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Four Against the Arctic: Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World
Follows the author's reconstruction of the survival story of four eighteenth-century Russian sailors who were shipwrecked on the barren Arctic island of Svalbard for six years, discussing the events of the ice wrecking, the four survivors' minimal provisions, their dependence on driftwood for fire, and their near-death experiences in the wake of polar bear attacks. 40,000 first printing
320 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2003
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542 people want to read
About the author
David Roberts
61 books225 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
See this thread for more information.
David Roberts is the award-winning author of twenty-nine books about mountaineering, exploration, and anthropology. His most recent publication, Alone on the Wall, was written with world-class rock climber Alex Honnold, whose historic feats were featured in the film Free Solo.
See this thread for more information.
David Roberts is the award-winning author of twenty-nine books about mountaineering, exploration, and anthropology. His most recent publication, Alone on the Wall, was written with world-class rock climber Alex Honnold, whose historic feats were featured in the film Free Solo.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
December 11, 2019
dropped this around 43%. It did get sort of rambling, detailing the guy's slog through Russian bureaucracy to get old documents... At one point he mentions sitting at a cafe during a Russian summer and watching scantily-clad Russian ladies walk by. Then I was done, lol.
November 10, 2008
If you were to go by the title and the summary on the back of the book, you would believe that you were getting this great long story about the four people who lived on an Arctic island for six years. Now that would have been a great book!
But what we get instead is the tale of Roberts' search for information about that tale of survival, which is something completely different. We hear about his exhausting search through libraries here and in Russia in minute detail. We get the run-down of every person he hires to help him with his search. Every hoop the Russian government makes him jump through.
It was kind of interesting to me anyway, because I would like to write a book so I paid attention to the process he went through. But I had thought this would be a good book for my father--NO WAY! He would have been bored to death by Roberts' literary exploits.
He does include as much of the story of the four men as he can figure out, which isn't all that much, and certainly not an entire novel-worth. But in the book he does detail how much money he spent researching the story so it isn't that surprising that he wrote this book anyway. So we learn about the islands area and surviving in the Arctic wilderness somewhat.
I just wish the title wasn't so misleading. It should be: "Searching For an Arctic Survival Story in Russia."
But what we get instead is the tale of Roberts' search for information about that tale of survival, which is something completely different. We hear about his exhausting search through libraries here and in Russia in minute detail. We get the run-down of every person he hires to help him with his search. Every hoop the Russian government makes him jump through.
It was kind of interesting to me anyway, because I would like to write a book so I paid attention to the process he went through. But I had thought this would be a good book for my father--NO WAY! He would have been bored to death by Roberts' literary exploits.
He does include as much of the story of the four men as he can figure out, which isn't all that much, and certainly not an entire novel-worth. But in the book he does detail how much money he spent researching the story so it isn't that surprising that he wrote this book anyway. So we learn about the islands area and surviving in the Arctic wilderness somewhat.
I just wish the title wasn't so misleading. It should be: "Searching For an Arctic Survival Story in Russia."
April 15, 2012
Some reviewers found this book disappointing because it's more about about Roberts' attempt to figure out the story of the shipwrecked Russians than it is about the survival story itself. I understand that, but as a librarian, I don't mind reading tales of research at libraries at Harvard and in Russia. And I liked the way Roberts and his friends wrestle with the book that is the main historical record for the story, getting frustrated with the book, and re-reading it and re-thinking it.
Disaster stories can be told with many tones. There's the "holy shit!" tone, the "ugh, this is horrible, now let's check it out in grisly detail" tone, and the "this is morally uplifting and meaningful" tone, among others. The tone Roberts establishes here is admiration, and a determination that these forgotten, marginal men be remembered. I like that.
Disaster stories can be told with many tones. There's the "holy shit!" tone, the "ugh, this is horrible, now let's check it out in grisly detail" tone, and the "this is morally uplifting and meaningful" tone, among others. The tone Roberts establishes here is admiration, and a determination that these forgotten, marginal men be remembered. I like that.
