North to the Night: A Year in the Arctic Ice - Hardcover

Simon, Alvah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0070580529 ISBN 13: 9780070580527

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1998

Synopsis

Describes one couple's journey around the Arctic Circle by sailboat

About this title

Review:

Following his "Arctic dreams" that began with a photograph of the haggard crew of the ill-fated ship Endurance, Alvah Simon and his wife, Diana, set sail to winter in the high north. "We call them explorers, but I knew that look in their eyes," Simon writes of the early Arctic adventurers. "They were seekers, and that is a different thing." With self-discovery as a deeper agenda, the couple ventures into Tay Bay of remote Bylot Island; it is their ultima Thule--"the Last Unknown." Their small boat is willingly frozen in the ice. When Diana is airlifted out of the Arctic to tend to an emergency back home, Simon is unexpectedly left in solitude. His journey turns inward as he confronts the "uncomfortable awakening of my spiritual self." In the waning daylight, then total darkness, Simon's days are punctuated by depression and mania, a crackled voice over the radio, Inuit visitors, and hard-earned lessons as he is driven by the forces of the Arctic winter and by "the total loss of the sun." In this elegant, well-paced book, the Arctic darkness becomes a psychological landscape perforated with light and revelation, and Simon's thrilling tale is as captivating as his language. There is a welcome intimacy here as we share the same icy hull, listening close to this searching man. Simon courageously tells us about his darkest moments, dreams, and nightmares, and when the sun emerges, new eyes greet land and relationships. Simon has discovered his ultima Thule. --Byron Ricks

From the Back Cover:

"North to the Night is a significant addition to the literature of the Arctic, by an author-explorer of the first rank. Alvah Simon writes beautifully about his iced-up world and, indeed,about Nature itself, but without the dreamy romanticism that has sunk many a lesser narrative. His book is the genuine article. Urgently recommended."--Lawrence Millman, author of Last Places: A Journey in the North and An Evening Among the Headhunters. "Punctuated with wit, chart, surprisingly turns, spiruality, romantic views, and crystalline insights, North to the Night is more than just a great read. Through gales, blizzards, endless night, crushing ice, and near sinking we are taken to the edge of madness and the core of human frailty and strength.--Steve Callahan, author of Adrift. "This is truly an adventure story--an intense and gripping exploration of the extreme reaches of the outer and inner world. It reminded me of Jon Krakauer's work, with its blend of suspense and analysis and sheer ability to communicate why and how people do extraordinary things. Though set in the dark of the long Arctic winter, North to the night is filled with illumination.--Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and The Age of Missing Information.

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0070580529
• ISBN 13: 9780070580527
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336