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Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a New Northwest Passage
The long-awaited follow up to Annabel and Kathleen Winter’s first work of narrative nonfiction.
In 2010, bestselling author Kathleen Winter took a journey across the storied Northwest Passage, among marine scientists, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and curious passengers. From Greenland to Baffin Island and all along the passage, Winter bears witness to the new math of the melting North — where polar bears mate with grizzlies, creating a new hybrid species; where the earth is on the cusp of yielding so much buried treasure that five nations stand poised to claim sovereignty of the land; and where the local Inuit population struggles to navigate the tension between taking part in the new global economy and defending their traditional way of life.
Throughout the journey she also learns from fellow passengers Aaju Peter and Bernadette Dean, who teach her about Inuit society, past and present. She bonds with Nathan Rogers, son of the late Canadian icon Stan Rogers, who died in a plane crash when Nathan was nearly four years old. Nathan’s quest is to take the route his father never travelled, except in his beloved song “The Northwest Passage,” which he performs both as anthem and lament at sea. And she guides us through her own personal odyssey, emigrating from England to Canada as a child and discovering both what was lost and what was gained as a result of that journey.
In breathtaking prose charged with vivid descriptions of the land and its people, Kathleen Winter’s Boundless is a haunting and powerful story, and a homage to the ever-evolving and magnetic power of the North.
In 2010, bestselling author Kathleen Winter took a journey across the storied Northwest Passage, among marine scientists, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and curious passengers. From Greenland to Baffin Island and all along the passage, Winter bears witness to the new math of the melting North — where polar bears mate with grizzlies, creating a new hybrid species; where the earth is on the cusp of yielding so much buried treasure that five nations stand poised to claim sovereignty of the land; and where the local Inuit population struggles to navigate the tension between taking part in the new global economy and defending their traditional way of life.
Throughout the journey she also learns from fellow passengers Aaju Peter and Bernadette Dean, who teach her about Inuit society, past and present. She bonds with Nathan Rogers, son of the late Canadian icon Stan Rogers, who died in a plane crash when Nathan was nearly four years old. Nathan’s quest is to take the route his father never travelled, except in his beloved song “The Northwest Passage,” which he performs both as anthem and lament at sea. And she guides us through her own personal odyssey, emigrating from England to Canada as a child and discovering both what was lost and what was gained as a result of that journey.
In breathtaking prose charged with vivid descriptions of the land and its people, Kathleen Winter’s Boundless is a haunting and powerful story, and a homage to the ever-evolving and magnetic power of the North.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published June 30, 2014
About the author
Kathleen Winter
18 books351 followersKathleen Winter's novel Annabel was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Orange Prize, and numerous other awards. Her Arctic memoir Boundless was shortlisted for Canada's Weston and Taylor non-fiction prizes, and her last novel Lost in September was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award. Born in the UK, Winter now lives in Montreal after many years in Newfoundland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
January 12, 2016
Afforded the opportunity to take passage on a ship journeying through the Northwest passage, Winter jumps at the chance. What follows are her thoughts on the land, fellow passengers, the ship itself and the connectedness to the land, the animals and those who journeyed here before her, many such as the Franklin Expedition who lost their lives.
Part travelogue, part memoir this lyrical book written with quiet elegance and poetic beauty really appealed to me. Her musings and thoughts about so many things, the two Inuit women on the ship who really helped her understand their diminishing culture, the geologist who taught her the importance of rocks, a musician who became a real friend and the things she sees and feels struck just the right chord. This book makes one think of one's relation to the land they live in, the original people who belong to the Arctic and what is being taken away. What we are willing to do to keep, and further the lifestyles in which we live. Such a beautifully described journey which also triggered memories from Winter's own past. The pictures included in the book are wonderful.
This journey changed the way the author looked at things, her relationship with the past and the land, people's cultures. I loved it and keep thinking about the questions posed from reading this book, maybe it changed me a little too.
Part travelogue, part memoir this lyrical book written with quiet elegance and poetic beauty really appealed to me. Her musings and thoughts about so many things, the two Inuit women on the ship who really helped her understand their diminishing culture, the geologist who taught her the importance of rocks, a musician who became a real friend and the things she sees and feels struck just the right chord. This book makes one think of one's relation to the land they live in, the original people who belong to the Arctic and what is being taken away. What we are willing to do to keep, and further the lifestyles in which we live. Such a beautifully described journey which also triggered memories from Winter's own past. The pictures included in the book are wonderful.
This journey changed the way the author looked at things, her relationship with the past and the land, people's cultures. I loved it and keep thinking about the questions posed from reading this book, maybe it changed me a little too.
May 14, 2019
Boundless
Kathleen Winter’s subtitle is ‘Adventures in the Northwest Passage’. At times, she refers to her journey as an expedition. I don’t mean to be unkind but it’s not an expedition. In 2010, she is invited to be writer in residence on a commercial cruise ship full of paying guests who are mainly, it would seem, Japanese. They are accompanied by experts in geology, crafts, history, and so on, and are taken on guided walks in each port of call. This is not an expedition.
Winter describes each port and her experiences there, the people she meets on land and sea, while musing about her early childhood in Northumberland, England before her parents decided to move the family across to Newfoundland. She reflects on the difficulty of not belonging either by nationality, birth, social group or expectations. Her father sought wild Canada and dreamed of hunting, fishing and cross country treks so that is what they did, as a family, whenever possible. She is excited about following Franklin’s passage and talks a little about the efforts that have been made to find his ships. Because the book was written in 2015, it precedes them being located. It also predates the findings of a court case that the grounding of the cruise ship on rocks just before they reached their final destination was due to the Captain’s lack of adequate research / preparation prior to the voyage and was not the fault of the coastguard or of outdated maps.
I found this a contradictory journey. There are the usual musings about climate change, colonial arrogance, abuse of indigenous peoples and the lack of respect for their history, knowledge and artefacts, that always accompany journeys into the far north. Yet Winter is travelling on an environmentally unfriendly cruise ship that stops in each port just long enough for the mainly elderly passengers to disembark and find ‘native’ crafts to buy. Where there are no inhabitants, passengers bring back on board twigs, leaves, bones, feathers, and anything else of interest that they find, to lay on a show and tell table. I believe in ‘take only photographs, leave only footprints’ and would have expected Winter to have believed in that too but she joins in rather than discouraging the practice. She prowls around towns and villages and yet she can identify with the local people, having spent some of her childhood in a town that was accustomed to but despised visitors poking around, peering in windows, and observing townspeople as if they were exhibits in a museum. She talks about a journey she made with her older daughter to England during which, if her account is accurate, their reactions to the sites they visited was often truly immature and disrespectful, quite the opposite of how she is imploring people to respond to the far north.
