Minds of Winter

by Ed O'Loughlin

When history looks through the annals of polar exploration, it is sure to deem Sir John Franklin's 1845 campaign in search of the Northwest Passage as the darkest chapter. All 129 men would be lost to the ice; and nothing retrieved from an inventory that included two Greenwich chronometers given to the expedition.
When historians analyze the most profound mysteries of the modern age, they therefore remain mystified as to just how one of those very same timepieces would reappear in London - crudely disguised as a Victorian carriage clock -over a century and a half after being recorded as lost in the famous disaster.
It is a real-life mystery that did, and still continues to, defy an explanation.
When Nelson Nilsson catches the eye of the lone female in the arrivals hall of Inuvik airport in the Northern Territories of Canada, the last thing his life needs is further complication. Still unable to comprehend the enigmatic obsession that led his brother to take his own life, Nelson just wants to get in his care and drive.
When travel-weary Fay Morgan looks up and mistakes Nelson for a taxi driver, she realizes for the first time that she has finally made it to the one place on earth that may hold the answer to her burning question. And when she capitalizes on Nelson's good nature and obtains a lift, she feels fate is on her side.
It is an improbable meeting that will unearth an impossible connection: as the questions Nelson has about his present, and those Fay has about her past, share a common link -itself inextricably tied to the movements of an elusive timepiece.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Canada, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Maps

500 pages, Hardcover

First published February 4, 2017

Reviews

[LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Wayne and Garth, I'm not worthy. When I accidentally downloaded this 500 page ARC to my cellphone instead of an iPad (and one only gets a single chance to download), and said novel turned out to include dozens of locations, time periods, and characters, my feedback on the clunky reading experience is unworthy of the effort put in by the author. For what it's worth, I'm bumping this from a 3.5 to a 4 in apology for not giving the book a fair shot.

A few months ago, I developed a little crush on several 140 year old polar explorers. In The Birthday Boys, we meet Meares - nicknamed "Dearie" - and the other men of that ill fated journey to the South Pole led by Capt. Falcon Scott. The book is outstanding, but I found that as an American, I'd never learned much about the expedition which apparently put the entire British world into mourning in 1912 and inspired countless books and magazine articles written over the next 100 years.

My ignorance led me to do some googling about polar exploration, and I was awestruck at the courage of the hundreds and hundreds of men who set out in wooden boats, dressed in leather and fur, to trek by foot and dog sled and skis in the name of scientific exploration and for their nations' glory. I won't go outside without neoprene long johns if the temperature is anywhere south of 30 degrees, so obviously, these men impressed me. Temperatures were recorded at -77 degrees Fahrenheit, and all they had was leather? Incredible.

With that sort of admiration on board, I was itching to read this story about this missing expedition to the arctic. In 1845, two ships led by Sir John Franklin seemingly disappeared while they were searching for a northwest passage to the north pole. Franklin's widow sent ship after ship after ship (30+ attempted rescues!) to search for her husband and the other 128 men who had enough provisions to keep them alive for months, if not years.

It turns out that the search for these men is not the primary focus of Minds of Winter, but instead, the story ticks around a conspiracy theory. There is great mystery surrounding the fact that a piece of navigational equipment that was aboard one of the boats ended up back in present day England, badly disguised as a clock.

This device is a chronometer, and it really did show up after 150 years - as of today, there is still no solid explanation as to how that came to be.

O'Loughlin seemingly grabbed this real-world mystery and did massive amounts of research to pull together a tale that has the chronometer, old maps sealed in metal tubes, and magnetic anomalies popping in and out of a 150 year time frame. The historical characters in his story are all real, but they are entwined with enough fictional story lines such that intrigue and facts blurred together nicely.

The author Jack London makes an appearance, as does an infamous criminal called "the mad trapper of Rat River." Roald Amundsen (the Norwegian who turned his attention to beat out the scientific expedition to the South Pole by Falcon Scott) is also part of this tale as is a young Frenchman called Bellot plus a few native Eskimaux people. There are myriad others who I honestly do not know whether to label as fictional or historical - but they felt real.

