjee's testimony, and the Senate voted 52-48 against drilling in ANWR, "I know who you are and you will pay".

Book Description

In 1886, the Ihalmiut people of northern Canada numbered seven thousand; by 1946, when Farley Mowat began his two-year stay in the Arctic, the population had fallen to just forty. With them, he observed for the first time the phenomenon that would inspire him for the rest of his life: the millennia-old migration of the Arctic’s caribou herds. He also endured bleak, interminable winters, suffered agonizing shortages of food, and witnessed the continual, devastating intrusions of outsiders bent on exploitation. Here, in this classic and first book to demonstrate the mammoth literary talent that would produce some of the most memorable books of the next half-century, best-selling author Farley Mowat chronicles his harrowing experiences. People of the Deer is the lyrical ethnography of a beautiful and endangered society. It is a mournful reproach to those who would manipulate and destroy indigenous cultures throughout the world. Most of all, it is a tribute to the last People of the Deer, the diminished Ihalmiuts, whose calamitous encounter with our civilization resulted in their unnecessary demise.

Customer Reviews:

Concept is correct.......2005-08-20

The concept is correct anyway. These people were led to their demise by three factors: the church, commercialization (HBC), and the Canadian government. Mowat claims he spent two years living among these people. This is doubted by some. I've traveled in some of the areas that this book takes place. Not everyone has great things to say about this author. One person I talked to called him a historical novelist. He has other nicknames.

But while it is questionable that all the events described in this book and its' successor (The Desperate People) actually took place, at least he got the main theme correct.

The worst book EVER..........2004-06-07

What ever you do, do not waste your precious life reading this book...

Yes! A life-afirming wonderous book!.......2001-08-04

This book is magic. You will never think about a small band of Indians as statistics again. This book does volumes to make people of our society really feel what goes on in traditional societies. To feel jealous of their solidarity. To feel unloved by our own. It's great! READ IT.

Remarkable first book from promising author!.......2000-04-04

First published in 1947 and available in a wide variety of editions since then, Farley Mowat's first and most distant book is still remarkably readable in the world of the 21st century. It concerns one of the stranger human sagas of the last century, that of the discovery and destruction of a remote Inuit society, the Ihalmiut, in Canada's north. The setting of the book is far enough away in time for us to marvel at how little things have changed since. The contemptuous attitude of European man for the aborigine seems hardly to have altered over the years. We are still hard put to understand the needs of the first peoples and how to answer them.

Farley Mowat has combined a fine sensitivity for the natural environment with a sharp eye for the details of man's place within it. It must be exceedingly rare in the history of anthropology that such an inexperienced investigator has taken such pains to get to the source of his information. Mowat lived among the Ihalmiut for over a year to write the book. During that time he witnessed the rapid deterioration of the small group which remained, and tried to examine the causes of their decline. With very deft prose for such a young writer, he points out the difference between the intentions and the actions of the European discoverers of The People (as they refer to themselves) and the consequences of such disparity. The Ihalmiut were exploited in much the same way as any other tribal band found wandering by the early explorers. However, as Mowat points out, this was an exceptional group which had survived the extreme rigours of a barren land (known to us simply as The Barrens) for so many generations, only to be felled by contact with the very race which might have provided them with so much assistance.

The Ihalmiut are long gone from their homeland but their story serves to remind us of our often difficult relationship with the land and the people on it. Perhaps, as a race of city-dwellers, we need to consider our place in the natural environment more than ever. Mowat's work is a just accounting of where we stand in relationship to nature. Nor does he suggest that we should all go and live in the tundra. Yet People of the Deer is a source of considerable inspiration for those now ready to reflect on the unbalancing effect of contemporary values.

People Of The Deer.......2000-02-03

A truly insightful story of the inland eskimo people of the Canadian Arctic. It details not only their day to day survival in a harsh land, but also tells of their myths, legends, and history. It also tells of the whiteman's interference with their culture and how that affect may ultimately lead to their extinction. The book sincerely takes the reader into the lives of the People of the Deer.