This is not a bad book but it isn’t what I expected. There is too much soul searching, too much trying to work out her own feelings about her childhood, her family, her marriages and her future. The journey was interesting enough but the means and the reminiscences weren’t.
Kathleen Winter’s subtitle is ‘Adventures in the Northwest Passage’. At times, she refers to her journey as an expedition. I don’t mean to be unkind but it’s not an expedition. In 2010, she is invited to be writer in residence on a commercial cruise ship full of paying guests who are mainly, it would seem, Japanese. They are accompanied by experts in geology, crafts, history, and so on, and are taken on guided walks in each port of call. This is not an expedition.
Winter describes each port and her experiences there, the people she meets on land and sea, while musing about her early childhood in Northumberland, England before her parents decided to move the family across to Newfoundland. She reflects on the difficulty of not belonging either by nationality, birth, social group or expectations. Her father sought wild Canada and dreamed of hunting, fishing and cross country treks so that is what they did, as a family, whenever possible. She is excited about following Franklin’s passage and talks a little about the efforts that have been made to find his ships. Because the book was written in 2015, it precedes them being located. It also predates the findings of a court case that the grounding of the cruise ship on rocks just before they reached their final destination was due to the Captain’s lack of adequate research / preparation prior to the voyage and was not the fault of the coastguard or of outdated maps.
I found this a contradictory journey. There are the usual musings about climate change, colonial arrogance, abuse of indigenous peoples and the lack of respect for their history, knowledge and artefacts, that always accompany journeys into the far north. Yet Winter is travelling on an environmentally unfriendly cruise ship that stops in each port just long enough for the mainly elderly passengers to disembark and find ‘native’ crafts to buy. Where there are no inhabitants, passengers bring back on board twigs, leaves, bones, feathers, and anything else of interest that they find, to lay on a show and tell table. I believe in ‘take only photographs, leave only footprints’ and would have expected Winter to have believed in that too but she joins in rather than discouraging the practice. She prowls around towns and villages and yet she can identify with the local people, having spent some of her childhood in a town that was accustomed to but despised visitors poking around, peering in windows, and observing townspeople as if they were exhibits in a museum. She talks about a journey she made with her older daughter to England during which, if her account is accurate, their reactions to the sites they visited was often truly immature and disrespectful, quite the opposite of how she is imploring people to respond to the far north.
This is not a bad book but it isn’t what I expected. There is too much soul searching, too much trying to work out her own feelings about her childhood, her family, her marriages and her future. The journey was interesting enough but the means and the reminiscences weren’t.
March 27, 2015
BOTW
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mqpgdDescription: Teresa Gallagher reads Kathleen Winter's story of her journey as the Writer-in-Residence on a boat travelling through the Northwest Passage, and how the voyage became as much an exploration of her own roots as a venture into the arctic ice fields.
Kathleen Winter was born in Bill Quay, near Gateshead. When she was still young, the family emigrated to Newfoundland. Winter, who now lives in Montreal, was a TV scriptwriter and a newspaper columnist before turning her hand to short stories. Her first collection of stories - 'boYs' - was published in 2007 and her first novel 'Annabel' came out three years later.
'Annabel' was shortlisted for the three main Canadian literary prizes in 2010 - the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers' Writers' Trust Prize and the Governor General's Award. This year, Boundless was shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Award for non-fiction.
Abridged by Pete Nichols
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
Episode 1: When a man called Noah invites you on a boat trip...Episode 2: A Viking Funeral.
Episode 3: In the Sermermuit Valley, the author is thrilled by a symphony of ice.
Episode 4: On Dundas Island, the arctic animals lay claim to their habitat.
Episode 5: As the passengers prepare for journey's end, there is an unscheduled stop.
March 28, 2015
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Teresa Gallagher reads Kathleen Winter's story of her journey as the Writer-in-Residence on a boat travelling through the Northwest Passage, and how the voyage became as much an exploration of her own roots as a venture into the arctic ice fields.
Teresa Gallagher reads Kathleen Winter's story of her journey as the Writer-in-Residence on a boat travelling through the Northwest Passage, and how the voyage became as much an exploration of her own roots as a venture into the arctic ice fields.
September 29, 2021
An absolutely wonderful book. Kathleen Winters approaches her voyage into the high Arctic more as a spiritual seeker than your typical travel writer. She longs for an experience of landscape, rather than an intellectual examination of it. Her combination of history, geography, travelogue, memoir and poetics makes for a captivating and compulsively readable book. Not only that, it makes the reader reconsider what landscape is, what the names we have different places say about our relationship to them, and the people of that land. At times funny, touching, inspiring and provocative, this is a book that won't fail to leave you thinking about your own landscape in a new way, and, if you're anything like me, trying to figure out how I can find my way onto a ship heading due north.
December 5, 2016
This book, like few others, had a truly *feeling?* *sensual?* *effective?* way of getting through to me the vital importance of LAND and the messages it can, Winter says, give to us directly, if only we would listen. There were times during this read (the beginning and the end, most effectively, I think) that I felt a real peace and calm, truly physically, as I read. And even as I write this, I struggle to put into words Winter's message, as it's so ethereal and almost spiritual.
I would give this book 3.5 stars, if I could. There's no doubt that it needed to be written, and that is deserves one piece in what needs to be a vast mosaic of voices about the far north. I need to read more, and I will.
Winter is a true listener and that is evident in her writing. At times I stumbled over what felt like choppy writing, but perhaps that is because of what I mentioned -- that this message about the spirituality of untouched land is so hard to articulate. And really, my point is almost irrelevant with regard to underlying message that Winter is sharing -- that the north belongs to no one, and that it needs protection before it, too, is swallowed up by economics and short-sighted greed. And it's not just the land, but all that is related -- the people, the animals, everything. I really felt her message.
I also now really want to get on to some of Winter's fiction. I have "Annabel" on my shelf; I'd like to see how she handles, molds, shapes her thoughts into fiction.
I would give this book 3.5 stars, if I could. There's no doubt that it needed to be written, and that is deserves one piece in what needs to be a vast mosaic of voices about the far north. I need to read more, and I will.
