Book Review: Ice Master

It's 1913. Your leader has gone on a 'hunting trip' promising to be back in two weeks - two months ago. Your wooden ship is trapped on an icepack and drifting. Your main source of food is pemmican, a concentrated mixture of fat and protein. While you kind of know where you're drifting, you also know there's nothing you can do to change what's happening. The key question that echos through the minds of the scientists and crew is, 'How will it end'...

Jennifer Niven has written a wonderfully readable account of this ill-fated mission. At over 400 pages (of small font size), I never once wanted the book to end. Jennifer has done a great job with the research and weaves the accounts of the crew and scientists together into a coherent story. One that has us rooting for the good guys and feeling, to put it midly, distain for the less than good guys.

Today has been the first real day of cold weather since last winter and it had me thinking that if I feel cold now - what would I be feeling like fighting for survival in the Artic environment. That's what this book does, it puts you in the mindset of being there. Willing these people on, even though these things happened nearly 100 years ago and you know there's nothing you can say or do to change the outcome. It then leaves you thinking about them and the situation, coming back to the story even when you've finished reading it. I feel for every person that was stranded with the Karluk.

Captain Bartlett truly was a Ice Master, without whom all hands would have been lost to what, at most times, was a frozen and desolate wasteland.

For anyone interested in adventure, cold places, or just a fasinating true story - read this book. You won't be disappointed.

Own or Loan:         Loan
Read Again:           No
Recommend:         Yes
Overall out of Five:3