Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
In Antarctica: An Amundsen Pilgrimage

In Antarctica: An Amundsen Pilgrimage

Ruzesky, Jay

Paperback

Biographies GeneralLiterary FiguresTravel General

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0889712824
ISBN13: 9780889712829
Publisher: Nightwood Editions
Published: Apr 5 2013
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.85
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.80
Language: English
Jay Ruzesky recalls a childhood of snow caves, literary ambitions, and a fascination with polar exploration that was ignited by the genes he shares with famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. As a boy, Ruzesky was captivated by Amundsen's diaries: an Antarctic exploration aboard Belgica when Amundsen was a twenty-five-year-old mate bent on earning his stripes; his historic navigation of the Northwest Passage from 1903 to 1906 where he intentionally froze in with his ship Gjoa over the winters to drift with the pack ice; and his triumph onboard his ship Fram to be the first to reach the South Pole on December 14, 1911.

Now a poet and teacher of English at a small university on Vancouver Island, Ruzesky became motivated by the approaching centennial of Amundsen's South Pole accomplishment to pursue his own quest to Antarctica--not only as a following of Amundsen's footsteps, but also a pilgrimage to a near-mythical place where heroes were made and died. He books his voyage aboard a 71-metre ice-strengthened research vessel, Polar Pioneer, bound for Antarctica.

Ruzesky skilfully interweaves three stories creatively extrapolated from Amundsen's experiences on both Belgica and Fram, and his own observations leading up to and during his voyage on Polar Pioneer. In the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and with a poet's heart, Ruzesky offers a historically accurate tale while traversing both time and place--paralleling a century of explorers' dreams from Pole to Pole with stops in Canada, Norway, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Antarctica.

In Antarctica Book Trailer from Jay Ruzesky on Vimeo.

Also in

Literary Figures

View All