Winter is a true listener and that is evident in her writing. At times I stumbled over what felt like choppy writing, but perhaps that is because of what I mentioned -- that this message about the spirituality of untouched land is so hard to articulate. And really, my point is almost irrelevant with regard to underlying message that Winter is sharing -- that the north belongs to no one, and that it needs protection before it, too, is swallowed up by economics and short-sighted greed. And it's not just the land, but all that is related -- the people, the animals, everything. I really felt her message.
I also now really want to get on to some of Winter's fiction. I have "Annabel" on my shelf; I'd like to see how she handles, molds, shapes her thoughts into fiction.
May 24, 2015
A favorite writer + travel to the Canadian far north + stories about Newfoundland and Montreal = what's not to love? Much of this book was wonderful, but a chunk of it was also a bit much.
Pro: The author gave me a pretty good idea that this is a cruise that I would love. I also enjoyed the personal stories about the author and her life.
Con: At times it was just too lyrical, not down to earth enough, so personal that it was almost mystical, and so I was unable to relate. I honestly tried to capture all that the author wanted to share but sometimes it just didn't work for me.
Pro: The author gave me a pretty good idea that this is a cruise that I would love. I also enjoyed the personal stories about the author and her life.
Con: At times it was just too lyrical, not down to earth enough, so personal that it was almost mystical, and so I was unable to relate. I honestly tried to capture all that the author wanted to share but sometimes it just didn't work for me.
April 11, 2015
The name "the Northwest Passage" is not written on world maps: it is an idea rather than a place. I'd long felt the power of that idea pull me in a way I couldn't fully understand.
Author Kathleen Winter found herself at the intersection of a nice bit of synchronicity: friends had just advised her to always have a bag packed in case someone suggests a spur-of-the-moment adventure, and then an adventure did indeed land in her lap. Noah Richler offered Winter his spot as writer-in-residence aboard the Clipper Adventurer; a luxurious icebreaker that would be carrying a mix of tourists and scientists along the same route that the doomed Franklin Expedition once took in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. Knowing that you should always listen when a man named Noah tells you to get on a boat, Winter was able to honestly reply, "My bags are already packed."
Having emigrated from England when she was eight -- and never understanding the joy that her father found in the harsh landscape of their rural Newfoundland home -- Winter has a unique perspective on this voyage. Identifying with the British motivations behind the 19th century rush to the poles and the search for the Northwest Passage, Winter has an especial sympathy for Franklin's widow (someone who isn't really a figure in my own mental narrative of the Franklin Expedition). Ideas of belonging and colonialism and land ownership colour much of this memoir, and as a result, elevate Boundless above mere travelogue.
There were things that I did not know as we looked at the place we call the Northwest Passage but whose real name is known only to itself. Before I walked onshore, the land lay like a dreaming body whose dream emanated, brushed against me, and infused my body. Its eloquence and message remained quiet and mysterious as our ship approached. I couldn't believe we were really about to walk upon the blue, white, and gold vision itself. It seemed impossible but was not impossible. I'd been given the key to enter, to lie down and listen, to breathe its exhalations and hear it speak, and nobody does this without being changed.
There is much beautiful writing here about the landscape, interesting anecdotes about life aboard ship, and Winter uses this opportunity as a memoir. Remembering her parents and life in Newfoundland, the connection to the land that she experienced in the north gives Winter insight into how her father must have felt upon arriving in Canada. This is all very, very interesting stuff, and through interactions with the two Inuit women who served as guides and resources for the passengers, Winter gained perspective on how life is changing in the arctic; especially urgent now as the Northwest Passage is becoming navigable and all of the circumpolar nations are rushing to establish sovereignty over the unfreezing land and its resources.
In one of my favourite scenes, the group is exploring an uninhabited island and a polar bear is spotted in the distance. The call is made to evacuate back to the ship and it takes three circuits of the Zodiacs for everyone to be brought to safety, all while the hungry-looking polar bear makes his steady way towards the people still on land. Although some people have guns, and the bear is a very real danger, Winter is horrified at the thought of killing it:
I felt the weight and enormity of his life, the power of his aliveness welling out and intersecting with my own. His dignity filled me with an emotion I had not experienced and could not name.
Winter formed a remarkable connection with the land as well:
I felt a new relationship with the ground: I looked close, and the ground sent a line of energy through my eyes and strung it through me so my body and the ground were held in tension together.
I'm envious of Winter's voyage here and the transformations that she experienced; I believe that she returned a changed person. The only misstep in this book is the ending where it becomes political. And I understand that having explored the past and the present, Winter would become concerned with the future of the arctic -- I'm concerned about it myself -- but the long section about visiting Chief Theresa Spence and her hunger strike in the shadow of the Parliament Buildings felt partisan and condescending: just because a woman is a Native doesn't automatically grant her moral authority. I think Chief Spence is a self-serving fraud, and even though Winter couldn't even determine the point of the protest, she was pleased to include the story of her own pilgrimage as though it proved her transcendence of colonialism. There is redemption in my eyes, however, when Winter ultimately concludes on her own continuing spiritual quest
January 17, 2017
I was expecting a writing mix of history, science, and personal experience, but this book was more personal, an introspective journey through the Northwest Passage. You get to know the writer and the other members of the - I want to say 'cruise' but that's not right - and you start to see Canada as a land with two identities superimposed: aboriginal and European.
The Writer purposely avoids any scientific look at the land. She keeps her distance from the geologists on-board the ship and even mocks them - 'these people look at the moon and only want to tell you what kind of rocks it's made of' (not a direct quote but she says something like that). She is the type who picks up a certain rock because it 'speaks' to her, not because it is a fascinating specimen.
Three quarters through and the book started to lose its momentum for me, and after reading half a chapter about her love of knitting, I was beginning to think that I was just touring the arctic with some dotty ex-hippy.
But then the book ends on a powerful note. You see how she has been profoundly changed by the expedition and you're glad you took the trip. Besides, Kathleen Winter's writing is so poetic and insightful, that the book is a pleasure to read for that alone.
The Writer purposely avoids any scientific look at the land. She keeps her distance from the geologists on-board the ship and even mocks them - 'these people look at the moon and only want to tell you what kind of rocks it's made of' (not a direct quote but she says something like that). She is the type who picks up a certain rock because it 'speaks' to her, not because it is a fascinating specimen.
Three quarters through and the book started to lose its momentum for me, and after reading half a chapter about her love of knitting, I was beginning to think that I was just touring the arctic with some dotty ex-hippy.