As for historical accuracy, this is an interesting five-star piece of work. A lovely touch was the repetition of the famous last words uttered by Titus Oates - one of the men who died on the South Pole trek. He had had an old war injury that opened up in the debilitating cold and developed gangrene in his feet. Knowing that his physical condition was slowing down the other men, he hobbled to his feet in their tent and said: "I am just going outside and may be some time." Without boots, he went out into the subzero temperatures of Antarctica and laid down to die, sacrificing himself so that the other men might make it back to camp. If you were unfamiliar with these beautiful words, then you might miss them when said by one of the characters in this cold story.

There are a few more references to wandering out into the snow to end one's life. At the start of the book, two characters find a little furry creature called a lemming and discuss whether the adages about lemmings going off into the sea or the ice to kill themselves are true or contrived. They decide that these cute little mammals just tunnel out into the snow because that is what they do. It was a nice touch that foreshadowed what was to be later revealed.

Where things didn't work so well for me (reading on my cellphone) was that during each section that revolved around the historical characters, their loose connections to either the chronometer itself or to articles alluding to it were never really tied up. Characters and their individual story lines disappeared into the ether like mirages, and while that built tension, it was also a bit frustrating.

Cecil Meares (my South Pole crush) is a recurring character throughout the story and has some sort of espionage role, but what his entire purpose was is something that I never came to understand. I kept thinking that this would be the sort of book where everything would seal together in the final chapters, leaving me with a big A-HA moment and lovely satisfaction.

My great hope for this big finish rested on the shoulders of the two recurring contemporary characters that bump into one another in the Canadian arctic. Fay Morgan and Nelson Nillson are both at the top of the world in search of answers concerning family members. Fay is looking for closure after the recent death of her mother, and has traveled to the arctic outpost where her maternal grandfather was once stationed. Nelson is a bit of an underachiever who has had trouble contacting Bert, his older, reliable brother - a geographer with a soft spot for polar exploration stories. Nelson has driven up from northern Canada to check in on Bert and ends up befriending Fay at the tiny airport.

There is always a bit of allure to mysterious happenings in the past, but O'Loughlin also paints the contemporary scenes quite beautifully."The flakes whirled in the breeze like a murmuration of starlings, billions of fleeting pixels which formed then dissolved dark trees by the road. Opening the car door, he heard the hiss of new snow brushing over old crust."

Nelson and Fay basically act as agents for us as readers in that they scroll through Bert's files while the roads and airport are snowed in for several days. The files, as you might guess, include the various historical characters and their tie to the Franklin expedition. Unfortunately, as tantalizing as the old stories are, I never quite was able to piece them together in the big finish I so patiently worked toward. The book felt more like an expanded version of The X-Files than anything else. If you're the kind of reader who embraces dangling threads and intrigue, then I'd highly recommend this.

Lastly, there is mention here and there of mirages in the snow in Minds of Winter , and one of the main characters - Fay Morgan (who should be supplying answers but does not) has a name that might have a deeper meaning. Fata morgana is the name given to mirages, sometimes fairy castles floating in the distant sky, that can be seen shimmering above flat terrain. Their most common sightings?? In ice fields at the Pole.

Beautiful. Even when read on a cell phone.

