This remarkable author relates an ancient saga of northern courage in a 20th century setting, the frozen arctic rim of the North American continent. Pam Flowers, respiratory therapist by profession but dog musher by choice, lived a lifelong dream when she, her dogs, and supply-laden sleds made a 2500-mile trek above the Arctic Circle from Barrow in Alaska to Repulse Bay on the northwestern shore of Canada's Hudson Bay.

Alone with a tandem pair of dogsleds pulled by the eight Husky-mix dogs she trained herself, Flowers spent more than a year en route. She left Barrow Feb. 14, 1993, and mushed triumphantly - and gratefully - into the Inuit village on Hudson's Bay Jan. 9, 1994. The Mayor and ten others from the small settlement came out to greet and congratulate her. To Flowers, who had spent so long alone on the trek, the group seemed like a crowd.

It is the spirit of adventure that motivates the courage and daring of the small, 100-pound woman who is pictured engulfed by her bulky arctic gear and huge insulated boots. Her notes and photos of the careful planning and training for that epic journey clearly convey the danger, the excitement and the moments of trepidation when facing the barren and forbidding arctic.

This determined little woman has run the famed 1200-mile Iditarod Race to Nome, Alaska in 1983. "I ran," she writes, "not to win, but to learn about caring for dogs on long journeys." She put the knowledge she gained into two later, successful trips to the Magnetic North Pole and several trips along the northern coast of Alaska. Finally came the idea to retrace the route of the historic journey of Knud Rasmussen in 1923.

To provide herself with adequate supplies for herself and her dogs for such a long trip. Flowers mailed ahead bundles of necessities to be stashed, along with extra fuel for her little stove, at schools in settlements along her route. In return for that courtesy, on her arrival she talked to the classes about her life, her mushing, and her dogs.

Flowers' much-loved dogs, with all their individual personality traits and quirks, become the stars of this story. Their names become in the narrative as familiar as beloved characters in a novel. These are pets only in a secondary sense; first and foremost, they are work dogs born and bred and they enjoy the runs over ice and snow every bit as much as their driver. They can sense an approaching storm, sniff a polar bear and recognize the faintly distant lights of a settlement that sends them racing forward.
Every moment of the story of this journey is absorbing, even the lengthy periods of storms and whiteouts when Flowers waits them out in her tiny pyramidal tent. There are dangers and there is frustration. There is fear and there is joy. At its end Flowers felt a surge of accomplishment. She had made that trip... because she wanted to!

Like adventure? This book has it on every page! Prefer suspense? Try figuratively walking behind Pam Flowers as she crosses rotting arctic ice, not knowing whether she'll be able to make it to land. Want a good animal story? Here's one that stars eight dogs, with other species making cameo appearances. And, by the way, it also shows a lot about the incredible bonds of trust, companionship and loyalty which can develop in a team which includes dogs and humans. Hope to inspire someone to dream big dreams and work hard to make them come true? This is one of the most inspirational books I've ever read. And there's more...cross-cultural experiences, lots of information about life and survival in today's Arctic regions, history and humor.

Written for fifth and sixth graders, this is a definite cross-over book. I can't imagine an adult who would find it childish; third and fourth graders will enjoy listening to it.

The well-chosen photos illustrate the perhaps-unexpected beauty of the coastal Arctic, as well as the harshness of parts of the trip. And the side bars provide lots of information which illuminates the story without interrupting its flow.

What a woman! What a dog team! What a story!

I came to know about this book because a member of our church choir is a friend of the incredible woman who undertook to live out her dream of retracing the journey of Knud Rasmussen from Repulse Bay to Barrow, Alaska....some 2,500 miles along the entire length of the North American Arctic coast and loaned it to my wife.

I was happily reading Ken Follet's most recent novel when this book arrived in our home. Because the story is about dogs, the human spirit and an amazing adventure, I started reading what it had to say. It was soon after that I decided that Mr. Follet's book could wait.

Several houurs after that, I am writng this review and suggesting, urging, imploring, anyone who has an appreciation of what is involved with staking it all in answering your life's dream to give yourselves a wonderful present and read this book.