But then the book ends on a powerful note. You see how she has been profoundly changed by the expedition and you're glad you took the trip. Besides, Kathleen Winter's writing is so poetic and insightful, that the book is a pleasure to read for that alone.
November 7, 2014
A beautiful, poignant and lyrical book about a trip that Kathleen took through the Northwest passage. Along with many others, she travelled on a ship and explored the region. This is a gorgeous, reflective book. It moves at a slow pace, but it is full of reverence for the land, its history and the people who live in this region. I have new respect both for Kathleen and the North.
June 27, 2017
4 Sterne
"Ich hatte viele Jahre in Neufundland verbracht, vom Ufer aus Schiffe beobachtet und mir gewünscht mitzufahren. Aus der Ferne sahen sie immer ein wenig wehmütig aus, wie im Traum - wenn sie mit funkelnden Lichtern auf dem Meer trieben, fern und klein. Wie geheimnisvoll sie doch wirkten, als bestünden sie nicht aus fester Materie, sondern aus Gedanken und Geschichten."
Kathleen Winter schreibt wirklich schön über ihre besondere Reise. Sie verfasst nicht etwa einen nüchternen Bericht, sondern lässt ihre Gedanken oft schweifen, staunt über die Natur und stellt interessante Überlegungen über Land und Leute an. Ich habe das Buch gern gelesen und werde daraus den ein oder anderen Denkanstoß mitnehmen!
"Ich hatte viele Jahre in Neufundland verbracht, vom Ufer aus Schiffe beobachtet und mir gewünscht mitzufahren. Aus der Ferne sahen sie immer ein wenig wehmütig aus, wie im Traum - wenn sie mit funkelnden Lichtern auf dem Meer trieben, fern und klein. Wie geheimnisvoll sie doch wirkten, als bestünden sie nicht aus fester Materie, sondern aus Gedanken und Geschichten."
Kathleen Winter schreibt wirklich schön über ihre besondere Reise. Sie verfasst nicht etwa einen nüchternen Bericht, sondern lässt ihre Gedanken oft schweifen, staunt über die Natur und stellt interessante Überlegungen über Land und Leute an. Ich habe das Buch gern gelesen und werde daraus den ein oder anderen Denkanstoß mitnehmen!
May 28, 2021
Kathleen Winter hat mich mit ihrem Reisebericht an vielen Stellen tief berührt. Sie erzählt von ihrer recht kurzen Zeit auf einem Schiff, das über diverse Stationen durch die sogenannte Nordwestpassage zwischen Grönland und Kanada fährt - quasi auf den Spuren Franklins, dessen Geschichte die Autorin immer wieder zwischen ihren Worten durchblitzen lässt.
Kathleen Winter ist eine sehr reflektierte Person, die ihre Umgebung scharfsichtig beobachtet und sich in Ruhe über vieles Gedanken gemacht. Ihre Ausführungen waren zart, bedacht, respektvoll und ehrlich und konnten mich an einigen Stellen zum Nachdenken anregen. Dieser Reisebericht ist eine Mischung aus Auseinandersetzung mit der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart des Landes und der Menschen als auch eine Reise zu sich selbst.
Ich habe diese Lektüre mit allen Faserns meines Körpers genossen - sehr empfehlenswert!
Kathleen Winter ist eine sehr reflektierte Person, die ihre Umgebung scharfsichtig beobachtet und sich in Ruhe über vieles Gedanken gemacht. Ihre Ausführungen waren zart, bedacht, respektvoll und ehrlich und konnten mich an einigen Stellen zum Nachdenken anregen. Dieser Reisebericht ist eine Mischung aus Auseinandersetzung mit der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart des Landes und der Menschen als auch eine Reise zu sich selbst.
Ich habe diese Lektüre mit allen Faserns meines Körpers genossen - sehr empfehlenswert!
March 9, 2020
I would love to take an educational cruise through the Northwest Passage, it will be high priority when I win the travel lottery. And I loved Kathleen Winter's novel Annabel. This memoir/travelogue had moments of beauty and insight. We discussed it at book group, and had to get out an atlas to orient ourselves to the Northwest Passage location. I'm glad to know more about it and would recommend this book to armchair travelers, women in midlife, and lovers of the Arctic. The fact that I didn't finish it has more to do with my place in life than the book, although there were some rather boring moments.
August 6, 2017
Very possibly the best book I've read this year. Consistent, but never repetitive. "All land is sacred."
March 6, 2017
Preconceived notions of the legendary Northwest Passage quickly fade as Kathleen Winter embarks on a voyage through this venerated Arctic passage from Greenland to Kugluktuk (Coppermine), Canada. Faithfully recounting her serendipitous journey from the surprising call that started it all and through her voyage of discovery and connections with the cultures, Winter opens up herself to the unspoken language of the passage: the histories, the legends, the natives and storied tales of intrepid explorers who set out in the 19th century to lay claim to this seemingly elusive passage that connects the east to the west.
Truly a remarkable read beautifully written with insightful prose that escorts readers on a voyage through the physical Northwest Passage as well as Winter's own personal voyage within, Boundless is about opening up your mind, your heart and your soul to all that surrounds you as Winter regales about the fascinating communities in which she traveled, her intriguing fellow voyagers and her alone time where she and the land connected in zen-like moments--profound experiences that forever transformed this voyager from the woman she was when she first stepped on board the ship.
If you love adventure travelogues like I do, this is a must-read that just may affect the way you perceive the world around us. It surely has done that for me. Thank you Kathleen!
Truly a remarkable read beautifully written with insightful prose that escorts readers on a voyage through the physical Northwest Passage as well as Winter's own personal voyage within, Boundless is about opening up your mind, your heart and your soul to all that surrounds you as Winter regales about the fascinating communities in which she traveled, her intriguing fellow voyagers and her alone time where she and the land connected in zen-like moments--profound experiences that forever transformed this voyager from the woman she was when she first stepped on board the ship.
If you love adventure travelogues like I do, this is a must-read that just may affect the way you perceive the world around us. It surely has done that for me. Thank you Kathleen!
April 19, 2016
The Northwest passage is the route across the roof of the world at the very top of the Americas connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and is a thing of myth and legend. It has claimed whole ships and countless lives as they ventured into the ice and uncharted territories. With the rise of global temperatures this passage is now open to shipping, but it is still a place of mystery and unknown landscapes. In 2010 Kathleen Winter was asked if she would like to join a ship making this voyage, as the official writer. She would join various people on the ship, historians, scientists and archaeologists, each there for a particular reason.