Thank you, Net Galley.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a novel that mixes a historical mystery with the geographic challenges of Canada’s far north, Ed O’Loughlin delivers an interesting story that takes readers on a great adventure. After a marine chronometer from a 1840s expedition finds its way back to England, many are quite confused. Not only was the chronometer from Sir John Franklin’s expedition to find the North West Passage in the Canadian Arctic—a journey that ended in tragedy when both ships sunk and all aboard perished—but the item was repurposed and arrived as a Victorian carriage clock. Thus begins the mystery that takes the story back to the early 1840s, where Franklin has been sent to oversee an Australian colony, punishment for a previous mission. However, when the British are eager to explore the Arctic region, Franklin is chosen to head the mission, amassing a crew of his own. In flash-forward chapters, the story moves to the present in Canada’s Northwest Territories, where Nelson Nilsson and Fay Morgan meet by chance outside the community of Tuktoyaktuk, in the middle of winter. Morgan is somewhat vague about what brings her here from the United Kingdom, but soon discovers that Nelson is just as vague. He explains that he has been looking for his brother, who used to work in the region but has since disappeared. Their odd alliance sees them spending some time together and discovering a little more about the Franklin Expedition and some lost items, as they sift through many of the historical documents amassed by Nelson’s brother. As the story progresses, the reader is privy to these documents and some larger narrative putting them into perspective. It would seem that a few attempts were made to locate Franklin’s lost fleet or anything that may have been found in the wreckage. However, the deeper they look, the more the mystery rises to new levels. Could the Nilsson brothers have an ancestor all their own who spent time in the region, one who has a jaded past and was sought by the Royal Canadian Mounter Police? With no means of leaving, as the snow is too heavy to travel, Nelson and Fay are pushed to piece together this narrative through documents and letters, which might shed light one a few mysteries that could significantly shape their respective futures. Recommended for those who like novels that span decent periods of history, told through documents and historical happenings.

I chose this book for two key reasons. First, I admit that the title and topic both looked as though they could help fulfil my reading challenge responsibility. Secondly, the Franklin Expedition has been making the news of late, particularly since the Government of Canada has been trying to bring it up and solve the long-lost mystery of what happened. With a story set in Canada, I thought that I’d be pulled in from the early chapters. O’Loughlin did so and I was pleased to find myself captivated by the story and its setting. Nelson and Fay were two interesting characters who worked at odds with one another for the most part, but seemed able to peel back the layers on this mystery in order to help bring to light some of the long-hidden goings-on in Canada’s Arctic region. With a handful of other characters who played roles during their respective points of history, the story moved along at a decent pace. O’Loughlin’s story was well founded and did, at times, move well. That being said, there were times when I felt as though the narrative could have picked up the pace, though this could have been my desire for something a little faster in its pace. O’Loughlin effectively portrayed the historical documents in the story, making them seem realistic and penned in such a way that the reader could feel they were actual letters and conversations, based on style and linguistic delivery. While the story did drag, I was able to speed through it, skimming where I felt it necessary in order to complete my reading journey.

Kudos, Mr. O’Loughlin, for an interesting piece. I think I may have to look to see what else you’ve written, as I would love to discover some of your other passions.

This book fulfils Topic #6: Equinox Read of the Equinox #6 Book Challenge.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This starts so well: a young woman at a celebratory ball hosted by two of the Royal Navy captains involved in mid-nineteenth century Arctic exploration. With a delicate, almost Austen-esque, hand O'Loughlin sketches in character and emotion so that when Sophia suffers emotional disappointment, I was 'heartsore' with her. A turn of the page and these characters were all swept away, Sophia amongst them, to be only minimal walk-on characters in another narrative completely - and already I was disappointed: characters in whom I'd emotionally invested turned out to be unimportant in the overall sweep of the story and I felt cheated.

This continues throughout this long book which is so well-researched, so ambitious, so able to conjure up mood and character - and yet which becomes more and more distant as story supersedes story carrying us further and further away from where we started so that, for me, any emotional connection with the narrative is lost. The thread that should anchor the tale together is the modern 'now' narrative but I found this the most contrived and least successful: it feels overly cliched to have two strangers come together in north Canada, both of whom are searching for lost relatives who, of course, are connected to all the mini-stories we're following.

There's so much good stuff here that I'm really disappointed to have to rate this no higher than 3-stars: O'Loughlin would have benefited from a stronger editor as there's enough material here for at least two books - crammed together in just one, the narrative becomes ragged and chaotic, and towards the end individual sections are sparse and short, sometimes only a couple of pages, as if the author, too, has lost his connection to the story we're following.

The 'then' parts move rapidly forward from the mid-nineteenth century through history so that the lost Franklin expedition with which we started and which is flagged in the blurb is a red herring, no more than one story amongst many. The sinister presence of radar points, and Room 58, and Early Warning Stations mix with questions of shifting identities and give a kind of X-Files feel to the 'now' half of the book but it's submerged and not allowed to develop fully.

So, overall, a book full of huge potential and promise: O'Loughlin can write, has an ambitious vision and conjures up historical scenes with ease. Ultimately, though, what he's trying to do here is too vast and gets away from his control. Stronger characters with whom I could sympathise might have salvaged the 'now' story and held this together better - 3.5 stars for something which started off brilliantly but became a chore to finish.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a vast work of information, of stories within stories, glued together by a story about two people who accidentally meet while each looks for a disappeared family member.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Failures of Navigation

…Broughton Island. Cape Dyer. Cape Mercy. Brevoort Island. Loks Land. Resolution Island. Cape Kakaviak. Saglek. Cape Kiglapait. Big Bay. Tukialik. Cartwright.
     Do we believe in these places? she wondered. Was that it? Does it matter so long as we can say their names?

Before the advent of GPS, navigation required the accurate measurement of both space and time. You would think that Ed O'Loughlin's ambitious historical novel of polar exploration would succeed with both: it is replete with maps; and it begins with the (true) discovery of a chronometer belonging to one of the one of the most tragic of arctic expeditions, that led by Sir John Franklin in 1845. But the reader requires navigation too. O'Loughlin's journeys take him to both hemispheres and many countries, over a 175-year span, switching with dizzying speed. Alas, though fascinated by the subject, I could hardly keep up. I found myself careening from segment to section without much overall sense of direction. This is a book about navigation whose own navigation largely fails.

Those maps, first of all. There are dozens of them, but their connection to the text they accompany is often non-existent. There are three of them in the first few pages, all slightly different, but all showing similar areas of the Arctic. You read a passage involving some place names, you turn back to look it up, but you don't know which of the three maps to turn to, and chances are you won't find it anyway. Each of the nine sections in the novel is marked with a location and precise compass coordinates, but much of the action takes place somewhere else. O'Loughlin tosses place names around with madcap abandon, no matter that the reader has no idea yet where they are, and indeed may never be told:

     Ivan followed the ancient fur trail north through the Tombstones, along the Porcupine River, then up the Bell 'till he reached Summit Lake—that heart-shaped mirror of the continental divide, which feeds its still waters to two different seas. From there, he followed Two Oceans Creek to the head of the Rat River. And it was there, amid the tumbled rocks and willow thickets of that treacherous stream, that he received the first great shock of his journey.

The author does much the same with time. He starts by framing the loss of the Franklin Expedition in 1845 with a contemporary story about a man and a woman who have come separately to the far north of Canada's Northwest Territories, each in pursuit of a quest they do not fully understand. But in between the modern sections, he will visit every intervening decade, bringing in just about every well-known name associated with polar exploration, and equally many no one has ever heard of. He will give equal weight to two Esquimaux presented to Queen Victoria, Scott's death at the Antarctic, a meeting between Amundsen's former mistresses, the early history of telegraphy, two world wars, the last days of Nazi Germany, the Cold War DEW (Distant Early Warning) line, Sputnik, and references to a never-explained clandestine agency known only as Room 38. Hey, throw them all in, the more the merrier, never mind if the reader gets confused!

Even at the end, I couldn't tell you how the various pieces connected. O'Loughlin's device of tracing the history of Franklin's chronometer is a flimsy one at best; at the end, in a gratuitous insult to the reader, he simply shrugs the whole thing off.

And yet, there is a fascination in these tales of endurance and discovery, in the lonely deaths, in the spirit that drives men onward and outward. Just occasionally, O'Loughlin captures little glimpses of it. But his habit of jumping around as much in genre and style as he does in place and time only reminded my how much better other authors have handled the same material. His pointless scene in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) at the beginning, for instance, or evocation of the Franklin Expedition, quite lacks the magic of Richard Flanagan's Wanting. By treating the story of the Eskimo couple as first-person narrative in basic English, he makes it pale beside Stephen Heighton's marvelous Afterlands. And when he narrates another section as (get this) someone's recollection of Jack London talking to a mystery man in a sickroom about a story he never got to write, the vaguely metafictional result is merely confusing.

But then the entire novel is confusing.