You will learn a lot about what it takes to own and run a team of sled dogs, about what is involved in planning such an expedition and all of the pitfalls to be avoided...but more importantly, you will have your eyes opened to a corner of the human spirit that too many of us shy away from as being..too dangerous..too odd..too off the wall..which will make you assess what it is that is important in your life. We already know what is important with the author's life from reading the book. However, she did not write this book to encourage more sled dogging. The book is a beautiful metaphor about life and one's dreams and one's soul. This author found the key. So should we all. Do yourself a favor and buy a copy of this most wonderful adventure.
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Since writing the review that appears above, I have learned that the book was the recipient of a First Place award at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in the catagory TRAVEL ESSAY. It is well deserved and the book has goine into a second printing.

I borrowed this book from a friend, and now plan to buy one of my own, to keep. My husband and I are both teachers..which has given us summers to float (or row) and travel around our beautiful state every summer. So, relating to Jill's adventures has really given me new realization of how capable I can be in my adventures too.
We met Jill briefly while poling for a friend in the midst of an avalanche rescue in Turnagain Pass...she came across as so brave & solid..now that I've read her personal insight...its nice to know that as an Alaskan woman, heading into the great outdoors, I can still have some fear of "what may happen" but it shouldn't stop me from taking every moment in that I can. She's a great inspiration. Having traveled the Yukon River and Inside Passage, Jill tells it exactly as it is...great job! I can't wait for summer!

This one of those books that is not only a page-turner, when you get to the end you peek under the back cover hoping there's another four hundred pages.

Arctic coasts seem to have been made for Jill Fredston and her husband Doug, and they for the coasts. As if their income career as Alaskan avalanche forecasters wasn't thrill enough, in summers they airfreight his kayak and her scull from this to that spot in the Arctic, and then row - yes, oars - 900 to 1,500 miles down rivers, along coasts, around islands like Svalbard (Spitzbergen on some maps) so remote that rare few have ever examined close-up the majesty of their unpeopled sides. They've been wined, dined, drank to, photographed, endured the insults of hostile locals, even shot at. Their litany of terrifying waveform to tremulous eddy is why this book is such a page-turner. Yet they keep going - 20,000 miles worth thus far.

Arctic seas are not for everyone, nor its shores. Times of paeanic bliss are cleft short by howling ice storms from out of nowhere. The inexpressible shoreside beauty of a hundredfold pod of whales is quite another thing if you are in a nineteen-foot rowing scull surrounded by twenty-foot thrashing flukes. The utter peace of standing before a 680-year-old, six-foot-diameter cedar is, a few hours later, a gut-wrenching horror trying to navigate through sucking tidal gyres like tornadoes of the sea, dozens of yards deep and just as merciless. They routinely assail waves that would give a Hawaiian surfer pause - not eight, not ten, but fifteen to twenty feet, whose tops are being truncated to spume by the wind. The Perfect Storm without a motor. The white shape afar in the midst of a skyscape of blue and worldscape of white is just another piece of ice till it rises to ten feet, has claws, and is charging at you, roaring, roaring. It is hard to believe that two 5" by 8" pages sprawled across your lap can evoke the same gut-wrenching fear as a Hollywood special-effects epic, but about a quarter of this book does just that. Perhaps they are so fearless because they are so well conditioned. Their resting pulse rate of 37 (versus 60 to 72 for most people) surely has something to do with their icy unintimidability.

Why would anyone in reasonable possession of their wits opt for this as a lifestyle? It's certainly not for merit-badge product endorsements. They are a very private couple, even humble when around people. Not so around sea, wind, ice, and cliffs. Ms. Fredston articulates her philosophy at the outset:

"In the process of journeying, we seem to have become the journey, blurring the boundaries between the physical landscape outside of ourselves and the spiritual landscape within. Once, during a long crossing in Labrador, we found ourselves in fog so thick it was impossible to see even the ends of our boats. Unable to distinguish gray water from gray air, I felt vertigo grab hold of my equilibrium, and the world began to spin. I needed a reference point - the sound of Doug's voice or the catch of my blades as they entered the water - to know what was right side up. Rounding thousands of miles of ragged shoreline together, driven by the joys and fears of not knowing what lies around the next bend, has helped us find an interior compass."
A little later, using images reminiscent of T.W, Eliot's poem "The Dry Salvages," she becomes that which she experiences:

"By the time I reached the sea, I know that I could do far worse than to live life like the Yukon [River]: Keep moving but find places to slow down. Don't go straight at the expense of meandering. Nurture others; accommodate both change and tradition. Savor the element of surprise. Be gracious, accepting, resilient."