February 10, 2021
This book is not about "four against the arctic". It is about the authors mostly failed attempt to gather information on the 4 Pomori hunters that lived 6 years in the arctic after being stranded on a remote island. A title and description of a book couldn't be more misleading. Not what I wanted. If you're looking for arctic exploration/survival then look elsewhere. Just for the record, the book they mention, In the Land of White Death, is a great book. That mentioning is what tricked me into buying this book. There is NO comparisons between the two.
January 3, 2011
Too long for its essence. The writer spent way too much time describing himself and his research than the "four against the arctic". The audio book is more than 10 hours long. Fortunately it is an audio book, so the time was not totally wasted, I still got my dishes washed.
January 3, 2008
After reading this book I ate some oranges. Scurvy...OUCH!
February 24, 2022
Good try by a good nature writer. This is not one of Dave Roberts' better books.
The story of the 4 sailors shipwrecked can't be told. And the story about Dave as an enquiring writer is only modestly interesting.
The story of the 4 sailors shipwrecked can't be told. And the story about Dave as an enquiring writer is only modestly interesting.
February 28, 2009
This book talks about four Russians of Pomori decent and their marooning on an island off of the coast of Svalbard(very Northern Europe). The group only had two days worth of supplies, but three of them managed to live for more than six years, before their eventual rescue in 1749. The Svalbard area is an extremely harsh, arctic area, and most people are lucky to survive one winter, much less six consecutive ones. Most of this book is focused on the author's research and his adventure to the island, not the actual marooning. To be fair to the author, there just are not a lot of documents that detail the Pomori's amazing survival story. However, I'm more interested in reading books about history than modern-day research.
August 29, 2019
I think it's important to know before starting that this book is much less about the 18th century Pomori hunters that were trapped in Svalbard for 6 years than it is about David Roberts' wild goose chase tracking down information on the story. As a story of the difficulties of navigating Russian archives and negotiating with Russian academics, of meeting with villagers in the Russian Arctic, and in spending three weeks on a remote Arctic island with modern equipment, the story is interesting and well told. I feel that it reads more as a memoir about a year and a half pursuing an impossible goal than it does a story about the 18th century.
December 9, 2015
It was okay.
However the title is wrong, it should be more accurately named: My Experience Researching the Russian Shipwreck of 1743 and other stories.
I wish it had truly been a book devoted to the men who lived on Edgeøya for 6 years.
However the title is wrong, it should be more accurately named: My Experience Researching the Russian Shipwreck of 1743 and other stories.
I wish it had truly been a book devoted to the men who lived on Edgeøya for 6 years.
January 26, 2012
Interesting story but it was hard to finish and kind if anticlimactic.
September 18, 2023
Grim, gruelling, remarkable.
July 23, 2022
Found the voice of the author absolutely insufferable but I love an arctic survival story
August 21, 2021
Not a bad book, but it's definitely more about the author's research into the subject than the subject itself
June 9, 2010
From the moment I read the back blurb, I knew I had to read this book. It didn't disappoint, although it was a little different than what I thought it would be like.
David Roberts, author and adventurer, found out about the story of four Russian sailors who were forced to survive in the Svalbard islands in the Arctic after their hunting ship sank. Those four sailors had made a trek to find a previously-known structure on the island they found themselves upon, only to return and find their boat simply gone. For a little over half a decade, these four men had their limits tested as they hunted, tried to stay warm, and fought off the constant threat of polar bears.
Roberts gives us plenty of information about the four sailors' incredible story, but this book isn't about that, exactly. Rather, it is about Roberts' quest to find the truth about the situation. Whose truth? That's one of the more important questions the book raises.
Roberts' primary source is an account by a Frenchman named Le Roy, who interviewed the sailors several months after their return from their exile. Le Roy reports the incredible details of the adventure, but Roberts constantly questions the accuracy of his findings. Did Le Roy understand everything the sailors were telling him? Did he really accurately report what he had heard? Roberts tries to find other sources to dig deeper into the story and find out what really might have happened.
Finally, Roberts, two of his buddies (who are more than qualified to join such a journey) along with a Swedish/Norwegian guide trek all the way to Svalbard to find out what that harsh landscape can tell them about the Russian story. Even in the warmest month in the Arctic, the conditions are rugged and even dangerous. One slip-up could have made the difference between survival and near-death. All the while, David and his fellow travelers attempt to find the whereabouts of the hut the Russian sailors lived in.