[LIsa Noell "Rocking the chutzpah!" · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was probably one of the best things I've read in ages. I've read some good, and even great books in the last year, but this one was completely unexpected. I slowed my reading pace down for this, because I simply did not want it to end. I kept asking myself, would I have enjoyed it as much if I didn't know the background of all these explorer's? Truth is, I might have spent more time on the web, but even without knowing, I do believe I would have loved it anyways! I know I'm writing a review here, but if I were face to face, I would say "Dude, you need to read this book!" I'm a nut when it comes to arctic expeditions, and most particularly, a Crozier nut. This story mixes hard fact with fiction, and that's maybe why I loved this book. I read everything I can about arctic explorers. So much that you'd think I'd get tired of it. Nope! This was just a new take on an old song. Thank goodness! I would recommend this book. It was a wonderful story, and so damned intriguing that at times it drove me nuts! I've read a lot about all of these events, but this tale was so good, that I will be buying the book and reading it again.

[Annette · Rating 3 out of 5]

The drawn-out style of writing is not the style of writing I like to read. Therefore, I’m not the right reviewer for this book. There are others who appreciate this style of writing and they will reveal veracious reviews.

[MaryannC Victorian Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I was thoroughly looking forward to settling in and reading about this tragedy on a cold winter's night, this book initially did not end up doing it for me. As another reviewer mentioned this seemed to have snippets of a story I originally thought would continue. I really felt the interaction between Fay and Nelson in the present time story was lackluster for me.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Minds of Winter. I loved the fact that it uses historical figures in a fictional setting and I found them intriguing and convincing.

The physical setting is polar. Both poles in fact and their exploration. The novel moves through multiple time zones and places and there are clear and detailed maps.

We focus on the expeditions searching for traces of the Franklin expedition of 1845 and the various artefacts left and their odd emergence in the 21stC. There was an espionage element in some of the expeditions because of the international interest in what is now northern Canada and the novel has a vivid portrait of Meares who was with Scott in Antarctica but left after the first season when it became clear that Scott was a ditherer. He pops up in various guises in the far north, never fully explained. The Meares in this book doesn't miss much!

The story is anchored by two people in present day northern Canada who have links to the past. There are documents and newspaper clippings and photos. I love such things!

There is an account of the Hall expedition told by one of the rescued Inuit men who was on the ice flow, a gruesome story from the gold rush told by Jack London and an account of the ball in Hobart in the 1840s given by the Antarctic explorers on board their ships the Erebus and the Terror and attended by Sir John Franklin and told by his niece Sophie. There is an account of a young telegraph operator on Vancouver Island in the 1920s and hints of his mysterious role in the 20thC history of Canada with an island named after him (temporarily).

It does skip around through different stories and times. People appear then disappear then appear in someone else's story. And not everything is explained by the end. We are left with a sense of mystery. This worked for me but I understand that some people could find it unsatisfactory.

I had a library book that had to go back. I would like to read it again to put more things in place. Although I think that somethings will not go into place. There is still mystery at its heart.

[Thebooktrail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visit the destinations in the novel here: Minds of Winter booktrail map

How have I managed never to have heard of this true story? I’ve read a lot of fiction set in the Arctic and love the sense of historic explorations, discoveries etc. Clocks and chronometers – another one of my obsessions. This book brought them all together and more.

The cover caught mu eye for a start – the maps, the clocks , pictures of men exploring the ice fields, pulling packs on their expedition… Trailing involved. All of this with a true story into the mix and I was captivated.

It’s quite a complicated tale and the time frames back and forth did get a bit confusing I have to admit. There were multiple journeys and characters accounted for and various viewpoints which it does take a little getting used to. But the common thread through the novel, in the present day with Fay and Nelson helped to bring it all together.

The mystery of al those years ago was brought vividly to life from the internal squabbles of those on board, to the pressures of the time and the everyday life on a ship with limited supplies and the very possibility that escape at some point might not be an option. There was a sense that this was the Bermuda triangle of its day but it was the mysterious chronometer which resurfaced and its origins discovered by the Greenwich observatory which really held my interest. I was as excited as Fray and Nelson in finding out hat was the truth behind the mystery but I also felt as if I was on those ships in the middle of one of the most exciting expeditions of all time!