Her journey started in Greenland. The towns and villages have gaudy coloured homes that perch on the shores of this immense landmass; it is part of Denmark at the moment, and their influence is strong over the local population. As they reached the shores of North Canada, Winter is starting to get to know the others on the ship and start the process of making friends, and understanding why they have come on this journey and learning some of the skills and knowledge that they have bought. They are given the opportunity to leave the ship at certain points and explore the landscape and meet the Inuit people. The far north is in a state of flux at the moment, and the rights of the people who have deep attachment to their land are being ridden roughshod over as nation look to exploit the vast mineral resources of the region. It is also a personal journey of reminiscences of her parent’s journey from the UK to Newfoundland to start a new life and the difficulties and challenges that she encountered starting afresh.
Winter’s lyrical prose in this book is wonderful. She treads lightly amongst her subjects, wanting to encounter places and experiences, rather than have them pointed out to her. Her descriptions of the places are intense and haunting as she evokes the stark beauty of this harsh land. She mentions one of my favourite books of all time in here too, This Cold Heaven by Gretel Ehrlich, an accoutof her seven trips to Greenland. There were times when Winter’s writing reminded me of Ehrlich’s book with her descriptions of the landscape and people. So why only four stars? As fascinating as her own personal memories were, I think that it took a little away from the journey that she undertook across this dramatic landscape.
Her journey started in Greenland. The towns and villages have gaudy coloured homes that perch on the shores of this immense landmass; it is part of Denmark at the moment, and their influence is strong over the local population. As they reached the shores of North Canada, Winter is starting to get to know the others on the ship and start the process of making friends, and understanding why they have come on this journey and learning some of the skills and knowledge that they have bought. They are given the opportunity to leave the ship at certain points and explore the landscape and meet the Inuit people. The far north is in a state of flux at the moment, and the rights of the people who have deep attachment to their land are being ridden roughshod over as nation look to exploit the vast mineral resources of the region. It is also a personal journey of reminiscences of her parent’s journey from the UK to Newfoundland to start a new life and the difficulties and challenges that she encountered starting afresh.
Winter’s lyrical prose in this book is wonderful. She treads lightly amongst her subjects, wanting to encounter places and experiences, rather than have them pointed out to her. Her descriptions of the places are intense and haunting as she evokes the stark beauty of this harsh land. She mentions one of my favourite books of all time in here too, This Cold Heaven by Gretel Ehrlich, an accoutof her seven trips to Greenland. There were times when Winter’s writing reminded me of Ehrlich’s book with her descriptions of the landscape and people. So why only four stars? As fascinating as her own personal memories were, I think that it took a little away from the journey that she undertook across this dramatic landscape.
November 12, 2016
Lu en français : Nord infini
J'ai été profondément touchée par le récit de Winter, qui s'est embarquée (à titre d'écrivaine en résidence) pour deux semaines sur un bateau pour franchir le passage du Nord-Ouest, chemin parcouru par les explorateurs européens et lieu de vie intemporel des Inuits. En compagnie de géologues, d'archéologues, de spécialistes de la culture Inuit et d'un musicien, Winter prend contact avec la nature et l'immensité de l'espace. Sa vie, ses souvenirs, sa filiation se redessinent dans sa mémoire et dans son corps. À la fois spirituel, philosophique, poétique et au final, profondément personnel, ce récit témoigne des nombreuses révélations vécues dans l'immensité nordique. Un texte lyrique et subtil.
J'ai été profondément touchée par le récit de Winter, qui s'est embarquée (à titre d'écrivaine en résidence) pour deux semaines sur un bateau pour franchir le passage du Nord-Ouest, chemin parcouru par les explorateurs européens et lieu de vie intemporel des Inuits. En compagnie de géologues, d'archéologues, de spécialistes de la culture Inuit et d'un musicien, Winter prend contact avec la nature et l'immensité de l'espace. Sa vie, ses souvenirs, sa filiation se redessinent dans sa mémoire et dans son corps. À la fois spirituel, philosophique, poétique et au final, profondément personnel, ce récit témoigne des nombreuses révélations vécues dans l'immensité nordique. Un texte lyrique et subtil.
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May 20, 2019There are many reasons to love this book--its reflections on grief, land, sky--but there is one quote that will stay with me for a long time and which has shifted how I think about loving, living, and deserving:
"Somehow everything I’d learned about life pointed to an idea that to receive something you had to earn it. I’d never thought of myself as a tree, a graceful being visited by songbird, starlight, and rain, and which people love for itself, not for what it does or how smart it is, or how indispensable. I was used to making myself indispensable in one arena or another, but Nathan’s song turned me into that tree."
"Somehow everything I’d learned about life pointed to an idea that to receive something you had to earn it. I’d never thought of myself as a tree, a graceful being visited by songbird, starlight, and rain, and which people love for itself, not for what it does or how smart it is, or how indispensable. I was used to making myself indispensable in one arena or another, but Nathan’s song turned me into that tree."
May 28, 2016
The writing is brilliant, and the story of this writer's travel journey really affected my perception of this sphere we live on. Her descriptions of both her internal and external journeys are piercing and clear, and told with wisdom and humor. Elements of her story will stay with me. I'm looking forward to reading her other books.
November 6, 2014
As Usual Kathleen does not disappoint only wish was that the book was longer
October 28, 2016
Clear poetic language. A little self-important. Appreciate many of insights to history, nature, original peoples.
August 12, 2021
As is so often the case, I had had my eye on Kathleen Winter's Boundless: Adventures in the Northwest Passage for an age before I purchased it. I first read Winter years ago, when her novel, Annabel, was selected as the first choice for the in-real-life book club that I was a member of. I got a great deal from it; many others did not. Boundless is certainly a very different book, but for me, it was just as enjoyable, and just as memorable.
In 2010, Winter - who lived in St. John's, Newfoundland, and now resides in Montreal - took 'a journey across the legendary Northwest Passage' in a Russian icebreaker. She travelled from the southwest coast of Greenland to the largest island in Canada, Baffin Island. On her extended trip, on which she was invited at the last minute to make up the journalist contingent, she encountered a great deal of things, many of which were troubling. She saw, firsthand, the effects of climate change on small and isolated communities, and also the difficulties between balancing the traditional cultural elements of Inuit populations with the advances of the modern world.