Further on she again addresses her sense for spirit of place:

"Person, place, or thing? The games we played as kids had such seemingly simple answers. How can a person be a place? How can a place not become part of a person? We remember a place not just for its beauty but for the way that beauty made us feel; these feelings are woven into an emotional tapestry we call self. The most special places are the ones that give texture to our dreams, that ground us, make us whole, remind us of what is real."

Rowing to Latitude would be just another human-conquers-nature thriller if it wasn't for Jill Fredston's writing. Where has she been all our lives? Erudite, heartfelt, eloquent, adventurous, witty, tragic, liberating, concerned, poetic, blunt - all this can happen on a single page, and very often does. Her entire book has the quality of the moods of the sea, vividly personalized by her ability to melt the descriptive into the spiritual. She writes rings around the mass-market travel scribblers autographing books at Borders these days. It is a pity that she and her husband are Arctic devotees; there is a whole rest of the world that surely could do with her talent, with his compassion, with their insights. However, considering the fact that they think a fifty-degree day a swelter fit only for basking on a beach surrounded by icebergs, you know they would melt into popcorn oil if they tackled, say, Bali and the Sunda Islands.

So let's hope they don't run out of shorelines, their bones don't give out on them, and Ms. Fredston's hard drive doesn't crash. Five more books from them would be just about right. More pictures, too. The sixteen herein were a saucer of chip dip compared with the image banquet that is the Arctic. In this environment, where the energy of life is dribbled so sparingly, Ms. Fredston sees the underlying spiritual energy of the earth which must be before life can be, just as soul and heart must be before mind can be.

Rowing more than 20,000 miles along the coastlines of Arctic oceans and rivers, this is the well told adventure of a husband and wife team that spent their summers over many years seeking out the wild coastal places around and above the Arctic circle. The author is a wonderful writer who more than capably presents tales of adventure and courage with an ample dose of personal insight. To read this book is to share in the adventure and excitement found along these barren coasts and wild Arctic rivers. Well worth reading and highly recommended.

Switchers and its two sequels (Midnight's Choice and Wild Blood) add to the canon of true literary children's classics. Kate Thompson combines touching psychological insight into Tess's troubled, lonely heart and vivid imaginings about the minds of animals with a thrilling plot about world weather catastrophe and a great friendship between Tess and the mysterious Kevin; there's also plenty of humour (the rats are fab). The moments when Tess first "switches" and Kevin makes his Big Choice at the end made me gasp - as you can see, I loved this book! However, Switchers suffers slightly by being first: there's too much narration about what Tess is thinking and not enough description, dialogue and action sequences. But don't be put off by this one complaint about technique; the writing just gets better and better through the series. This is a fabulous adventure story about being brave enough to care about the world, to reach out and make friends, to change who you are.

Book Title: Switchers

Author: Kate Thompson

Genre: Fiction

Exposition: Tess is as you might say "better off" then most teenagers, so when a boy in tattered clothes starts following her from her bus she thinks he's looking for money. But when she hurries toward her houses to get away from him and he says, "I know you, I know what you do", Tess gets scared. Could he know about her secret about how she could change how she's a switcher and can turn into any animal she chooses? Things get worse when Kevin shows up again and tells her he's a switcher and he needs her help to find out what's causing freak weather in the arctic. Will Tess go off with this stranger and find out about her mysterious talent or will she use her common sense and get as far away as she can from that creepy kid?

Characters:

Tess: A teenager from Ireland who has the ability to change into animals. She goes on a mission to find out what's causing extreme cold in the northern hemisphere.

Kevin: A homeless boy who is also a switcher. He asks Tess to go on this adventure with him.