This last part of the book was the most interesting and incredible for me. Although not as compelling and simply awe-inspiring as the story that prompted it, the trip to Svalbard by Roberts and colleagues forms an adventure tale all its own. Roberts' firsthand account of the "godforsaken" Arctic islands lets the reader get closer to the true reality of life in such a place than any centuries-old manuscript or tale.
In his own way, Roberts adds to the story by journeying to perhaps the very same place and facing a few of the same conditions and dangers. He may or may not have found the famous survival hut, but at the very least he was there, just the same as the Russian hunters centuries before. Just think about this: With the exception of a man-made structure or two, various scattered hunting traps and the garbage left behind and washed ashore over the years, the islands of Edgeøya and Half-Moon Island remain much the same as they did when the Russians lost their way.
I really liked this book. I learned a new story and I got to imagine what it might be like to be on an island in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fog, ice and hungry polar bears.
David Roberts, author and adventurer, found out about the story of four Russian sailors who were forced to survive in the Svalbard islands in the Arctic after their hunting ship sank. Those four sailors had made a trek to find a previously-known structure on the island they found themselves upon, only to return and find their boat simply gone. For a little over half a decade, these four men had their limits tested as they hunted, tried to stay warm, and fought off the constant threat of polar bears.
Roberts gives us plenty of information about the four sailors' incredible story, but this book isn't about that, exactly. Rather, it is about Roberts' quest to find the truth about the situation. Whose truth? That's one of the more important questions the book raises.
Roberts' primary source is an account by a Frenchman named Le Roy, who interviewed the sailors several months after their return from their exile. Le Roy reports the incredible details of the adventure, but Roberts constantly questions the accuracy of his findings. Did Le Roy understand everything the sailors were telling him? Did he really accurately report what he had heard? Roberts tries to find other sources to dig deeper into the story and find out what really might have happened.
Finally, Roberts, two of his buddies (who are more than qualified to join such a journey) along with a Swedish/Norwegian guide trek all the way to Svalbard to find out what that harsh landscape can tell them about the Russian story. Even in the warmest month in the Arctic, the conditions are rugged and even dangerous. One slip-up could have made the difference between survival and near-death. All the while, David and his fellow travelers attempt to find the whereabouts of the hut the Russian sailors lived in.
This last part of the book was the most interesting and incredible for me. Although not as compelling and simply awe-inspiring as the story that prompted it, the trip to Svalbard by Roberts and colleagues forms an adventure tale all its own. Roberts' firsthand account of the "godforsaken" Arctic islands lets the reader get closer to the true reality of life in such a place than any centuries-old manuscript or tale.
In his own way, Roberts adds to the story by journeying to perhaps the very same place and facing a few of the same conditions and dangers. He may or may not have found the famous survival hut, but at the very least he was there, just the same as the Russian hunters centuries before. Just think about this: With the exception of a man-made structure or two, various scattered hunting traps and the garbage left behind and washed ashore over the years, the islands of Edgeøya and Half-Moon Island remain much the same as they did when the Russians lost their way.
I really liked this book. I learned a new story and I got to imagine what it might be like to be on an island in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fog, ice and hungry polar bears.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 25, 2008
Yet another one of the books in a genre I love to pour through- Arctic/Antarctic survival!
Nothing comes close to this one, a true story of a 1743 Russian ship whose crew was headed North to hunt walrus. A storm blew their craft off course and left it trapped in the ice off Spitzbergen. The four eventual survivors went ashore with just two day's worth of supplies, searching for a hut they had some knowledge of that might have existed there. On the small God forsaken island they lived for the next six years, before they were eventually rescued. No other Arctic survival story even comes close.
The highly celebrated Antarctic Shackleton expedition from 1916, involved a rescue of men who were left behind on Elephant Island for "only " four and a half months, and they were well provisioned.
Very well written, this book reads like a good dose of Sherlock Holmes. The Cambridge, MA author devotes two years of research to flesh out the true details of this ordeal of the human spirit, and eventually travels to the island to attempt to locate the actual site of the hut the men lived in. With photographs.