In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic

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Don't Cry for Me, Saint Anna
Exciting true life adventure
A true account of survival in the Siberian Arctic
great companion to lansing's 'endurance'
Rare Account of Russian Arctic Exploration

In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic
Valerian Albanov
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 067978361X
Release Date: 2001-09-04

Amazon.com

In the early 20th-century era of daring polar exploration, the less-trumpeted fishing and hunting expeditions went largely unrecorded. Except, that is, for a recently discovered tale about a Russian hunter and his shipmate. Valerian Albanov's account of his 18-month-long survival in the Siberian Arctic remained unknown until a group of polar-literature enthusiasts rediscovered it in 1997. Translated into English for the first time, In the Land of White Death competes with the adventures of famed heroes Robert Falcon Scott, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Ernest Shackleton. And like Scott's and Cherry-Garrard's narratives, Albanov's tale is penned from a diary he kept during his remarkable ordeal.

Albanov's epic begins in 1914, after he leaves the Saint Anna, a sailing vessel bound for Vladivostok and new hunting territory, 7,000 miles across dangerous water. Only a few months into the voyage, the ship is trapped in pack ice, where it drifts helplessly with the Kara Sea ice flow for nearly one and a half years. With supplies dwindling and no hope of rescue, Albanov, the ship's navigator, and 13 of his colleagues leave the boat and the remaining crew to look for land. Outfitted with sleds and kayaks built from scavenged fragments of the Saint Anna, Albanov begins his 18-month trek to Franz Josef Land with a broken chronometer, scant supplies, and a team of inexperienced men.

Facing starvation, subzero temperatures, and the loss of most of his team, Albanov persists, searching for an outpost rumored to be at Cape Flora, 120 miles from his original starting point. He and his last surviving shipmate survive a litany of amazing mishaps: asleep on an ice flow, they are dumped into frozen water while bound in a sleeping bag; scurvy nearly kills Albanov only a few miles from his destination; and once help arrives, they're caught in the first skirmishes of World War I, a conflict of which they had no knowledge.

Albanov's experience is a brief, gripping account of a story that rivals the greatest survival tales in history. The diary style of his tale preserves its emotional authenticity as he trudges his way across the frozen Arctic, and his knack for clear detail only highlights the unbelievable fact that Albanov was lucid enough to write at all during his winter march across a deadly landscape. --Lolly Merrell

Book Description

In 1912, six months after Robert Falcon Scott and four of his men came to grief in Antarctica, a thirty-two-year-old Russian navigator named Valerian Albanov embarked on an expedition that would prove even more disastrous. In search of new Arctic hunting grounds, Albanov's ship, the Saint Anna, was frozen fast in the pack ice of the treacherous Kara Sea-a misfortune grievously compounded by an incompetent commander, the absence of crucial nautical charts, insufficient fuel, and inadequate provisions that left the crew weak and debilitated by scurvy.

For nearly a year and a half, the twenty-five men and one woman aboard the Saint Anna endured terrible hardships and danger as the icebound ship drifted helplessly north. Convinced that the Saint Anna would never free herself from the ice, Albanov and thirteen crewmen left the ship in January 1914, hauling makeshift sledges and kayaks behind them across the frozen sea, hoping to reach the distant coast of Franz Josef Land. With only a shockingly inaccurate map to guide him, Albanov led his men on a 235-mile journey of continuous peril, enduring blizzards, disintegrating ice floes, attacks by polar bears and walrus, starvation, sickness, snowblindness, and mutiny. That any of the team survived is a wonder. That Albanov kept a diary of his ninety-day ordeal-a story that Jon Krakauer calls an "astounding, utterly compelling book," and David Roberts calls "as lean and taut as a good thriller"-is nearly miraculous.

First published in Russia in 1917, Albanov's narrative is here translated into English for the first time. Haunting, suspenseful, and told with gripping detail, In the Land of White Death can now rightfully take its place among the classic writings of Nansen, Scott, Cherry-Garrard, and Shackleton.

Download Description

In 1912, six months after Robert Falcon Scott and four of his men came to grief in Antarctica, a thirty-two-year-old Russian navigator named Valerian Albanov embarked on an expedition that would prove even more disastrous. In search of new Arctic hunting grounds, Albanov's ship, the Saint Anna, was frozen fast in the pack ice of the treacherous Kara Sea-a misfortune grievously compounded by an incompetent commander, the absence of crucial nautical charts, insufficient fuel, and inadequate provisions that left the crew weak and debilitated by scurvy. For nearly a year and a half, the twenty-five men and one woman aboard the Saint Anna endured terrible hardships and danger as the icebound ship drifted helplessly north. Convinced that the Saint Anna would never free herself from the ice, Albanov and thirteen crewmen left the ship in January 1914, hauling makeshift sledges and kayaks behind them across the frozen sea, hoping to reach the distant coast of Franz Josef Land. With only a shockingly inaccurate map to guide him, Albanov led his men on a 235-mile journey of continuous peril, enduring blizzards, disintegrating ice floes, attacks by polar bears and walrus, starvation, sickness, snowblindness, and mutiny. That any of the team survived is a wonder.

Customer Reviews:

Don't Cry for Me, Saint Anna.......2005-06-05

In 1912, the Russian ship Saint Anna, undersupplied and with an incompetent captain, set out to sail the Northeast Passage across the top of Asia. Frozen into the icepack in the notoriously treacherous Kara Sea, the ship drifted north for a year and a half.

At this point Valerian Albanov, chief navigation officer and former second-in-command (he had been relieved of duty by his commander; we don't know why), received the captain's permission to leave the ship with thirteen companions. In improvised sledges, skis, and kayaks, they set out for Franz Joseph Land to the south.

Only Albanov and one companion survived to be rescued from the same cape on the same island from which Fridtjof Nansen and his companion had been rescued twenty years before. (See Nansen's "Farthest North" to see how an Arctic drift SHOULD be handled.) This is the journal that Albanov kept, beginning from the day he left the Saint Anna hopelessly frozen in the ice. Saint Anna was never found.

Exciting true life adventure.......2004-10-04

I've always been fascinated about Arctic & Antartic exploration, and try to read any books about it that I can find. This first-person work by a Russian officer on an ill-fated Arctic journey from 1912 to 1914 is certainly a very exciting one, even though the author tends to be laconic at times about his exploits. He tells the story of his ship becoming icelocked, and then of his trek, with several other companions, across the trackless wastes of the Arctic to look for a safe haven on distant land. It's quite compelling, and makes for very gripping reading. The paperback edition of this work contains additional material gleaned from the diary of one of the author's companions on this treacherous journey, and it sheds some additional light on what happened, and especially on the mysterious two men who abandoned the party during the trip, and left them in a very precarious position. It's a book well worth reading for anyone interested in the Arctic, or indeed for anyone who can admire the lengths to which the human spirit and body will push itself in order to survive under the most exteme of conditions.

A true account of survival in the Siberian Arctic.......2004-03-12

The Russian exploration vessel, the Saint Anna, set sail in 1912 to search for hunting grounds in the North Polar region. Within a few months, the crew of 33 had become icebound and spent the next year and a half trapped in the ice, drifting farther and farther North. In 1914, the navigator, Valerian Albanov, decided to risk a trek across the ice with the hope of reaching Franz Josef Land. 13 crewmen set off across the ice, with the remaining 20 choosing to stay on board the ship. Of the 13 crewmen, only two survived.

"In the Land of White Death" is the true account of the trek, as written by Valerian Albanov. Starting with the few days before leaving, he writes a remarkable story of survival in severely cold conditions, with supplies diminishing and morale quickly ebbing. It is very detailed with its discriptions not only of the terrain, but of the crew and their physical and mental states throughout the journey.

Translator David Roberts also includes in his epilogue some of the text from the other survivor of the journey, crewman Alexander Konrad. His take on certain events sheds a whole new lights on certain aspects of their voyage across the ice.

This is a remarkable book, both for its story of survival and its glimpse into human nature. One of the best non-fiction books that I've read.

great companion to lansing's 'endurance'.......2004-01-22

this is a fast and enjoyable read in the historic polar adventure genre, perhaps most impressive is how the 19th century journal writing remains crisp, clear, and compelling today. a few other comments:
-it is a very interesting companion and comparison to lansing's "endurance", though 'endurance' is probably a bit better written, more interesting, and a superior place for most readers to start than here.
-the maps in the beginning are a bit poor in detail and sadly do not include many of the names that the text refers to.
-as others have noted, i would tend to recommend skipping the introduction and reading it at the end, as it doesn't add much and sort of colors one's impressions of the book.
enjoy!!