Lizzie: A weird old lady who gives them advice and helps them stay hidden from the cops looking for Tess because shes a runaway.

I bought this book at first because it sounded like Animorphs, which I really like, but its nothing like Animorphs. It's very different but good in its own way. I would have to say this book is the best in the Switchers trilogy. The way Kate Thompson writes bring you into the story. The book doesn't get boring but never seems too rushed, either. The two main characters in this book are Kevin and Tess, two Switchers who have the power to 'switch' into any creature they can imagine. They are just beginning to learn how to use their powers to the full extent. The other two books in the series are Midnight's Choice ( almost as good as this one) and Wild Blood ( nowhere near.) And I know I said they're nothing like Animorphs, but anyone who has read 48-The Return and Midnight's Choice will notice some strange similarities.

Geology is not usually one of my favorite topics. I remember slogging through John McPhee's interminable series of articles for The New Yorker and vowing to avoid the topic at all costs.

My attitude has changed radically since reading Kevin Krajick's book Barren Lands. Somehow, he has managed to convert a dry topic into a thrilling adventure narrative, weaving hundreds of years of history into this story about the idiosyncratic characters who prospect for diamonds.

I highly value my sleep, but I actually stayed up late to finish this book. My only criticism is that I would have liked to see photographs of the driven, eccentric characters that populate the book, and the actual landscape they prospected.

...is certainly not always gold...or diamonds for that matter. This book, however shines from cover to cover. There is something for everybody in Mr.Krajick's book Barren Lands. In dealing witht the overall subject of the 400+ year search for diamonds in North America, the author took me through a graphic history of adventure, intrigue and science. Krajick's style of story telling brings the tale of the search for diamonds thru-out the world to life and kept me rivited page after page. After reading of how some folks just stumbled across diamonds in their back yards I will probably always have one eye to the ground from now on.

The more recent North America activities of Fipke and Blusson, around whom much of the book revolves, is told in a personal and intimate manner, as only an author with first hand experience and contact could have related. There is also a good dose of the author's wry sense of humor and irony thrown in throughout his book. Please take special note of his tips on how to use a port-o-potty in 40 degree below zero weather on the tundra.

Probably the best book since reading Stephen Ambrose's book about Lewis and Clarke, Undaunted Courage. My only disapointment was reaching the last page.

Did you know that in about half of the states of the US people have found diamonds? Diamonds of more than two carats have been found, for example, in Ohio and Alabama, and finding them is often just child's play. Kids are the ones who pick these gems up, because kids are close to the ground and always looking for treasures. Finding a reliable supply of diamonds is much more difficult; the ones found on the ground are often chance deposits that were dropped when a glacier melted, but the glacier must have carried them from somewhere rich in diamonds. There aren't many such places, and it was a surprise that over the past decade, the Northwest Territories of Canada were deemed to be diamond mining country. The eerie, exciting, and disturbing story of how this came to be is told in _Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic_ (Times Books) by Kevin Krajick. The lure of diamonds has proved inescapable for a certain class of men for centuries, and Krajick's book tells about some of them he met while he did his research.

The Barren Lands (yes, that is the designation you will see on maps) is a half million square mile region as far north as Americans can go. There are no roads and no people, and it is called barren because it is above the northern limits which trees can reach, Since diamond exploration has started, however, it could well be populated with workers producing gold, uranium, and other minerals. At the heart of the story of exploration here is Chuck Fipke, a weird little guy who does nothing to improve the image of geologists. When Fipke was in charge of a prospecting expedition, he drove his men ruthlessly, especially his own son with distressing ferocity ("When you're not eating or sleeping, you're working for me."). Fipke was just one of a long line of explorers to the region, and their history is well covered here. The unbelievable hardships of traversing the area, or working in it, are well described in many sections of the book; bears, mosquitoes, and deerflies all supply annoyance or danger. Then there were the people. Fipke could not keep his operation secret for long, and DeBeers and other mining firms shouldered in. Fipke's team painted the plywood cubicles that held the drills with camouflage paint that would prevent detection from the air, and even ordered army-surplus camouflage nets to cover supplies. This was not paranoia; there were commercial spy planes making regular flights to see what was up.

The prospectors faced challenges from the environmentalists, who worried that the caribou, wolves, falcons, wolverines, and bears would get shoved aside by the industrialization of a previously pristine area, and the local tribes worried about water pollution, looting of artifacts left by their ancestors, and "perhaps most of all they worried that they might be left out of the profits." Barren Lands now has a hugely expensive mining factory, and will simply churn out millions of dollars worth of diamonds every year. There is a pressure to build roads and power lines to the site, which will mean more alteration of a basically natural area, but profits like these cannot be resisted. While Fipke and his partners are all now unimaginably rich, they are not unimaginably happy. Fipke alienated many of his crew, and shattered his family during the most intense of the mining preparations. He admits that putting all his energy into his mine had its price. "But that was _cool_! To do all that we did? It was _fun_!" It is not surprising that with this attitude, all the riches and all the family problems haven't made a difference: he is still out there looking for the next strike.

Ninety years after the daring hostile and torrid trek of desperation, this 'tour de force' of arctic literature was found hidden away in the library of a major university. Now, made available in English for the first time, this is a gripping story of Russian navigator Valerian Albanov. A man among men who establishes, or at least reinforces, the definition for the words: courageous, tenacious and dedicated.

Albanov's story does not read like the personal diary that it is; rather 'Land of White Death' is the gripping compelling writing of a journey through a world that so foreign and hostile that it vaporizes hope of the most valiant men replacing hope with the despairing darkness of the frigid arctic nights.

He and a group of ill prepared and poorly equipped men left the warmth and perceived safety of their stranded ship to journey without a map into the frozen arctic. Only two emerged 3 months later. This is their tale. Strongly Recommended

We are fortunate that this incredible story of Arctic survival has finally been translated from the Russian diary of Valerian Albanov so that we can vicariously share in his adventure. If you are a fan of Arctic or Antarctic exploration, then this book is a must read for you. As in the Endurance epic of Ernest Shackleton in Antarctica, Albanov's ship was also locked in the ice only in the far reaches of the Arctic near Franz Josef Land. Albanov and a few others decide to leave the ship and make their way over the ice to the safety of land many miles away. This account documents their efforts as they encounter one hardship after another. I have been to this part of the world and having seen it first hand, it is almost impossible for me to imagine how they survived. It is interesting to compare this story with that of the Shackleton adventure. Both took place at about the same time in history, yet at opposite Poles. The main contrast I noted was the superior leadership qualities of Shackleton. While Albanov did not measure up to that standard, he, nonetheless, with great difficulty seemed to keep his men going. Unfortunately, he did not have the success of Shackleton. This book is a good addition to any library on Polar adventure stories.

Albanov was a Russian navigator. In 1912 he set sail as second in command of the Saint Anna in the hopes of reaching Vladivostok across the Northeast Passage. His ship was locked in the pack ice in the Kara Sea and drifting northward. After 18 months locked in the ice, with supplies incapable of supporting everyone another winter, he asked for permission to build a kayak and sled to seek land to the south. Others decided to join him, encouraged by the Captain, who with the small remainder of the crew, hope to be spit out of the ice in the Atlantic many months later. They were never found.

Thirteen started the perilous journey and two survived. The remainder on the Saint Anna are perhaps still locked in an icy death above the artic circle.

The book was written in Russian and later translated to French. Only recently was in translated into English after a copy was found in the Harvard library, unread for 68 years.

Albanov's diary, the basis for this later book, describes the ordeal, the wildlife encountered, the snow blindness, and the fatigue that lead to the deaths of many of the men.

I found the book to be a quick read. I was unable to put it down until I finished it.

Strongly recommended.

Conrad B Senior

I had a very smart and very good teacher in grade school. We had to read a certain amount of books each year, and some we HAD to read as a class so we could discuss them. The Iceberg Hermit was one of them, and I have to say that it was one of my favorites of the must-read stories we had to pick from, right up there with Bridge to Terabithia, Tuck Everlasting, Mrs. Mike and Where the Red Fern Grows.