Nothing comes close to this one, a true story of a 1743 Russian ship whose crew was headed North to hunt walrus. A storm blew their craft off course and left it trapped in the ice off Spitzbergen. The four eventual survivors went ashore with just two day's worth of supplies, searching for a hut they had some knowledge of that might have existed there. On the small God forsaken island they lived for the next six years, before they were eventually rescued. No other Arctic survival story even comes close.
The highly celebrated Antarctic Shackleton expedition from 1916, involved a rescue of men who were left behind on Elephant Island for "only " four and a half months, and they were well provisioned.
Very well written, this book reads like a good dose of Sherlock Holmes. The Cambridge, MA author devotes two years of research to flesh out the true details of this ordeal of the human spirit, and eventually travels to the island to attempt to locate the actual site of the hut the men lived in. With photographs.
August 31, 2009
Pretty good chronicle of the author's efforts to follow the story of the four men who survived six years in godforsaken conditions. Definitely read this book with a blanket nearby: it never gets warm. The writing is okay if you can wade through the pompous academic style. Using larger English words is fine, but overuse of some phrases and condescendingly using words from other languages smacks of someone needing to prove their academic background, rather than just writing a coherent story. Instead of writing something straightforward like "With respect to our lodgings, there were ten different items in the main room whose purpose was to offer a glimpse of home", this guy would instead opt for "Apropos our non-Harvard lodgings which were very far from Cambridge which is where I live (since it's so close to Harvard, where I do a bunch of research because it is, you know, Harvard), there were no fewer than some ten different pieces de resistance in the living room-cum-kitchen-cum-bedroom-cum-television parlor whose raison d'etre was to give an apercu of home (which is in Cambridge - did I mention I'm from Harvard?)." Yuck. Bottom line: good story, pompous and not-so-great writing.
August 6, 2011
Not a Cherry-Garrard standard travelogue this, but a modern day investigative account by author David Roberts. The book pursues the tale of Russian sailors back in the eighteenth century who become marooned in the Svalbard archipelago and survive for six years before eventual rescue.
Did this really happen? Was it possible to survive, reverting back to the frozen stone age, at latitudes high into the arctic circle?
'Shipwrecked on the top of the World-Four against the Arctic' recounts Roberts's determination to find out. Through Russian archives and searches among international museums the author eventually leads an expedition to Svalbard in the hunt for the truth.
My interest was maintained in this story from personal experience of many of the places described.
Above the arctic circle at 65deg N, the island of Tromso at 69deg N, Honningsvag on the North Cape of Norway at 70deg N, the White Sea and the Barents Sea. Purely by coincidence, I read of a British
team of travellers in Svalbard, who have just been mauled by Polar bear. As a result the bear has been shot. These lands are ruled by the laws of nature, not by man.
Did this really happen? Was it possible to survive, reverting back to the frozen stone age, at latitudes high into the arctic circle?
'Shipwrecked on the top of the World-Four against the Arctic' recounts Roberts's determination to find out. Through Russian archives and searches among international museums the author eventually leads an expedition to Svalbard in the hunt for the truth.
My interest was maintained in this story from personal experience of many of the places described.
Above the arctic circle at 65deg N, the island of Tromso at 69deg N, Honningsvag on the North Cape of Norway at 70deg N, the White Sea and the Barents Sea. Purely by coincidence, I read of a British
team of travellers in Svalbard, who have just been mauled by Polar bear. As a result the bear has been shot. These lands are ruled by the laws of nature, not by man.
August 26, 2021
Four Against the Arctic tells the incredibly story of 4 Russian walrus hunters that became stranded on a desolate island near Greenland, they survived for 6 years, living off reindeer & scurvy grass, killing 10 polar bears with homemade lances until their rescue by a passing ship. Robert's becomes fascinated when he comes across the story and is determined to find the truth, to find more of the story. This book is more about his quest to verify the story and find more details as there are almost no primary sources to go on. It culminates in a trip to the island to try and find the shack they lived in and understand how they could have survived on their own for so long.
