Cold Oceans: Adventures in Kayak, Rowboat, and Dogsled (Isis Large Print Nonfiction)

With a host of explorers along as inspirational and literary companions, Turk evokes a landscape of life and history intertwined. After a daring 15-hour crossing to Greenland, Turk wrestles with polar explorer Robert Peary's notion of success, defined by fame and fortune, concluding, "What mattered was that he [Peary] communicated his passion to the world." And this is the success that Turk has achieved in Cold Oceans.

Although the saga of choosing a life of adventure to stave off a more rooted and standard existence may seem a common tale, it is Turk's contemplation of this lifestyle choice that offers some of the book's finest insights. Ultimately, Turk's wanderings reveal how a thirst for adventure can at once drive, fragment, and unify a life. This incongruity is perhaps one of a traveler's greatest ponderings, and Cold Oceans confronts it boldly, piercing the heart of what it means to adventure. --Byron Ricks

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I remembered only the pleasures of adven-ture and the considerable gains which my travels earned me, and once again longed to sail new seas and explore new land.
--Tales From the Thousand and One Nights, author unknown, translated by N. J. Dawood

An evocative and mesmerizing page-turner, Cold Oceans is the thrilling story of Jon Turk's expeditions to some of the most inhospitable regions on earth. Even after being shipwrecked off Cape Horn, stopped by ice in the Northwest Passage, and beaten back by Arctic blizzards, Turk has continued to follow an irresistible urge to explore.

Guided by his restless spirit and fueled by tales of Elizabethan explorers, Turk first heads off alone to kayak around Cape Horn. But while he is paddling through the rain and mists, a racing storm scuttles his plans. On his next trip, he and his partner, Chris Seashore, attempt to row the Northwest Passage in a single season, but find themselves more often dragging than rowing their skiff through the half-frozen, gelatinous sea. Two years later, he attempts to run a dog team up the east coast of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, making his final camp beneath a wind-varnished iceberg locked into a frozen sea. On his last expedition, he's again joined by Chris (by now his wife) as they paddle sea kayaks along an ancient Inuit migration route from Ellesmere Island to Greenland. Following in the footsteps of old ways, and listening to the land, its people, journey.

Woven throughout the book is Jon and Chris's deepening relationship, and his reflections on the legendary explorers and adventurers who preceded him (Magellan, Frobisher, Amundsen, and others) and the aboriginal people who survived in these harsh lands. Turk writes with grace, humor, and assured knowledge of the Arctic landscape, capturing its beauty, power, vastness, and loneliness. His story is one of love, self-discovery, and his exuberant passion for wild places.

I'm afraid that reviewer VanRoy missed the point. This is not a manual or chronicle of well planned, expertly executed high adventure, it's the story of one man's steps and mis-steps in life set against the back-drop of some of the worlds wildest and most inhospital places.

If you are looking for just an adventure chronicle you may want to go buy something like The Endurance (Shackleton's adventure to Antartica). If you want to experience a wonderful mix of adventure of body, mind, and spirit set against some of the most beautiful places on earth get this book.


A journal of self-discovery in the Wild   January 5, 2001
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Wonderful book. This title is as much a journal of one man's self discovery as it is a chronicle of his adventures. You start out not liking this man very much (at least I did), but as you near the end your opinion will have changed and you feel like you have been privy to something special.

I'm afraid that reviewer VanRoy missed the point. This is not a manual or chronicle of well planned, expertly executed high adventure, it's the story of one man's steps and mis-steps in life set against the back-drop of some of the worlds wildest and most inhospital places.

If you are looking for just an adventure chronicle you may want to go buy something like The Endurance (Shackleton's adventure to Antartica). If you want to experience a wonderful mix of adventure of body, mind, and spirit set against some of the most beautiful places on earth get this book.