I had lost my copy years ago, but thought of it again recently. So I was pleasantly surprised that it was still in print. I remember how my imagination soared, trying to picture the main character stranded in the middle of nowhere. I was transported to another place and time, and 20 years after reading the book, I can still remember it vividly. If you are looking for some good reading material for your children, this will NOT disappoint.

This book was read to me in grade school.Even to this day,20 years later I still think of this story of survival and the importance of companionship.This book will truely leave you so inspired you will be left with a feeling of wanting to be a better person.

One of the best books I have read in the past year has to be "The Ice burg Hermit, by Arthur Roth. It is a marvelous book about a man who finds a way to survive in the cold. One of the major reasons I enjoyed this book so much is that it is full of action . The ice berg hermit is trying to survive in the cold depths of the seas. Another reason I enjoy this book and found this book to be so wonderful but suspenseful. He fights polar bears and you never know when a polar bear comes to kill Allen. Of course my favorite reason for having this book is, that it is full of action. The best action part in the book is when he tries to swing to the iceberg to save his life and almost dies. As for as I am concerned Author Roth hit the nail on the head of this book

Casual glancers at the title of this book about the 1912 Scott expedition may automatically assume that it refers to the death of Captain Scott and four of his companions on their return from the South Pole. Instead, "The Worst Journey in the World" was the trip to the Emperor Penguin rookeries undertaken in the middle of the Antarctic winter by Cherry-Garrand, Dr. Wilson, and Lt. Bowers, the latter two of whom would die with Scott on the polar trip. It makes absolutely terrifying reading; the men were not equipped or trained for the rigors of the expedition, and the scientific results from their collection of penguin eggs appear to have been absolutely nil (Shackleton fans will be interested to know that Dr. Eric Marshall suggested such a journey during the 1907-1909 Shackleton expedition, but Shackleton thought the idea was cracked and refused to countenance it). Cherry-Garrand is indeed a bit of a ragged writer, but as a non-heroic account of the Scott expedition (compared to Scott's own journals, written with Posterity in mind and "improved" by J.M. Barrie) this book is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in the heroic era of Antarctic exploration.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard has truely given us an epic for exploration and adventure. This book conveys the horror, tragedy, and even ironic humor of Scott's ill-fated last expedition in an extremely eloquent manner.

Cherry-Garrard could not more fairly credit his companions. From the beginning, he is modest and places huge credit on his fellow explorers. In particular, he talks about Bowers, Wilson, and Scott with a sense of awe and immense respect.

The countless horrors of Scott's journey are described graphically, and it was easy to imagine anything from leaping from ice-flow to ice-flow for ours on the depot journey to stumbling upon the dead bodies of his friends. I enjoyed every minute of it.

The Worst Journey was incredibly inspiring. After reading the book, I felt like I could do anything, take on any challenge. The troubles they endured, the lifestyle they adapted to, is mind-numbing. It is difficult to imagine surviving such things.

In the "Winter Journey," one of the most difficult Journey's ever experienced by man, Cherry-Garrard and two other men struggle through the Antarctic Winter to Cape Crozier to obtain Penguin Eggs. They travel in pitch black, around giant crevasses, in frozen clothing, in -70 degree temperatures, and with sleeping bags that take hours to get into. This was the most intense, gripping reading I have ever done.

No matter who you are, you will like The Worst Journey In The World. Fantastic writing, gripping plot, and visual descriptions will keep you glued to the book. And when it's done, you will not want to stop reading.

You cannot read this book without being inspired by the courage of the early Antarctic explorers; you cannot read it without being impressed by the good literary taste of the author; nor can you, after reading this book, fail to have admiration grow in your heart for the self-ignoring author. Cherry-Garrard was a first-rate Antarctic explorer, a first-rate writer, and a first-rate human being. What makes Capt. Robert F. Scott, Dr. Edward Wilson and their fellow explorers particularly admirable is that their chief goal was not fame, but to acquire Scientific Knowledge: it was the interest in the penguins as an important evolution chain that led to the Worst Journey by the three valiant men, and it was, in part, the insistence not to abandon the 30 pounds of specimen (let alone a companion) that eventually resulted in the tragedy of the Polar Journey. Indeed, what a price to pay!