The book is more about Robert's quest to discover the truth so if you have any interest in the process of writing history, of discovering sources and the difficulty in verifying information that's 250 years old, this is worth the read. They story of the Russians is fascinating and amazing and following Roberts as he navigates the Russian bureaucracy to try to tell the story is quite interesting.
The book is more about Robert's quest to discover the truth so if you have any interest in the process of writing history, of discovering sources and the difficulty in verifying information that's 250 years old, this is worth the read. They story of the Russians is fascinating and amazing and following Roberts as he navigates the Russian bureaucracy to try to tell the story is quite interesting.
July 9, 2020
That I read 100 pages of this book is a source of great regret. I am massively into survival stories etc and have read “In the land of white death” which, as someone else mentioned, is a fantastic book which everyone should read. This, however is an excruciatingly bad read. A lot of previous commenters have iterated most of what’s wrong with it, ie: misleading, boring etc. But I just want to focus on the thing which really annoyed me which was the author’s constant, bitchy, passive aggressive comments about Le Roy- the man who had chronicled the Pomori’s story contemporaneously. We get it, it wasn’t very exhaustive. But it was over 200 years ago. Things were different back then. People weren’t so concerned with “how people felt” and suchlike. Roberts is earth-shatteringly un-self aware. He spends so much time which about the fact Le Roy wrote a self-indulgent story which fails to tell us anything of substance about the sailors, and then he does exactly the same thing with his own book! It is utter rubbish.
January 24, 2016
Came across this book while browsing the new nonfiction section of the public library. It is the account of the author's quest to discover artifacts, historical truth and the site of a survival of 6 years of four Pomori (Russian) hunters on one of the Arctic islands near Spitzbergen beginning in 1743! Their Russian walrus hunting boat was blown off course and trapped in the Arctic ice. Four sailors with 2 days worth of food lwent ashore to look for a hut that they knew about.They located the hut and returned to the boat to tell their shipmates and found it totally gone, sunk into the icy ocean. Thus begins the story of their stranding and survival. The author hears about this story and sets out to find out more about it, culminating in a 2 week trip to Half-Moon Island trying to locate the site of the Russian hut used by the survivors. The story of the 2 week trip is the best part of the book--the search for the information does tend to get a bit tedious at times.
October 2, 2009
This is about half a retelling of four Pomori sailors marooned in a distant corner of the Arctic (Svalbard), and half about finding out about it. As there are not the diaries kept by later Arctic expeditions, the author's main source is a near-contemporary book written by an academic. The author of this book is not impressed with that author (Le Roy), and quite a bit of the book is giving over to mocking him (apparently with reason).
The author's international research, including trying to get help from Russia, with its bureaucratic hurdles, gets a bit trying, as it undoubtedly was for the author. And then the author gets to go to Edgeoya, to look for the Pomori hut. His two weeks there sound miserable enough to dissuade this armchair arcticophile from ever wanting to go there myself.
All in all, an enjoyable read in the arctic pile, that added to the other books I've read.
The author's international research, including trying to get help from Russia, with its bureaucratic hurdles, gets a bit trying, as it undoubtedly was for the author. And then the author gets to go to Edgeoya, to look for the Pomori hut. His two weeks there sound miserable enough to dissuade this armchair arcticophile from ever wanting to go there myself.
All in all, an enjoyable read in the arctic pile, that added to the other books I've read.
September 30, 2012
This book was a bait and switch. Look at that cover! The title and the back cover get you all ready for an exciting adventure tale in the arctic. This book? This book is really about the author David Roberts, who has a HUGE ego, and his researching of an event that happened several hundred years ago to Russians in the arctic. But he doesn't speak Russian. He doesn't understand Russian culture and he can't get to Russia when he needs to because of his heavy academic schedule. So instead, we get to read about libraries, Russian bureaucracy, international phone calls that go nowhere, and his woes about the story he wished he had. Maybe a different cover and title would have helped this one find it's true audience. It would have saved me from buying this book.
February 9, 2013
I thought this was going to be an exciting adventure story about four Russian sailors in the 1700's who were marooned on a remote arctic island. That would have been a great story. Instead, it is a very boring story about the author researching the story about the sailors. The only account he finds of this was written by a professor in the 1700's and apparently left out all the most interesting details and went off on a lot of wild tangents about other topics (kind of like this book...) He spends a lot of time talking about what that book says and about all of the interesting details that the author doesn't get into. BOR-RING. Even an "outdoor adventure" enthusiast such as myself had to give up on this book.