When she embarked on this journey, Winter had just turned fifty. At the point at which she is invited on the trip by a writer friend, who cannot make it after all, she reflects: 'I thought of my own British childhood, steeped in stories of sea travel. I thought of Edward Lear's Jumblies, who went to sea in a sieve. I thought... of the longing and romance with which my father had decided to immigrate to Canada. I thought of all the books I'd read on polar exploration, on white men's and white women's attempts to travel the Canadian Far North.' She goes on: 'For a writer, loneliness is magnetic. The very names on the map excited me... I knew that to go to these places would activate something inside me that had long lain dreaming.'
People from all walks of life are passengers on the ship. The majority of those on board are men, many of whom sport 'explorer-type beards'. However, alongside Winter, there is a Canadian Inuk woman, and a Greenlandic-Canadian, both of whom are set upon cultivating interest in their communities. Winter writes that to these two women 'fell the task of teaching us about the North from the perspectives of Inuit women who have lived there all their lives - women who have come to know its animals, plants, and people, both indigenous and visiting, through long experience.' I found the portions where she writes about these women quite fascinating.
Whilst much of the ship is rather luxurious, her own accommodation arguably leaves something to be desired: 'Higher up, through open doors, I had seen passengers' deluxe cabins with big windows looking out over Baffin Bay. By the time I descended to my own little cabin, there were tiny portholes, and when I pressed my nose to the glass, there lay the sea surface at the level of my rib cage.' However, she quite wonderfully sees everything as an adventure; she reasons that she will only be sleeping in her little cabin, and will largely be exploring, or talking to others on deck.
I admired the commentary which Winter gives; in it, she captures a great deal. When they first reach Greenland by plane, she comments: 'Our bus had rounded a corner in the crags of Kangerlussuaq [a small town in the west of the country], and there in the bay was our ship, floating so crisp and blue and white it looked as if someone had ironed and starched it into one of those three-dimensional pop-up picture books that had enchanted me when I was a child.'
The descriptions which Winter gives of her surroundings are highly visceral. She writes, for example: 'As we sailed into Disko Bay, ice floated in silence, quiet green-greys leading to whites and back to blues. There was no sign of any human, only reflections of ice and sky and northern sea, and the light held a low frequency that lent ice and sky and water a glow both incandescent and restrained.' Later, she tells us: 'The fjord acted as an orchestral chamber, magnifying the sounds of these ice monoliths as they crushed and worked. It sounded like a vast construction site. There was a gunshot crack, then a thump and another avalanche; layered under these were the lapping of water, the echoing roar of wind around the moonscape mountains, and other, more distant collisions of ice echoing down the fjord.'
Winter translates the awe which she feels regarding the landscapes around her with a great deal of care, and makes us so aware of the physical landscape. She describes the way in which: 'We floated by Zodiac to icebergs gathering at the fjord mouth: caves, pillars, monumental and illumined with blue light, and darkness in the deep recesses - so enigmatic and imposing I said nothing for hours.' Sometimes, in fact, she finds words quite redundant. She comments: 'I was finding, in the North, that words are a secondary language: first we see images, then we feel heat, cold rock, flesh. We taste air before words.'
The Northwest Passage is a fascinating, and still relatively unexplored, region. Winter comments: 'It would later be revealed that even our captain's navigational charts did not tell the complete truth about what lay ahead of us, since much of the Arctic remains uncharted and the land, wind, and ocean themselves are forever in flux'. The original plan for the trip was to follow Roald Amuldsen's first successful route through the Northwest Passage, but this did not quite go to plan.
The very name of the passage is problematic; it was given the moniker by colonisers, and is known as other things entirely to those who live alongside it. I appreciated the time which Winter gave to discussing this fact. She draws attention to the vast differences between explorers, who see a region briefly and seem to think they then have dominion over it, and those who have called it their home for centuries. Often, in the communities which Winter and the other passengers visit, dogs outnumber humans. Despite this, there is still such a strong sense of history, and of shared experience.
I liked the way in which Winter wrote about her voyage as both physical, and one of self-discovery. She searches, throughout, for her own belonging. As an English transplant to Newfoundland in her youth, she tells another passenger that she feels '"sort of at home on the ship, here, between homelands."' She writes with a great deal of insight about selfhood, and the loss of her first home. It is clear, from very early on in the narrative, that this journey had a profound impact upon the author, something which she comes back to throughout.
Boundless is Winter's first work of non-fiction, and I am really hoping that it isn't the last. Her prose is excellent, and balances more informative passages with her own musings with a great deal of skill. Winter's tone is incredibly engaging, and I loved exploring the Northwest Passage through her lens. She is a continually thoughtful guide to the Arctic region. I long to do a journey like this one sometime in the future, but for now, I can only thank Winter for allowing me to take part in her own travels, and for being so open and honest about everything she encountered. Boundless is a thorough, and quite excellent, piece of travel writing, which I read with a great deal of interest from cover to cover.
In 2010, Winter - who lived in St. John's, Newfoundland, and now resides in Montreal - took 'a journey across the legendary Northwest Passage' in a Russian icebreaker. She travelled from the southwest coast of Greenland to the largest island in Canada, Baffin Island. On her extended trip, on which she was invited at the last minute to make up the journalist contingent, she encountered a great deal of things, many of which were troubling. She saw, firsthand, the effects of climate change on small and isolated communities, and also the difficulties between balancing the traditional cultural elements of Inuit populations with the advances of the modern world.
When she embarked on this journey, Winter had just turned fifty. At the point at which she is invited on the trip by a writer friend, who cannot make it after all, she reflects: 'I thought of my own British childhood, steeped in stories of sea travel. I thought of Edward Lear's Jumblies, who went to sea in a sieve. I thought... of the longing and romance with which my father had decided to immigrate to Canada. I thought of all the books I'd read on polar exploration, on white men's and white women's attempts to travel the Canadian Far North.' She goes on: 'For a writer, loneliness is magnetic. The very names on the map excited me... I knew that to go to these places would activate something inside me that had long lain dreaming.'
People from all walks of life are passengers on the ship. The majority of those on board are men, many of whom sport 'explorer-type beards'. However, alongside Winter, there is a Canadian Inuk woman, and a Greenlandic-Canadian, both of whom are set upon cultivating interest in their communities. Winter writes that to these two women 'fell the task of teaching us about the North from the perspectives of Inuit women who have lived there all their lives - women who have come to know its animals, plants, and people, both indigenous and visiting, through long experience.' I found the portions where she writes about these women quite fascinating.