There is an awful lot of detail and research into this book and whilst at times i thought it did get a little bogged down by this, overall the story evokes the time and place and the excitement of such an historical exploration.

A story worth getting on board with – I can guarantee you’ll be googling and researching with the rest of them once you’re done. And if you would love to get inside the mind of the author - he chats on thebooktrail.com about maps and the real sense of adventure!

Ed's popped over to thebooktrail for a cuppa and a slice of reindeer o come over and chew the fat with the literary equivalent to Bear Grylls!

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun trip, I enjoyed the prose and the narrative because it enhances the scenery put forward in this book, I always had have a soft spot for ice and snow so this book was right up my alley. Arctic exploration is one of my main interests , that's why I picked up this book. The story flows well enough , you get lost in the many timelines this book contains and you have a little bit of problem keeping up with all the different characters that are introduced as the timelines progress, but the story is well introduced and it keeps you interested. If you are into Arctic exploration , lost exploration missions and multiple timelines, this is the book for you. I want satisfied with the ending , but I enjoyed the book.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

I will have to conclude that I, myself, have a “mind of winter”: I feel no misery at the sound of a January wind; can mentally relate to the romanticism of early Polar expeditions. I was consistently charmed and fascinated by Ed O'Loughlin's Minds of Winter – a sweeping epic of exploration, historical mystery, and the hardy people who dare brave the frozen poles – yet I am willing to concede that it might not have universal appeal; this ticked my boxes but might leave another reader...cold. I am delighted to see this title has made the shortlist for the 2017 Giller Prize – I wouldn't be unhappy if it won.

If you look at the maps of the Arctic, the Antarctic too, you'll see the same people's names repeated over and over again. And most of those people were connected to each other. Maybe stories converge at the poles. Like the lines on the map.

The framing device for this book sees a “chance encounter at the top of the world”: A drifter, Arthur “Nelson” Nilsson, has been summoned to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories by his older brother Bert – a high-security-level government Geographer who had decided to semi-retire as a high school teacher in the north – but after waiting in Bert's apartment for over a week and discovering a suicide note of sorts, Nelson decides to leave town. On his way out, Nelson stops at the airport (thinking he could buy cigarettes there) and he runs into Fay Morgan – a British woman who has come to Inuvik on the trail of her maternal grandfather who disappeared there in the Fifties – and when she mistakes Nelson for a taxi driver, he decides he could use the money if she wants to hire him for a few days. When Nelson eventually brings Fay back to Bert's apartment, and she discovers her grandfather's name among the missing brother's papers, the two decide to work together to solve the mysteries that appear to link the former strangers.

Central to the contrived mystery is a real life enigma: A chronometer (known as the Arnold 294) that was lost with the doomed Franklin Expedition resurfaced 164 years later at a London auction, having been reconfigured at some point as a carriage clock. It would seem that Bert had been trying to trace the history of the time piece, and with his security clearance, had assembled a thick file folder of classified and obscure documents. Minds of Winter, therefore, sees Nelson and Fay playing detective in the high Arctic of today, and in between short scenes of them driving the ice highway to Tuktoyaktuk or visiting the grave of the Mad Trapper of Rat River in Aklavik, various documents are included in full that tell (predominantly) adventurous tales set in Van Diemen's Land in 1841, Lancaster Sound in 1848, King William Island in 1903, Antarctica in 1911, The Korea-Manchuria Border in 1904, Edmonton in 1932, Northern Ireland in 1942. Historic polar explorers are inserted – Amudsen, Oates, Scott, Franklin – and like a bad penny, several characters keep turning up over the years; hinting at the covert operations of the shadowy Room 38; somehow linked to Franklin's chronometer. Jack London tells an unpublished tale of cabin-fever and gold-madness; spiritualists are called in to locate Franklin's missing boats; a mythic “bone tribe” haunts the high Arctic that even their cousins, the Inuit, fear to meet. We go from the Boer War to the World Wars to the Cold War; trace communication technology from cairns and message tubes to telegraphy to radar and satellites; watch as the explorers' hard won maps fit precisely over those drawn from Inuit lore. This story is truly epic – global in reach and subject matter – but it feels, ultimately, like a completely Canadian story. You can't contrive a book of the poles without strong nature writing, and O'Loughlin doesn't disappoint:

It was the sky above that shocked him. The sea ice, the western mountains, the island where he stood, were shades of black and grey and pastel, like a half-remembered dream. But the abyss above him blazed with life and business. Far above, a band of nacreous cloud caught the last of the year's civil twilight, a gauzy patch of iridescent pinks and mauves. The stars burned so fiercely that it seemed to Oates if he held his breath he would hear them. They shone so hard he wanted to duck.

I've seen other reviewers complain that the chronometer is a weak link between all these disparate tales (I can't deny it), and that the framing device with Fay and Nelson feels underdeveloped (and there's truth to that as well). But with mirages and folklore and men disappearing into the snow – even the similarity between the name Fay Morgan and the fata morgana; the Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is – the following seems to be the crux around which everything else turns; that which elevates this book in my own mind to a worthy work of literature:

A globe was round and you couldn't fall off it. But a map was a map, a metaphor, full of judgements and choices and victories and regrets; a map was built on backs and heuristics and mistakes and lies, cracks through which you might, just maybe, somehow slip away.

So, perhaps it is just due to my own mind of winter, but this book worked for me on every level. Loved it.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never in my life read a book with so much packed in between its covers!

North pole, south pole, strange wild men lost in the woods, cannibalism, 1800s Tasmanian explorers and their female kin, modern day Inuvik and its collection of wanderers, a mysterious missing clock with great importance... Want more? There's lots more.

I did really enjoy this book and I learned a ton about polar exploration; quite cool stuff. The book began slipping from a 4-star to a 3.5 by the (long) time I reached the end, but I decided it's worth a round up because of the immense amount of research and dedication this author made. There's no doubt about it -- he knows his stuff!

But I didn't love the loose ends at the end. With so many story-lines going on with an unspoken promise that they'd string together, most of them just didn't, and I found that irritatingly anti-climatic. Good book though; I still do recommend it for some readers with an interest in polar exploration and gold rush era history.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the chunkiest of the Giller Longlisted titles first. Blurbed as "ambitious" I would have to agree. I enjoyed it for the most part, but then found it got bogged down by all the extra stories, extra people, more stories, more people thrown into the mix. My very favourite part of the book was the section narrated by Ipiirviq.

This is only the first of the 12 I've read, so I can't say too much about it's potential to make the shortlist. It is an ambitious story, hefty and packed with interesting facts and people.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been pretty cold up here in Montana lately. We had windchills of -40 and there were warnings not to spend much time outside in fear of frostbite symptoms. So of course, I decided now would be a good time to crack open Minds of Winter. This epic mystery novel about the polar explorers spans a good chunk of time and a fair few pages. A mass of story lines and new characters added throughout, it was hard at first to really get into the story. Once the connections between characters and the years became more apparent, found it difficult to put it down. Author Ed O’Loughlin has masterfully drawn everything together. It takes talent to be able to plot out a mystery and to leave clues and little breadcrumbs for the readers. Many times authors will end up giving such emphasis on these clues, they end up becoming stereotypes or a game of Clue. Closer to the end, I found myself getting more and more excited as we seemed to finally be getting closer to solving everything. While I didn’t get the exact closure I wanted, I think the way O’Loughlin finished it was even better.
Having read some other reviewers, who weren’t comfortable with the sheer length or felt it was in need of being broken down into multiple books, I have to staunchly disagree. There was so much information and so much detail, I think it would have done the story a great disservice to chop it up. Even the modern day characters, who we were discovering the past with, held up as solid characters and not as cardboard cutouts to spoon feed us facts and information. I would recommend this to folks who enjoy historical mysteries and multiple story lines. If you enjoy Ken Follett, this would be a great one for you. All in all a great read and a truly memorable ending.
*This eBook was provided by NetGalley and Querus Publishing in exchange for an honest review*

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I cannot and do not want to dispute that this is a very well written story, that is is a fascinating subject and that I love so much of it is about the Canadian north, what I didn't like was the length, the unresolved mystery and the modern day part of the story.