Whereas the book _Endurance_ may have created a "Shackleton mania", it is books of such quality as Cherry-Garrard's book that will have a lasting, lofty place in the history of the exploration literature.

My favorite passage is also the concluding paragraph quoted by some other people, but here I cannot resist sharing with you another one in its entirety (and chuckling one more time), which is certainly a little far from the main subject of the book, but which shows that even in recounting a side episode like this one, Cherry-Garrard surpasses many writers in that he makes memorable, not only the scene, but the words that describe it:

"One day there had been a blizzard, and lying open to the view of all was a deserted nest, a pile of coveted stones. All the surrounding rookery made their way to and fro, each husband acquiring merit, for, after each journey, he gave his wife a stone. This was the plebeian way of doing things; but my friend who stood, ever so unconcerned, upon a rock knew a trick worth two of that: he and his wife who sat so cosily upon the other side.

"The victim was a third penguin. He was without a mate, but this was an opportunity to get one. With all the speed his little legs could compass he ran to and fro, taking stones from the deserted nest, laying them beneath a rock, and hurrying back for more. On that same rock was my friend. When the victim came up with his stone he had his back turned. But as soon as the stone was laid and the other gone for more, he jumped down, seized it with his beak, ran round, gave it to his wife and was back on the rock (with his back turned) before you could say Killer Whale. Every now and then he looked over his shoulder, to see where the next stone might be.

"I watched this for twenty minutes. All that time, and I do not know for how long before, that wretched bird was bringing stone after stone. And there were no stones there. Once he looked puzzled, looked up and swore at the back of my friend on his rock, but immediately he came back, and he never seemed to think he had better stop. It was getting cold and I went away: he was coming for another."

The story contained in this book is a good example of why governments should have stayed out of the exploring business in the Arctic regions. The inadequate research, underfunding, and the willy-nilly selection of leaders and expedition members practically doomed the Greely excursion to Lady Franklin Bay before it began. Once under way, the objections and obstructions put forth by Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln definitely contributed to the tragedy that ensued. There is no doubt that the members of the expedition acted very heroically in many instances, including the commander himself, but there are also many times when foolish things happened, and those things had tragic consequences later. Reading this book is a good cautionary tale: plan ahead for as many contingencies as possible, have proper funding, and make sure that instructions are sufficiently clear and flexible enough to take into account changing situations.

I loved the book. If you enjoy adventure, history and reading about explorers and expeditions into extreme climates and dangerous places then this is a good book for you.
I have read many books dealing with both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions as well as exploration, mountain climbing and military history.
This is the story of an Army Signal Corp expedition and a series of screw-ups which left them stranded in the unforgiving climate of the Arctic. The extremes that these men were subjected to and the pressures brought to bear on them are mind boggling. We wonder what we would do under similar circumstances.
I came away thinking that there were really no "good guys" in this book, but lots of "bad guys" and just people who couldn't/wouldn't get along. Some had personality quirks that only magnified their plight and made things worse for everyone. No heroes in this account, only survivors. A good read.

Len Guttridge's extensive research has uncovered the true story of what happened to the ill-fated Greely expedition. For the first time, we are given new details of this horrendous part of our history. In the past, things that have been written about this expedition have been almost entirely from Greely's official records. The excerpts from new unpublished diaries and papers in Guttridge's book give us new insights about other members of the expedition and their hostility towards Greely. We see Lieutenant Greely's decisions on the retreat south as pure madness. As Mr. Guttridge concluded, Mr. Greely was no match for the arctic. Washington politics concerning the rescue of these poor souls was equally disheartening. Guttridge has subtly exposed a desperate plot by a chosen few to stay alive. Interesting that the two cooks, Greely and Brainard are among those who managed to survive. The horror of the fate of those not so lucky makes this book a real page turner. It would make a fabulous movie.

Kids are never too young to learn about other cultures. This book has beautiful illustrations showing native Alaskans in wonderful settings. The drawings attract just as much as the timeless tale of a mother's unconditional love for her child. It has great possibilities for opening discussions or for introducing pretending-type games. Best of all, it is all about love and there can never be too much of that.

