North to the Night: A Spiritual Odyssey in the ArcticIn June 1994 Alvah Simon and his wife, Diana, set off in their 36-foot sailboat to explore the hauntingly beautiful world of icebergs, tundra, and fjords lying high above the Arctic Circle. Four months later, unexpected events would trap Simon alone on his boat, frozen in ice 100 miles from the nearest settlement, with the long polar night stretching into darkness for months to come. With his world circumscribed by screaming blizzards and marauding polar bears and his only companion a kitten named Halifax, Simon withstands months of crushing loneliness, sudden blindness, and private demons. Trapped in a boat buried beneath the drifting snow, he struggles through the perpetual darkness toward a spiritual awakening and an understanding of the forces that conspired to bring him there. He emerges five months later a transformed man. Simon's powerful, triumphant story combines the suspense of Into Thin Air with a crystalline, lyrical prose to explore the hypnotic draw of one of earth's deepest and most dangerous wildernesses. |
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Page 127
... look , still excited about his new life up north . I invited them below . I was proud of our pleasant interior of shiny , varnished spruce and white enamel , and happy they had come when everything was clean and in perfect order . I sat ...
... look , still excited about his new life up north . I invited them below . I was proud of our pleasant interior of shiny , varnished spruce and white enamel , and happy they had come when everything was clean and in perfect order . I sat ...
Page 128
... Look , it's not us . We're with you . Maybe the police are just covering their butts if something goes wrong . But ... Look at me ! " I said . I was fighting mad and had to defend my home and my plans . " Look me straight in the eye . I ...
... Look , it's not us . We're with you . Maybe the police are just covering their butts if something goes wrong . But ... Look at me ! " I said . I was fighting mad and had to defend my home and my plans . " Look me straight in the eye . I ...
Page 153
... look for the perfect building material . Mimicking that story , I walked back and forth over deep snowbanks beneath the black granite cliffs that paralleled the boat and faced the prevailing winds . I listened carefully to each footfall ...
... look for the perfect building material . Mimicking that story , I walked back and forth over deep snowbanks beneath the black granite cliffs that paralleled the boat and faced the prevailing winds . I listened carefully to each footfall ...
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Common terms and phrases
adventure Alvah anchor Arctic asked Baffin Baffin Bay Baffin Island bear beneath boat Borden Peninsula Bylot Bylot Island cabin called caribou Charlie cliffs cockpit cold crawled dangerous dark deck deep Devon Island Diana dinghy dream drifted engine eyes face feet felt frozen fuel glacier Greenland gyrfalcon Halifax hand hard head hiked HOURS DAYLIGHT hunting iceberg Inughuit Inuit Inuk Island Kane Basin knew Lancaster Sound land light Limkee lives looked meat Melville Bay miles mind move musk ox Navy Board Inlet never night numbers Nuuk Panoely parka Peter Phil polar Pond Inlet pulled pushed Qaanaaq radio Raven ring seal rock Roger Henry sail sea-ice seal shore skis sleep slid snow stood talk Tay Bay tent thick thing thought told took tried tundra turned wait walked warm watched wind winter