Book picks similar to
Safe Return Doubtful: The Heroic Age Of Polar Exploration by John Maxtone-Graham
history
exploration
arctic
adventure
This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland
Gretel Ehrlich - 2001
In This Cold Heaven she combines the story of her travels with history and cultural anthropology to reveal a Greenland that few of us could otherwise imagine.Ehrlich unlocks the secrets of this severe land and those who live there; a hardy people who still travel by dogsled and kayak and prefer the mystical four months a year of endless darkness to the gentler summers without night. She discovers the twenty-three words the Inuit have for ice, befriends a polar bear hunter, and comes to agree with the great Danish-Inuit explorer Knud Rasmussen that “all true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of man, in great solitudes.”This Cold Heaven is at once a thrilling adventure story and a meditation on the clarity of life at the extreme edge of the world.
Voyage of the Liberdade
Joshua Slocum - 1994
A 19th-century maritime classic brimming with courage, ingenuity, and daring.
A Viking Voyage: In Which an Unlikely Crew of Adventurers Attempts an Epic Journey to the New World
W. Hodding Carter IV - 2000
This extraordinary book is the account of how he pulled it off. By turns thrilling and slapstick, sublime and outrageous, A Viking Voyage is an unforgettable adventure story that will take you to the heart of some of the most magnificent, unspoiled territory on earth, and even deeper, to the heart of a journey like no other. A celebration of the people and places Carter visits and a treasure-trove of fascinating Viking lore, here is an unforgettable story of friendship and teamwork–and the thrill of accomplishing a goal that once seemed impossible.
Land of the Midnight Sun: My Arctic Adventures
Alexander Armstrong - 2015
In an epic journey, he navigates some of the Earth’s toughest terrain, first travelling through the glittering landscape of Scandinavia, then on to the isolated islands of Iceland and Greenland, as far as the infamously treacherous Northwest Passage. His final frontier is Canada and Alaska, where his journey ends on the international dateline between the USA and Russia. His travels will form a major three-part series for ITV in autumn 2015.It’s a voyage that takes Alexander half way around the planet, experiencing many of its natural wonders and living alongside some of its more extraordinary people. Getting stuck in wherever he goes, he learns from the Marines how to survive wildly unpredictable weather and temperatures as low as minus 40°C, drives along a hair-raising 800-mile road that's a river in summer and takes a plunge in freezing Arctic waters. And that’s all before wrestling Viking-style with a sporting legend called Eva as part of a traditional Icelandic winter festival.Combining adventure and humour, Land of the Midnight Sun is an entertaining travelogue that takes readers on an exhilarating journey to this rarely seen corner of the world. It is an exploration of man's relationship with the harshest climates, set against the stunning backdrop of the Arctic landscape.
A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree: Mad adventures on a Greek peninsula
Marjory McGinn - 2016
How did this happen? Easy, this is Greece and nothing ever goes to plan. The couple’s latest adventure in Koroni, on the Messinian peninsula, takes them on another perilous and funny journey, with house rental dramas, scorpion threats, a publishing upheaval, and much more. But when they are finally seduced by the charm of unspoilt Koroni, make new friends, grapple with Greek lessons, and reconnect with some of the memorable characters of their Mani days, they discover once more why they continue to be in love with this resilient country, despite its ongoing economic crisis. And there’s not even a sting in this tale. Well … almost! REVIEWS: "This book is rare within the travel writing genre. It cleverly combines a travel narrative with enlightened observations about Greece, while retaining a light and entertaining touch throughout.” – Peter Kerr, best-selling author of Snowball Oranges
Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
Joan Druett - 2007
Battered by year-round freezing rain and constant winds, it is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.Incredibly, at the same time on the opposite end of the island, another ship runs aground during a storm. Separated by only twenty miles and the island’s treacherous, impassable cliffs, the crews of the Grafton and the Invercauld face the same fate. And yet where the Invercauld’s crew turns inward on itself, fighting, starving, and even turning to cannibalism, Musgrave’s crew bands together to build a cabin and a forge—and eventually, to find a way to escape. Using the survivors’ journals and historical records, maritime historian Joan Druett brings to life this untold story about leadership and the fine line between order and chaos.
Emperors of the Ice: A True Story of Disaster and Survival in the Antarctic, 1910-13
Richard Farr - 2008
The point was to improve our understanding of bird evolution by collecting and studying the incubating eggs of the Emperor penguin. They set out into the perpetual winter dark hauling two sleds with a combined weight of over 700 lb. Everything went wrong.
Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman To Ski Solo Across The Southern Ice
Felicity Aston - 2013
She did it, too, with the simple apparatus of cross-country, without the aids used by her prededecessors – two Norwegian men – each of whom employed either parasails or kites.Aston’s journey across the ice at the bottom of the world asked of her the extremes in terms of mental and physical bravery, as she faced the risks of unseen cracks buried in the snow so large they might engulf her and hypothermia due to brutalizing weather. She had to deal, too, with her emotional vulnerability in face of the constant bombardment of hallucinations brought on by the vast sea of whiteness, the lack of stimulation to her senses as she faced what is tantamount to a form of solitary confinement.Like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Felicity Aston’s Alone in Antarctica becomes an inspirational saga of one woman’s battle through fear and loneliness as she honestly confronts both the physical challenges of her adventure, as well as her own human vulnerabilities.
Berserk: My Voyage to the Antarctic in a Twenty-Seven-Foot Sailboat
David Mercy - 2004
An unforgettable sailing adventure to the world's most dangerous continent.