Whilst much of the ship is rather luxurious, her own accommodation arguably leaves something to be desired: 'Higher up, through open doors, I had seen passengers' deluxe cabins with big windows looking out over Baffin Bay. By the time I descended to my own little cabin, there were tiny portholes, and when I pressed my nose to the glass, there lay the sea surface at the level of my rib cage.' However, she quite wonderfully sees everything as an adventure; she reasons that she will only be sleeping in her little cabin, and will largely be exploring, or talking to others on deck.
I admired the commentary which Winter gives; in it, she captures a great deal. When they first reach Greenland by plane, she comments: 'Our bus had rounded a corner in the crags of Kangerlussuaq [a small town in the west of the country], and there in the bay was our ship, floating so crisp and blue and white it looked as if someone had ironed and starched it into one of those three-dimensional pop-up picture books that had enchanted me when I was a child.'
The descriptions which Winter gives of her surroundings are highly visceral. She writes, for example: 'As we sailed into Disko Bay, ice floated in silence, quiet green-greys leading to whites and back to blues. There was no sign of any human, only reflections of ice and sky and northern sea, and the light held a low frequency that lent ice and sky and water a glow both incandescent and restrained.' Later, she tells us: 'The fjord acted as an orchestral chamber, magnifying the sounds of these ice monoliths as they crushed and worked. It sounded like a vast construction site. There was a gunshot crack, then a thump and another avalanche; layered under these were the lapping of water, the echoing roar of wind around the moonscape mountains, and other, more distant collisions of ice echoing down the fjord.'
Winter translates the awe which she feels regarding the landscapes around her with a great deal of care, and makes us so aware of the physical landscape. She describes the way in which: 'We floated by Zodiac to icebergs gathering at the fjord mouth: caves, pillars, monumental and illumined with blue light, and darkness in the deep recesses - so enigmatic and imposing I said nothing for hours.' Sometimes, in fact, she finds words quite redundant. She comments: 'I was finding, in the North, that words are a secondary language: first we see images, then we feel heat, cold rock, flesh. We taste air before words.'
The Northwest Passage is a fascinating, and still relatively unexplored, region. Winter comments: 'It would later be revealed that even our captain's navigational charts did not tell the complete truth about what lay ahead of us, since much of the Arctic remains uncharted and the land, wind, and ocean themselves are forever in flux'. The original plan for the trip was to follow Roald Amuldsen's first successful route through the Northwest Passage, but this did not quite go to plan.
The very name of the passage is problematic; it was given the moniker by colonisers, and is known as other things entirely to those who live alongside it. I appreciated the time which Winter gave to discussing this fact. She draws attention to the vast differences between explorers, who see a region briefly and seem to think they then have dominion over it, and those who have called it their home for centuries. Often, in the communities which Winter and the other passengers visit, dogs outnumber humans. Despite this, there is still such a strong sense of history, and of shared experience.
I liked the way in which Winter wrote about her voyage as both physical, and one of self-discovery. She searches, throughout, for her own belonging. As an English transplant to Newfoundland in her youth, she tells another passenger that she feels '"sort of at home on the ship, here, between homelands."' She writes with a great deal of insight about selfhood, and the loss of her first home. It is clear, from very early on in the narrative, that this journey had a profound impact upon the author, something which she comes back to throughout.
Boundless is Winter's first work of non-fiction, and I am really hoping that it isn't the last. Her prose is excellent, and balances more informative passages with her own musings with a great deal of skill. Winter's tone is incredibly engaging, and I loved exploring the Northwest Passage through her lens. She is a continually thoughtful guide to the Arctic region. I long to do a journey like this one sometime in the future, but for now, I can only thank Winter for allowing me to take part in her own travels, and for being so open and honest about everything she encountered. Boundless is a thorough, and quite excellent, piece of travel writing, which I read with a great deal of interest from cover to cover.
April 3, 2023
Because I've encountered delays in finding the time to review Kathleen Winter's Boundless, I've unfortunately forgotten a bit of what I wanted to write! And the same circumstances that led to the delay also cramp the time I have now, so I will have to be brief.
I found Winter herself more interesting than her thoughts on the Northwest Passage, which often meandered and seemed puffed up beyond the significance they merited. I mean, she basically lucked out in getting invited to join a fancy 2-week cruise as a working writer (although I remain very unclear what she was actually supposed to be doing on the boat other than muse on the trip's significance -- was she teaching writing courses?), and then spun this very sheltered, managed, and brief experience into some sort of revelatory journey. Frankly, I'm not buying it.
But Winter herself is so very ... unusual ... that I found HER fascinating, even if her thoughts were a bit tedious. The autobiographical parts of the book were by far the most intriguing, especially the chapter where her friend helps her stage a Viking funeral for her deceased, poverty-stricken first husband, whose hapless personality is abundantly revealed by the items of his they gleefully burn (including a medieval shirt, wolf hat, unpublished radio plays, and liner notes from vintage Gregorian chants).
Winter also mentions she had one grandmother who was a fortune-teller, and another who was a properly-educated English gentlewoman, and I think this reflects Winter herself rather well. She writes with a rather English sense of decorum, but the STUFF she writes very often veers off into the slightly kooky. You can totally understand why she's the type of person who would have been initially charmed by a guy who was dirt-poor yet showed no inclination to get an income-producing job, preferring a life of Gregorian chants and medieval shirts. Particularly since Winter seems to develop a fascination for a shipmate of hers who's a musician who has taught himself how to perform Mongolian throat signing ... seriously, Kathleen, don't you see a pattern here?
Anyway, an interesting read, but perhaps not for the reasons the author intended. Four stars.
I found Winter herself more interesting than her thoughts on the Northwest Passage, which often meandered and seemed puffed up beyond the significance they merited. I mean, she basically lucked out in getting invited to join a fancy 2-week cruise as a working writer (although I remain very unclear what she was actually supposed to be doing on the boat other than muse on the trip's significance -- was she teaching writing courses?), and then spun this very sheltered, managed, and brief experience into some sort of revelatory journey. Frankly, I'm not buying it.
But Winter herself is so very ... unusual ... that I found HER fascinating, even if her thoughts were a bit tedious. The autobiographical parts of the book were by far the most intriguing, especially the chapter where her friend helps her stage a Viking funeral for her deceased, poverty-stricken first husband, whose hapless personality is abundantly revealed by the items of his they gleefully burn (including a medieval shirt, wolf hat, unpublished radio plays, and liner notes from vintage Gregorian chants).
