The Magnetic North Notes from the Arctic Circle

by Wheeler, Sara

• ISBN13: 9780374533090
• ISBN10: 0374533091
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-14
• Publisher: North Point Pr

Summary

In order to understand climate change and our enormous dependence on oil, Sara Wheeler set out for the desolate vistas of the Arctic. In an epic voyage across the territories belonging to Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, Wheeler marked a landscape that is at once the most pristine on earth and the site of mounting pollutionand the locus of global warming. 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 has brought the Arctic's many contradictions to lifeand has positioned an urgent, beautiful book at the center of the most important debates of our age. Rich in dramatic description and vivid reporting, The Magnetic Northhas swiftly become an essential guide to a region that continues to grow daily in global importance.

Author Biography

Sara Wheeler is the author of Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton, Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Evia: Travels on an Undiscovered Greek Island, Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile, and Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica. She lives in London.

Table of Contents

Praise for The Magnetic North

“The Magnetic North offers a fascinating tour of a disappearing world. Sara Wheeler is an eloquent and intrepid guide.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe

“A wise, provoking and zestful chronicle, poetic, often tragic and always engaging. Wheeler, a prolific raconteur of distant places, has created the finest book on the Arctic since Hugh Brody’s The Other Side of Eden . . . She has mapped a remarkable journey.” —Rory MacLean, The Sunday Times (London)

“The Magnetic North proved irresistibly attractive. I loved . . . Terra Incognita, and this was an equally coddling hoosh of personal travelogue, historical anecdotage and speculative thinking—all the better because Wheeler began her series of Arctic travels, if not a climate change sceptic, then unconvinced about its anthropic cause, and ended up unable to deny the meltwater on the ground.” —Will Self, New Statesman

“A book that deserves to stand alongside Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez’s classic account of life above the tree line. Indeed, more than once I made the comparison in Wheeler’s favour. She’s funnier, and her writing, while brilliantly evocative, is never overblown . . . If you are lucky you might get to travel in the Arctic yourself; if you don’t, this book is the next best thing.” —Erica Wagner, The Times (London)

“Fantastic . . . Readers are whisked away on an incredible, multifaceted tour of a region still unknown . . . This fact-filled narrative is nearly impossible to put down . . . By chronicling what the Arctic tells us about our past, Wheeler vividly reveals what it tells us about our collective future.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“With wry humor and extensive research, Wheeler captures a swiftly transforming region with which we all have a symbiotic relationship . . . Wheeler’s sense of place, science, self and story is exceptional.” —Holly Morris, The New York Times Book Review