Rare Account of Russian Arctic Exploration.......2003-12-21

This is an exceptionally interesting tale which was originally published in 1917 and that relates the tragedy of a doomed Russian Arctic expedition. After being icebound on the Saint Anna for two years far to the north of Siberia, Albanov, the navigator, opted to abandon the trapped ship to make a perilous push for the Franz Josef archipelago, attempting to travel a couple of hundred miles over the ice pack by way of crudely fashioned sledges and kayaks. Ten of the 23 crewmen chose to accompany him. Those who stayed behind, including the captain and the nurse (a rare Western female figure in Arctic journeys--Inuit women sometimes show up in these expeditions but other than this nurse, I haven't read about any European or American women joining up for any travels, except in a footnote in this volume which noted the wife of another Russian explorer tagged along with him and died horribly in the 1750s in Yakutsk)...were never seen again. (Although Russian scholars speculate that it's possible that the ship eventually drifted free again into the Atlantic and might have sailed for Norway, because Nansen's Fram had proven this could be done. Unfortunately, since the remaining crew would have had no way of knowing that WWI had broken out in the meantime, and the North and Barents Seas were swarming with German U-boats, they would've been sunk on sight.)

Most of Albanov's diary was lost in the 90-day struggle towards salvation, so he starts his book right at the point at which he and his group left the ship, saying little about the preceding two years. Later, after rescue, he consulted the remaining diary pages and padded them out to form the bulk of this slim narrative.

One of the things that I found most interesting was that Albanov's whole plan hinged on the accuracy of Nansen's map of the Franz Josef Archipelago, which had been included in a book about that earlier expedition. In that volume in the ship's library, Nansen had told how he and a comrade had wintered at Cape Flora on Northbrook Island in a camp that had been established by still an earlier explorer, the Englishman Jackson. So Albanov, without a means to establish longitude and only able to calculate latitude periodically, was relying on a tentative map of a poorly explored region in order to find a camp that had likely not been visited for several years in the hope that supplies could be found there. At one point, he basically had to guess whether to turn east or west, knowing that if he chose wrong, he would end up hiking away from the archipelago and out into the void.

The other really interesting thing about Albanov's story is the frank way he talks about his companions, calling them lazy and indolent imbeciles without curiousity, foresight, or motivation, and going so far as to note at one point that "they seemed to be engaged in a competition to determine who was the most useless". At every step, he has to verbally flog them forward, because they're constantly kvetching and moaning about hunger and fatigue, and the moment he stops haranguing them, they basically grind to a halt and lay about, staring at the sky. They were able to shoot seals and polar bears from time to time, although it seems that at one point, they narrowly avoided an ignominious death from essentially digestive disorders. (Polar bears are rife with trichinosis, and people can also die from Vitamin A overdose by eating their livers, and it is speculated that one or the other of these problems led to the death of the stranded Andree balloon expedition, the bodies of whose members were not found until 30 years later.) This all-meat diet (after they had run out of biscuit), however, led to severe malnutrition and was probably the cause of death for two members and may also explain why most of the others became listless and wanted to do nothing but stop and sleep.

Also, it's quite interesting to consider the degree to which national characters or cultures are reflected in these expeditions. The English, of course, cornered the market on noble and heroic outright failures, in which everyone suffered tragically and died stoically for the Empire, keeping order and decorum to the end, most notably in Scott's attempt to reach the South Pole. The Americans devolved into murder (the Jeanette expedition, at least as speculated in Weird and Tragic Shores), mutiny and cannibalism (the Greely expedition), and lying and fraud (Frederick Cook). The Scandanavians (with the exception of Andree's quixotic attempt) were pragmatic and low-key (Nansen's farthest-north record was achieved specifically by letting the Fram get frozen into the pack ice so that it would slowly be carried by the currents across the Arctic Sea until he could make a run at the pole by foot). The Russians stereotypically appeared to be fatalistic and indifferent. Of course, the fact that the expedition was extraordinarily badly planned and that half of the crew consisted of whatever idlers and riffraff where found at the very last moment at the wharves at Murmansk could explain why virtually no one seemed to display admirable moral qualities.