Winter also mentions she had one grandmother who was a fortune-teller, and another who was a properly-educated English gentlewoman, and I think this reflects Winter herself rather well. She writes with a rather English sense of decorum, but the STUFF she writes very often veers off into the slightly kooky. You can totally understand why she's the type of person who would have been initially charmed by a guy who was dirt-poor yet showed no inclination to get an income-producing job, preferring a life of Gregorian chants and medieval shirts. Particularly since Winter seems to develop a fascination for a shipmate of hers who's a musician who has taught himself how to perform Mongolian throat signing ... seriously, Kathleen, don't you see a pattern here?
Anyway, an interesting read, but perhaps not for the reasons the author intended. Four stars.
August 5, 2023
This memoir recounts Winter's 2010 journey across the magnetic Northwest Passage. She paints a gorgeous journey of suspended days interspersed with captivating imagery, Inuit history and the internal conflict of travelling to such a remote and fragile place. Her reflections on the luminosity of the Far North are that of an artist--and her careful observations of the incandescent light, muskox bones, diminutive Arctic plants and shifting ice are precise and precious.
Winter's musings loop in a lifetime and her own navigation across turbulent waters as her family transplanted from England to Newfoundland when she was a wide-eyed child. The personal thread will resonate--and she patches the nostalgia in seamlessly. The migration of ice and Winter's own journey run almost parallel but in different directions, leaving fragments and calving unexpectedly.
There's lots to learn too about the Danish influence in Greenland, climate change, colonialism, and the embarrassing failed attempt at the Canadian government's "Inuit Relocation Experiment." You can almost hear the chorus of sled dogs that outnumber the human population. The weight of the RCMP's ruins and the island graves of early explorers are true "wrinkles in time" just like the rocks below.
The land of two names is introduced from all angles--from its mineral depths, colonial ties, sovereignty battles, military interest, explorer graves and polar bears. Even if you have zero interest in a small ship expedition like this, this Far North journey is beautifully educational and emotional.
Winter's musings loop in a lifetime and her own navigation across turbulent waters as her family transplanted from England to Newfoundland when she was a wide-eyed child. The personal thread will resonate--and she patches the nostalgia in seamlessly. The migration of ice and Winter's own journey run almost parallel but in different directions, leaving fragments and calving unexpectedly.
There's lots to learn too about the Danish influence in Greenland, climate change, colonialism, and the embarrassing failed attempt at the Canadian government's "Inuit Relocation Experiment." You can almost hear the chorus of sled dogs that outnumber the human population. The weight of the RCMP's ruins and the island graves of early explorers are true "wrinkles in time" just like the rocks below.
The land of two names is introduced from all angles--from its mineral depths, colonial ties, sovereignty battles, military interest, explorer graves and polar bears. Even if you have zero interest in a small ship expedition like this, this Far North journey is beautifully educational and emotional.
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February 10, 2019
There is a lyrical and poetic dreaminess to this memoir, but I think that might work against it. I thought that I was going to be getting more of an adventure story, but instead there's a quiet and introspective trip with little danger.
The dream-like nature of the prose means that even when there's a potential polar bear attack and an ice emergency, it never feels hurried or like there's any real danger. To be fair to Kathleen Winter, she does admit that was how it felt to be there. She never felt the danger because the crew she was with were so experienced.
I also got lost with the internal reckoning of colonialism and how it fits with the rest of the novel. It feels out of place. It's the Showgirls problem where the work that's trying to draw attention to issues ends up exemplifying them. While calmly decrying colonialism and how we continue to perpetuate it on one page. Then on the next page, it speaks of the souvenirs and the way she wanted to know the names of the people who sold it and take pictures with them.
It's hard to say where the line is here, but I can at the very least say that the writing is beautiful and Kathleen Winter feels genuine and like she has the best of intentions.
The dream-like nature of the prose means that even when there's a potential polar bear attack and an ice emergency, it never feels hurried or like there's any real danger. To be fair to Kathleen Winter, she does admit that was how it felt to be there. She never felt the danger because the crew she was with were so experienced.
I also got lost with the internal reckoning of colonialism and how it fits with the rest of the novel. It feels out of place. It's the Showgirls problem where the work that's trying to draw attention to issues ends up exemplifying them. While calmly decrying colonialism and how we continue to perpetuate it on one page. Then on the next page, it speaks of the souvenirs and the way she wanted to know the names of the people who sold it and take pictures with them.
It's hard to say where the line is here, but I can at the very least say that the writing is beautiful and Kathleen Winter feels genuine and like she has the best of intentions.
May 5, 2017
I liked the descriptions of the land of Nunavut and the author's fellow passengers. The far north is a strange and desolate place. I liked the stories of the author's earlier life, which included a bad marriage which ended when her husband died. I did not love the writing, nor was I crazy about the author's occasional sanctimoniousness. She looks down upon, at different times, geologists, birders, and history buffs. It's mostly done behind a facade of humility, which makes it even more annoying. I think is possible to be fascinated by native culture without having such disdain for the history of explorers.
January 23, 2020
At times overwritten with the strained poesy of a writer trying to capture monumental nature and imbue and pad cruise ship journey with drama, it can still be affecting.
Winter tries to bring everyone to life, and her own white privilege, sometime acknowledged, sometimes oblivious, adds that outsider perspective to the exploration.
It's charming in the end: you picture your eccentric aunt telling you the story of her last adventure and you learn a few new things even if it doesn't all work out.
Winter tries to bring everyone to life, and her own white privilege, sometime acknowledged, sometimes oblivious, adds that outsider perspective to the exploration.
It's charming in the end: you picture your eccentric aunt telling you the story of her last adventure and you learn a few new things even if it doesn't all work out.
June 22, 2017
One of my favorite books of the year, a thoughtful and nuanced look at how people interact with the wild, and how native cultures are forgotten because of the white explorers who come and take credit for the lands they have lived in for so very long. I loved learning about the cultural traditions that survive below the European/American posturing, and the descriptions of the arctic were beautiful and evocative.
July 11, 2019
Narrative non-fiction, this beautifully written book is a meditation on a journey through the North West Passage. As someone who is also fascinated by the far north and Arctic, I loved this book. It might not be to everyone’s taste, and it’s not something to race through, but rather to dip in and out of like chocolate
April 8, 2020
A lovely, meandering, observant, rich look at the Northwest Passage and all of its baggage, the wretched effects and echoes of colonialism and government meddling, the way a place - specifically a northern place - has the eerie ability to imprint itself upon you for life. A nice escape during this time.
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