The Magnetic North: Notes From The Arctic Circle
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
A Globe and MailBest Books of the Year 2011 Title
More than a decade ago, Sara Wheeler traveled to Antarctica to understand a continent nearly lost to myth and lore. In the widely acclaimed, bestselling Terra Incognita, she chronicled her quest to find a hidden history buried in Antarctica's extreme surroundings. Now, Wheeler journeys to the opposite pole to create a definitive picture of life on the fringes. In The Magnetic North, she takes full measure of the Arctic: at once the most pristine place on earth and the locus of global warming.
Read more
Inspired by the spiraling shape of a reindeer-horn bangle, she travels counterclockwise around the North Pole through the territories belonging to Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, marking the transformations of what once seemed an unchangeable landscape. As she witnesses the mounting pollution concentrated at the pole, Wheeler reckons with the illness of the whole organism of the earth.
Smashing through the Arctic Ocean with the crew of a Russian icebreaker, shadowing the endless Trans-Alaska Pipeline with a tough Idaho-born outdoorswoman, herding reindeer with the Lapps, and visiting the haunting, deceptively peaceful lands of the Gulag, Wheeler brings the Arctic's many contradictions to life. The Magnetic Northis an urgent, beautiful book, rich in dramatic description and vivid reporting. It is a singular, deeply personal portrait of a region growing daily in global importance.
Liked The Magnetic North: Notes From The Arctic Circle? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked The Magnetic North: Notes From The Arctic Circle. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
True North: Travels in Arctic Europe Shares travel, nonfiction, Arctic -
The Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia Shares nonfiction, travel, Russia -
Let's Go Europe 2011: The Student Travel Guide Shares travel, nonfiction -
Better than Fiction 2: True adventures from 30 great fiction writers Shares travel, nonfiction
