Cold Oceans: Adventures in Kayak, Rowboat, and Dogsled - Softcover

Turk, Jon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144011207X ISBN 13: 9781440112072

Publisher: iUniverse, 2009

Synopsis

Cold Oceans recounts Jon Turk's expeditions to some of the most inhospitable regions on earth. Even after being shipwrecked off Cape Horn, stopped by ice in the Northwest Passage, and beaten back by Arctic blizzards, Turk has followed an irresistible urge to explore. Woven throughout the book is the deepening relationship between Jon and his frequent expedition partner, Chris Seashore, and the journey of self-discovery that the relationship fostered.

Finalist, Banff Mountain Book Festival.

"Turk's chiseled but understated prose is a marked asset in light of the often outlandish material that comes his way." Washington Post Book World

About this title

Review:

From its opening passages, Jon Turk's Cold Oceans chronicles explorations in both exterior and interior landscapes. In honest, accessible prose, Turk retraces more than two decades of his varied and stirring adventures--attempting to round Cape Horn solo in a kayak, rowing the Northwest Passage, dogsledding the east coast of Baffin Island, and kayaking from Ellesmere Island to Greenland. As Turk plunges headlong through icy seas, repeated and assorted blunders, and bouts of personal lows, he transcends mere adventure storytelling to explore a changing notion of himself, deepening relationships, and the nature of failure and true success. These passages contain some of Cold Oceans's greatest riches.

With a host of explorers along as inspirational and literary companions, Turk evokes a landscape of life and history intertwined. After a daring 15-hour crossing to Greenland, Turk wrestles with polar explorer Robert Peary's notion of success, defined by fame and fortune, concluding, "What mattered was that he [Peary] communicated his passion to the world." And this is the success that Turk has achieved in Cold Oceans.

Although the saga of choosing a life of adventure to stave off a more rooted and standard existence may seem a common tale, it is Turk's contemplation of this lifestyle choice that offers some of the book's finest insights. Ultimately, Turk's wanderings reveal how a thirst for adventure can at once drive, fragment, and unify a life. This incongruity is perhaps one of a traveler's greatest ponderings, and Cold Oceans confronts it boldly, piercing the heart of what it means to adventure. --Byron Ricks

About the Author:

Jon Turk, a chemist by training and an adventurer by avocation, has written numerous environmental and earth science textbooks. He has also written for Rock & Ice, Paddler, Sea Kayaker, and other publications. He lives with his wife and expedition partner, Chris Seashore, in Darby, Montana, and in the Kootenay Mountains of British Columbia.

About this edition

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 144011207X
• ISBN 13: 9781440112072
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296