Love is the only thing that really matters! There's no mistaking the powerful allure of unconditional love in this young children's book, which has just been republished in a 10th anniversary commemorative edition.

Mama, Do You Love Me? depicts an Inuit mother who loves her daughter, no matter what. Throughout the story the daughter repeatedly asks, "Mama, do you love me?" She comes up with many intriguing and playful reasons why the mother might be persuaded to withhold love. For example, what if the daughter broke the ptarmigan eggs? What if she put lemmings in her mother's mukluks? The mother does not hide or lie about her feelings. Sometimes she says she would be surprised, or angry, or scared, but these variable emotions do not change her love for her daughter. Her daughter is her Dear One, always and forever.

This story is best suited for a young child, but it may also be interesting to anyone who's very keen on Alaska or Inuit life.

This book received a score of 7.50 on a scale of (1) low to 10 (high) from The Spiritual Reviewer.

This story focuses on one simple question that every child thinks at one point or another. The question is whether their parents will always love them no matter what the child does. This story confirms for children young and old, that no matter what they do, their parents (mama) will still love them.

The story is delightfully told from the perspective of the Intuit culture. The mischief the child creates deals with things that are unique to that culture such as accidentally dropping ptarmigan eggs, spilling the oil in the family's lamp, slipping an emrine in mama's mukluks or turning into a Walrus. My son and I enjoy talking about how different cultures live and what they believe and this book has started some fun conversations.

I believe the story does not prompt children into asking the "wrong" question as mentioned in other reviews. The story promotes the idea of a parent's love and acceptance no matter what their little hellion does and does it with a wonderful story and captivating artwork. This has become one of our favorite books.

Lopez' earlier slim volumes, "River Notes" and "Desert Notes" pale in coparison to this book which centers around an excursion into the Arctic, a region vastly unexplored (and, excepting Viking, Russian and Dane enterprises, unattainable beyond the sometimes invisible margins separating terra firma from the then-mythic Ultima Thule) and has only reached prominence until relatively recently in navigational history. The book reads much like a journeyman, the personal experiences mingling with sections outlining the cultural and historic (shamanistic to Cook and Peary), species and subspecie, the flora and fauna cirques, terminal moraines, and frazil of the crystal land. In many ways it also reads like a guidebook to the unknown, a sort of latter day spin-off to the wonderous adventure sagas on travel and exploration which played a critical part in books (and National Geographic) and other series' of the earlier part of the twentieth century. At still another level it presents a narrative which manages to economically convey the historic and environmental aspects which are arranged as if for magazine specials (of note are the lists of Specific Names and Places in the appendices sect.); concise, substantive and memorable. This is an enjoyable and enduring read, especially for long hot summers.

A must for the reader who appreciates the beauty of a suttle landscape and the adaptations animals and people make to be at home in such a place. Lopez displays a sort of intelligence and attention to detail in this book that challenges the reader to expand. Having visited the arctic before reading it, I had pictures in my mind that he explained. The local explanation of mountains "coming up for air" was breathless. Inuit comfort with that country is so astonishingly beautiful. Having worked for a local ivory sculptor in Anchorage gave me a great curiosity for this land and culture. It took a scientific explanation of the sort Lopez is so go at to feed at least some of that curiosity. If you loved this book, check out some of the works of Inuit art.

It's been some years ago now that I read Arctic Dreams. I found Lopez's writing powerful and gripping; I had to read more of his work and soon did. His use of the desert as a metaphor for the arctic brought to mind not only human desire to experience and transform landscapes, but also the sense of mystery that we attach to the environment--mystery that compels us to make known the unknown, whether through myth or exploration, and mystery that drives us to wax nostalgic when those landscapes are already comprehended and inexorably altered. Before the U.S. Civil War, some maps showed the Great Plains as the "Great American Desert." Within a decade, that land and its peoples had been transfigured in popular imaginations from a mythology of mystery to one of discovery and settlement. There is much to be gained from Lopez's deeply personal engagement with the Arctic and the ways his experience informs his elucidation of others' attempts, successful and not, to imagine, discover, conquer, and finally yield to this austere geography. In doing so, Lopez manages not to lose track of the sense of wonder and myth that nearly wells up from the landscape itself.