This is a very fascinating account about an Arctic journey that few in the English-speaking world had known about until 2000 when the first edition of this book was released. (German and French translations had been published in the 1920s.) Even in Russia it seems that Albanov's ordeal had attracted little interest. The man who was behind organizing this English translation discovered virtually by accident that Russian scholars also had the original diary of the only other survivor but could scarcely be bothered to consult it because the diarist was a mere sailor. The details from this document shed a whole new light on key sections of Albanov's story and are told in an epilogue that had not been prepared in time for the hardback edition.

Customer Reviews:

A disappointing book.......2004-01-29

I have always been interested in polar exploration. I enjoyed "Andree's Story" and looked forward to this book. But I found the author's pretentious and unscientific style (every third word is I, and he goes on ad nauseam about his archaeologocial expertise and the fact that he visited Danes Island) quite distracting.
Still, if you are interested in the topic and if you want to learn more about Walter Wellman's expeditions, this book may be for you.

Dry and pretentious..............2001-01-01

For years I have been a fan of books on the history of polar exploration and mountaineering. I was really looking forward to digging into the stories behind these attempts to use airships to attain the north pole, and what interesting facts we might learn from the sites themselves....However I was very disappointed in the final result. The historical summary was adequate, however the later portion of the book was pretentious, drawn out, and extremwly dry reading. One would expect that archeology would be employed to answer some "big questions" or resolve some major controversy. Wrong! Instead we learn about the quality of the iron filings used to generate the gas for the balloons, that the car body had more wood in it than expected, and that there was not much on the site to suggest that advertizing was the real reason behind the later expeditions. Yawn! Unless you have some personal stake in the topic (like you visited the site explored by the author) I'd pass this one by...

A grand review of pioneering air travel in the Arctic.......1999-10-07

In 1992 I visited Dane Island, in part, because of my interest in the pioneering efforts of Andre and Nobile. I walked the beach pictured on the dust cover of this book and photograped many of the artifacts so well described in it. The weather was typical of late August in the high Arctic. Rain, fog, snow squalls and a stark background of black peaks embedded in snow amidst an almost overpowering sensation of gloom and glacial cold. The earlier artifacts related to the Dutch whaling station of Schmeerenburg (Blubbertown) and the graves of long dead whalers buried in the permafrost and covered with mounds of stones to protect their remains from polar bears are readily identidied. For those interested in a unique aspect of Arctic history/exploration this is an extremely interesting and well written book. Until relatively recently, many polar explorers have been pictured in heroic format. Although some may disagree, this is most likely not the case with regard to Byrd or Scott. This book paints an authentic picture of Wellman, warts and all. In addition it allows the informed reader to appreciate the accomplishments of Umberto Nobile who deserves far more credit than he usually gets for the successful transpolar flight of the Norge and who subsequently utilized the Italia for meaningful scientific studies and geographical investigation of the Arctic.

With regard to the beautiful weather depicted on the dust cover of this book I would guess it was the only day like this the author experienced on Dane Island. I am envious of his opoportunity to have been there under such unusual conditions and thank him for sharing the beauty of this site with his readers.

Splendid.......1999-06-24

I carried this book with me on a long trip. Repeatedly -- on planes and in airport waiting rooms -- strangers who caught sight of the cover interrupted my reading to ask questions about the book. The brilliant blue photo on the cover, and the title, would seem to explain their eager curiousity. Note the lower left hand corner, where there appears to be a fillet of a 100 year old dirigible, lying on the beach from which airships to the north pole were launched long ago. Actually it is the ruins of a huge airship hangar, though the author discovered in the rubble the remains of two airship gondolas.

The book is superb and special: good science, good writing, and a fascinating story about technology, courage, folly and grand showmanship.

An eerie thing about this beach from which the airships were launched. In prior centuries, it was a used as a slaughterhouse by whalers. The author discovered the spine of one ancient whale nearby. In here somewhere there is a strange, unscientific, unstated metaphor about the souls of whales arising into the air. As blimps.