February 22, 2014
I have read a number of books by David Roberts. This book had the allure of possibly re-living what four Russian sailors endured for six years on a desolate island home in the arctic, awaiting their subsequent rescue. What we get, are very small minute glimpses of their experience, while tagging a long with the author is his search for more information, and possible artifacts as well as locating the exact spot and place they "lived this ordeal". It is an interesting glimpse inside the research aspect of "the hunt", but I am certain many people pulling this down off the shelf, based on the title and cover, are expecting a fact based experience of what these men endured and experienced. This it does not .....
November 14, 2016
I gave this 3 stars, but I was close to giving it 4.
The story of the four Russian sailors, who survived for more than six years on a island in the Svalbard archipelago with almost no supplies, is very compelling. Sadly, the author discovered through painstaking research that many of the details of their experience have been lost to history. Since the author was unable to write a whole book about their experience, he chose instead to right about his hunt for information as well as his two week trip to Svalbard. I did find his narration of the this quest interesting and informative in itself; however, I can't say I loved it. As a look back, I feel like the book was simply too long considering how little he knew.
The story of the four Russian sailors, who survived for more than six years on a island in the Svalbard archipelago with almost no supplies, is very compelling. Sadly, the author discovered through painstaking research that many of the details of their experience have been lost to history. Since the author was unable to write a whole book about their experience, he chose instead to right about his hunt for information as well as his two week trip to Svalbard. I did find his narration of the this quest interesting and informative in itself; however, I can't say I loved it. As a look back, I feel like the book was simply too long considering how little he knew.
November 22, 2020
I really liked the story of the intrepid adventurers. I also enjoyed the story of attempting to research this 18th century event, and all that is entailed in attempting to uncover historical records and knowledge from a time and place where little records were kept.
The only reason that I haven't ranked the book higher is that the author is a bit too taken with himself. There is bitterness and pettiness present in many of the passages which completely detracted from the book, reducing it to more of a memoir of how the author had to stoop to deal with people during his research, then engaging the reader to truly understand how difficult the endeavor that the author had to take turned out to be.
Still - I'd recommend it.
The only reason that I haven't ranked the book higher is that the author is a bit too taken with himself. There is bitterness and pettiness present in many of the passages which completely detracted from the book, reducing it to more of a memoir of how the author had to stoop to deal with people during his research, then engaging the reader to truly understand how difficult the endeavor that the author had to take turned out to be.
Still - I'd recommend it.
November 26, 2014
Four Against the Arctic / David Roberts. This book was fascinating and convoluted. A tale of research in libraries, museums, and onsite in the Arctic to learn how three Russian sailors survived six years in the 1700s on a desolate island with very, very few resources, Four Against the Arctic is engrossing because of the author’s doggedness and skillful writing. There is, certainly, a lot of historical digression, cogitation and countless sources to distract and confuse, but interest is held by the force of the original event. The conclusion is less than dramatic, but nevertheless it’s intellectually satisfying.
January 28, 2010
I enjoy survival stories, and this book details an extremely little know late 18th century survival epic of 4 Pomori sailors stranded on a small island above the arctic cirlce for 6 YEARS! Unfortunately, only about 1/4 of the book actually details the survival story, the rest describes the author's quest to uncover the location and facts surrounding the survival story. Still, there are a lot of little nuggets about research, Pomori and Arctic conditions that make this book an interesting read.
But not if you are looking for a survival story, alone. Read Shackelton instead....
But not if you are looking for a survival story, alone. Read Shackelton instead....
June 17, 2012
Well-written book about four Russian sailors forced to overwinter in one of the most remote islands in the Arctic -- for six years. The story of the sailors themselves is fascinating, although not enough is known about their tale to fill out a book, so "Four against the Arctic" becomes as much about Russian red tape, the glory of research libraries, and travels to Svalbard and far northern Russia as about the overwintering. Roberts is an excellent writer, though, and keeps you with him the whole way.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews