Travel to Arctic

In the Land of White Death

Format: Paperback
Author: Valerian Albanov
ReleaseDate: 04 September, 2001
Publisher: Modern Library
Rating:

Don't Cry for Me, Saint Anna
Frozen into the icepack in the notoriously treacherous Kara Sea, the ship drifted north for a year and a half. In 1912, the Russian ship Saint Anna, undersupplied and with an incompetent captain, set out to sail the Northeast Passage across the top of Asia.

At this point Valerian Albanov, chief navigation officer and former second-in-command (he had been relieved of duty by his commander; we don't know why), received the captain's permission to leave the ship with thirteen companions. In improvised sledges, skis, and kayaks, they set out for Franz Joseph Land to the south.

Only Albanov and one companion survived to be rescued from the same cape on the same island from which Fridtjof Nansen and his companion had been rescued twenty years before. (See Nansen's "Farthest North" to see how an Arctic drift SHOULD be handled. ) This is the journal that Albanov kept, beginning from the day he left the Saint Anna hopelessly frozen in the ice. Saint Anna was never found.

Exciting true life adventure
This first-person work by a Russian officer on an ill-fated Arctic journey from 1912 to 1914 is certainly a very exciting one, even though the author tends to be laconic at times about his exploits. I've always been fascinated about Arctic & Antartic exploration, and try to read any books about it that I can find. He tells the story of his ship becoming icelocked, and then of his trek, with several other companions, across the trackless wastes of the Arctic to look for a safe haven on distant land. It's quite compelling, and makes for very gripping reading. The paperback edition of this work contains additional material gleaned from the diary of one of the author's companions on this treacherous journey, and it sheds some additional light on what happened, and especially on the mysterious two men who abandoned the party during the trip, and left them in a very precarious position. It's a book well worth reading for anyone interested in the Arctic, or indeed for anyone who can admire the lengths to which the human spirit and body will push itself in order to survive under the most exteme of conditions.

A true account of survival in the Siberian Arctic
Within a few months, the crew of 33 had become icebound and spent the next year and a half trapped in the ice, drifting farther and farther North. The Russian exploration vessel, the Saint Anna, set sail in 1912 to search for hunting grounds in the North Polar region. In 1914, the navigator, Valerian Albanov, decided to risk a trek across the ice with the hope of reaching Franz Josef Land. 13 crewmen set off across the ice, with the remaining 20 choosing to stay on board the ship. Of the 13 crewmen, only two survived.

"In the Land of White Death" is the true account of the trek, as written by Valerian Albanov. Starting with the few days before leaving, he writes a remarkable story of survival in severely cold conditions, with supplies diminishing and morale quickly ebbing. It is very detailed with its discriptions not only of the terrain, but of the crew and their physical and mental states throughout the journey.

Translator David Roberts also includes in his epilogue some of the text from the other survivor of the journey, crewman Alexander Konrad. His take on certain events sheds a whole new lights on certain aspects of their voyage across the ice.

This is a remarkable book, both for its story of survival and its glimpse into human nature. One of the best non-fiction books that I've read.

Related products:
click image or link for details on these Arctic travel books.

	The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk
	Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition
	Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer (Modern Library Exploration)