Customer Reviews:

The least of the Three.......2007-06-12

This is the third and last volume of Farley Mowat's TOP OF THE WORLD TRILOGY dealing with exploration in the extreme north. Like the others, it is primarily a reproduction of the source narratives with Mowat's own comments, editing and observations thrown in.

The first two books made for interesting and engrossing reading. This one is interesting but the writing style is way too dry to be called engrossing.

As the title suggests, this volume is dedicated to the exploration of the North American tundra. There are tails of depravation and heroism but, for me, they do not compare to the search for the pole or the northwest passage.

This books has its place but is not my favorite.

Third and final volume in excellent history of the Arctic.......2000-06-12

The final volume in the "Top of the World" series, "Tundra" is a land-based, rather than sea- and ice-based version of the earlier books. Canadian author Farley Mowat completes a marvellous history of the Arctic by looking at some of the first recorded overland journeys into Canada's far north. This is country that Mowat came to know well. After the war he spent several seasons in the Arctic travelling the Barren lands with members of a branch of the Inuits, the Ihalmiuts, soon afterwards to be completely wiped out, mainly by contact with Europeans. Mowat tells the story of their demise in "People of the Deer" and a companion volume, "The Desperate People." "Tundra," on the other hand, is not Mowat's story, but is taken from primary sources, mainly diaries of those who did the travelling, and is a vivid and intense recounting of the up-river journeying of some of history's most adventurous travellers. Farley Mowat has done a great job of making this material accessible. If you have any interest in the Arctic, or Canadian history, or to some extent, the native peoples of Canada (Mowat has been criticised, probably unfairly, for his treatment of native people in his books), or if you just want a good plain adventure story, I highly recommend the three books in this series.

Third and final volume in excellent history of the Arctic.......2000-06-12

Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic

Average customer rating:

Great Read
One of the most memorable books I have read
A great read but....
Great Adventure Read
Really two stories in one book.

Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic
Kevin Krajick
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0716740265

Book Description

In the tradition of Sebastian' Junger's The Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, Barren Lands is the extraordinary tale of two small-time prospectors who risked their lives to discover $17 billion worth of diamonds in the desolate tundra of the far north.In the late 1970's, two men set out on a twenty-year search for a North American gem mine, along a fabled path that had defied 16th-century explorers, Wild West prospectors, and modern geologists. They are an unlikely pair: Chuck Fipke, a ragged, stuttering fellow with a singular talent for finding sand-size mineral grains, and Stew Blusson, an ultra-tough geologist and helicopter pilot. Inventive, eccentric and ruthless, they follow a trail of geologic clues left by predecessors all the way from backwoods Arkansas up the glaciated high Rockies into the vast and haunted "barren lands" of northern Canada. With a South African geochemist's "secret weapon," Fipke and Blusson outwit rivals, including the immense De Beers carte, and make one of the world's greatest diamond discoveries- setting off a stampede unseen since the Klondike gold rush.A story of obsession and scientific intrigue, Barren Lands is also an elegy to one of earth's last great wild places, a starkly beautiful and mysterious land strewn with pure lakes and alive with wolves and caribou. An endless variety of primeval glacial rock formations hide copper, zinc, and gold, in addition to diamonds. Now that the barrens are "open for business," what will happen to this great wilderness region?Barren Lands is an unforgettable journey for those who, in the words of a nineteenth-century trapper, "want to see that country before it is all gone."

Customer Reviews:

Great Read.......2007-07-27

Very well written and informative. I learned alot about both the diamond business and the great Canadian North by reading this book. Very entertaning.

One of the most memorable books I have read.......2007-05-15

It has been a number of years since I bought and read Barren Lands. Although I greatly enjoyed the book while I read it, I appreciate it even more now because it has left me with many vivid memories of tales told in the book and with knowledge about diamonds and geology that I would not have known otherwise. The book is more multi-dimensional, and works on more levels than almost any other book touching on Geology that I have read. In this multi-dim respect, I think it actually exceeds John McPhee's Rising from the Plains - which is quite a feat. What do I mean by multi-dimensional? Here are some examples that are still bouncing around in my mind years after reading Barren Lands:
1.) The impression that is left of the Australian Mining Company BHP Billiton: I am left impressed by the way they kept their feelers out in this fringe community of explorers, and nutured a relationship with Fipke and Blusson until they found the first paydirt. (Way to go Hugo!) If one bought stock in BHP soon after this book came out, one would have probably recovered hundreds of times the books price in appreciation.
2.) Fipke: I suspect that if he were growing up today in USA public schools, he would be first diagnosed with some kind of attention-deficit disorder, pumped full of Ritalin and then finally jailed when he would inevitably fail to be successfully hammered into servile, abject mediocrity. I think there is a huge lesson here for academia: STOP measuring people with standardized tests, and figure out a way to help each person find his or her own, particular intellectual fire the way Fipke did.
3.) The endgame just before the discovery of the first pipe under the frozen lake. The cash is gone, winter is closing in, competitors with megabucks are catching on, and Canadian laws require you to divulge your secret the moment you make your discovery.... Such unlikely reality and so wonderfully told.
4.) Death in the wilderness: lightning bolts and helo crashes. If it were fiction, people would criticise it for being unbelievable.
5.) Black flies.
6.) Shooting stars and prophecies.

Much more. What a great and memorable book.

A great read but...........2007-03-10

A really well crafted book with some flowing prose but... there is an element of 'faction' about this book. The author takes literary license to the extreme by describing in detail events he never witnessed and although it might make for great fiction, it made me wonder just how much of the book's narrative is at best exaggeration, at worse pure fabrication.

But I thought the geological details in the book were well explained and the one lasting impression that I was left with was just how boringly methodical, time consuming and repetitive prospecting for diamonds really is, no matter how colorful and larger than life you make the people doing it.

Great Adventure Read.......2006-12-24

Barren Lands is one of the great adventure reads. A bit slower and less gripping than Krakauer, but a great read.

Really two stories in one book........2006-08-04

Krajick has written one of many books detailing the hunt for diamonds in the Canadian North. Unlike several of the other writers, Krajick devoted the first part of this book to the land itself. In a fascinating historical journey readers get to follow early explorers and native inhabitants across the most unforgiving wilderness on earth, with stops in the American Southwest, Africa, and South America thrown in to heighten the story.

The second half of the book focuses on the small cadre of competing geologists and explorers who carried the search for diamonds from Arkansas, through New Mexico, Colorado, Southwestern Canada, and eventually to the Arctic. (As a side note, having seen how aggressively Arkansas was searched, I'll never bother prospecting there again.)

As the story progresses it begins to focus on the small group led by Charles Fipke that eventually spearheaded the discovery of the Barren Lands Diamonds. It is here that I think the book digresses too much into the personal live (and failings) of the characters and leaves behind the grand scale of the search. The author also seems to have a somewhat dismissive view of rural communities and inhabitants.

Nonetheless, the story was engaging and a page turner. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in prospecting, diamonds, geology, or Arctic history.

Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic

Average customer rating:

Colourful & Precise
An extremely well organized and interesting history.

Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic
John R. Bockstoce
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0295974478

Customer Reviews:

Colourful & Precise.......2000-07-16

Comprehensively researched, this book provides a complete history of whaling in Alaska, from its inception to its demise. Whaling was an important part of American history, a unique part that is forever gone, and deserves examination, despite our present sentiments on the subject. Mr. Bockstoce's history is thorough and provides considerable detail, and delves into a wide range of issues, from economic factors to the impact on the Native population. Still, the book is more than history. What makes it fascinating reading are the anecdotes and personal glimpses into the lives of the people who were involved. Whatever else they were, they did not lack for courage and perseverance. It's their stories, funny, strange, gruesome, or just colorful, that make the lost ships and abandoned harbors and history come to life. Overall, an great read for anyone with an interest in a clear and concisely-written history that includes personalities as well as data.

An extremely well organized and interesting history........1998-05-05

This book is the best one I have read about the history of whaling. It gives the reader a perspective that others sometimes do not. It is well illustrated and gives you the feel that you are actually part of the history Mr. Bockstoce is presenting. You understand how and why the Arctic whaling industry thrived and finally met its demise.

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