Castaway: The extraordinary survival story of Narcisse Pelletier, a young French cabin boy shipwrecked on Cape York in 1858
Robert Macklin - 2019
He lives in Canberra. In 1858, fourteen-year-old French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier was aboard the trader Saint-Paul when it was wrecked off the eastern tip of New Guinea. Scrambling into a longboat, Narcisse and the other survivors crossed almost 1000 kilometres of the Coral Sea before reaching the shores of Far North Queensland. If not for the local Aboriginal people, Narcisse would have perished. For seventeen years he lived with them, growing to manhood and participating fully in their Uutaalnganu world. Then, in 1875, his life was again turned upside down.Drawing from firsthand interviews with Narcisse after his return to France and other contemporary accounts of exploration and survival, and documenting the spread of European settlement in Queensland and the brutal frontier wars that followed, Robert Macklin weaves an unforgettable tale of a young man caught between two cultures in a time of transformation and upheaval.
Antarctic Tears: Determination, adversity, and the pursuit of a dream at the bottom of the world
Aaron Linsdau - 2014
It's a story of triumph, harrowing danger, and outright adventure. In 2012, Aaron Linsdau left his entire life behind. Gone was the engineering career. He told his family and girlfriend that he wanted to pursue a dream to do something no other American had ever accomplished. He wanted to be the first to ski from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back without aid or support. Alone. The journey to the South Pole covers over 700 miles through the most forbidding frozen terrain on the planet. The temperature is always below zero and gale force winds routinely roar across the ice. The polar plateau is devoid of life. There are no plants, animals, or insects. Antarctica provides no shelter, no protection, and is unforgiving of any mistake. But before the expedition was to start, there was much to do. Linsdau trekked 100 miles across the Greenland tundra. He skied across Yellowstone in the winter, camping in -45 degree temperatures. Towing tires up mountains and eating 4000 calories a day was preparation for Antarctica. Previous expeditions have lost tents, helplessly watching them blow over the horizon. Many explorers have quit or been rescued. What began as a brave adventure into the unknown turned into a battle for survival. Linsdau takes the reader to Antarctica. They experience incredible storms, skiing blind through whiteouts, crossing invisible crevasses, and skirting disaster. The book shows what happened every day of the expedition. The air is cold enough to freeze water in seconds and cause frostbite in minutes. Only outer space is less hospitable. Driven by passion, he sacrifices nearly everything to make his dream come true. This is a story about personal discovery, testing the limits of human endurance, total dedication to achieving a goal, and never giving up even when both body and equipment fail. There were many surprises during Aaron Linsdau's expedition to the South Pole... Linsdau speaks about this extraordinary experience to audiences world-wide.
Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock
Thomas Farel Heffernan - 2002
Two years out of Nantucket on a whaling voyage in 1824, he organized a mutiny and murdered the officers of the Globe. It was a premeditated act; in his sea chest Comstock carried the seeds, tools, and weapons with which he would found his own island kingdom. He had often described these plans to one of his brothers, William. But the chief witness and chronicler of the mutiny was young George Comstock, who neither participated in nor approved of his brother's savage deed.Within days of settling on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands, Comstock was murdered by his fellow mutineers. Six innocent seamen—George among them—seized the Globe and escaped; most of the rest were killed by natives. Two survivors lived for twenty-two months, half-prisoners and half-adoptees of the natives, until they were rescued in a bold and dangerous maneuver by a landing party from the U.S. schooner Dolphin.The Globe's story is one of terror, adventure, endurance, and luck. It is also the story of one of the most bizarre and frightening minds that ever went to sea.
Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival
Yossi Ghinsberg - 1985
But when a terrible rafting accident separates him from his partner, Yossi is forced to survive for weeks alone against one of the wildest backdrops on the planet. Stranded without a knife, map, or survival training, he must improvise shelter and forage for wild fruit to survive. As his feet begin to rot during raging storms, as he loses all sense of direction, and as he begins to lose all hope, he wonders whether he will make it out of the jungle alive.The basis of an upcoming motion picture, Jungle is the story of friendship and the teachings of nature, and a terrifying true account that you won’t be able to put down.
Old Man on a Bicycle: A Ride Across America and How to Realize a More Enjoyable Old Age
Don Petterson - 2014
He was in his seventies, hadn’t been on a bike for years, and had never ridden more than a few miles at a time. But, in May 2002, putting doubters—and self-doubt—behind him, Petterson headed west. Laboring against strong headwinds, struggling up steep hills, or coping with extreme weather, he sometimes wondered what in the world he was doing. But he kept going—the lure of riding his bike across the Golden Gate a compelling incentive. Ahead of him lay many challenges—among them, riding his loaded bike over the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, crossing the Great Plains in brutal summer heat, dealing with the aftermath of a collision with a car, and traversing Nevada’s basin and range country and the Great Salt Lake’s desert. His rewards included passing through spectacular mountain forests, experiencing the aching beauty of the lonely plains, and viewing the grandeur of the West’s sculpted canyons and mesas. In Old Man on a Bicycle, the author relates how he prepared for the 3,600-mile journey and what he saw and did during the two months he was on the road. In addition he rebuts the misconception that aging invariably means debilitating decline and, drawing on certain events of his ride, offers research-based advice on how to ease the physical aspects of aging. It’s an inspirational account, emphasizing the importance of exercise to physical and mental well-being.
Crossing The Ditch
James Castrission - 2009
It tells the story of two mates, a kayak, and the conquest of the Tasman.