The Magnetic North

Notes from the Arctic Circle

By Wheeler, Sara

Publishers Summary:
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.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 North is 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.

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ISBN
978-0-37420-013-8
Publisher
Farrar


REVIEWS

Library Journal

Reviewed on December 1, 2010

Some people can't stay away from cold places. Wheeler here recounts her travels to the Arctic Circle, the polar opposite of the Antarctic trek recorded in her best-selling Terra Incognita. The Arctic Circle crops Canada, Alaska, regions of Siberia, Scandinavia, Greenland, and assorted islands. It is an area of fragile life, where native peoples survived in close balance with the land lo...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

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