[Jenna (Falling Letters) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally published 19 March 2017 at Falling Letters.

At 500 pages long, Minds of Winter' dwarfs the kind of books I usually prefer to read. Had I known that, I might not have requested it. Still, I wanted to give it a go because of the focus on Arctic exploration. I hadn’t read any fiction about the Franklin expedition. Knowledge of the disastrous undertaking stuck in my mind from a video I watched a few times throughout grade school and from the recent discoveries of Franklin’s ships. Minds of Winter is far more the story of lost explorers than it is of Fay and Nelson. Their story serves as a framing device. Nelson and Fay piece together documents gathered by Nelson’s missing brother, connecting mysteries and the lives of various historical figures.

Characters who actually existed include Francis Crozier, Roald Amundsen, Jack London, and “the Mad Trapper of Rat River”, whose true identity remains unknown today. The years in which each chapter takes place range from 1841 to 1957 (plus 2009 for Nelson and Fay’s storyline). Many of the characters I had a passing familiarity with. One character I didn’t know turned out to be a strong thread throughout. The beginning of the book had me constantly looking things up on Wikipedia to discern fact from fiction (more so I was just confirming things that I suspected were ‘real’). Apparently there are some notable deviations from known fact, but none that I could recognize. That doesn’t really matter anyway. This is historical fiction; let’s have some fun. Either way, the story is based in quite a lot of fact. O’Loughlin did his research, as his acknowledgements confirm.

Fun fact: Of all the fact-based storytelling in this novel, I assumed that the chronometer had to be a contrivance, as it just fit so neatly into the plot. I was shocked (and pretty amused) to learn that the chronometer is real and that the 2009 Guardian article about it that appears in the book is also real. Kudos to O’Loughlin for tying so many elements of history together.

The story finally comes together in the epilogue. That’s pushing it for me (I would have liked things to start making sense earlier). The stories didn’t come together in the way I anticipated. However, the epilogue pleased me so much that I forgave the later half of the book, which I thought dragged on a bit. When I rated the book on Goodreads, I was sure I would calm down after a couple hours and go back to whining about how long the book was. That’s why I gave it three stars instead of a euphoric four. Yet that good feeling remains a week later, and so thankfully I can give three and half stars on my own blog. Some readers won’t like the ending, if not because it doesn’t hand out easy answers, then perhaps because it’s too blunt in its message.

The Bottom Line: Minds of Winter may not satisfy those who want to uncover secrets about Franklin’s voyage, but it will likely satisfy those who love tales of Arctic exploration or hefty historical novels.

[MargaretDH · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a lot of potential: a story about two strangers that meet in the Canadian arctic and are drawn together by a twisting story of exploration, espionage and the rush to be first. Instead, I thought the book was a rambling set of vignettes, with an unsatisfying through line.

Sometimes, when people complain about too many characters in a book, I roll my eyes a little bit. Just pay closer attention, I think! But for me, this book had too many characters. I was fascinated by the opening with Sophia, Hall and Crozier, but we left their story, never to return. I might have been more interested in some of the other players in this story, but I knew they were soon to pass on, so it was hard to care.

Even the contemporary characters that should have tied the whole thing together were unsatisfying. I found Nelson and Fay opaque, and I especially struggled with understanding Fay's motivations.

Finally, I found the end of the book ultimately unsatisfying. There were a lot of loose ends I was hoping would be tied up, but as I neared the end of the book, they still fluttered. I read this all in one go, and it was late at night when I finished, so maybe there were some subtleties that I missed, but I still had a lot of questions when I turned off my kindle.

I will say O'Loughlin did a reasonable job of bringing atmosphere to the arctic. Most of us Canadians know it's there, but never visit. It's a mysterious place, rich with symbolism, and O'Loughlin does explore that.

When I finished the book, I thought I'd mark it as three stars. But I've downgraded it to two, because there was so much potential here that went unfulfilled.

[Alex Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ed O'Loughlin covers a lot of cold ground and distant seas in this one -- both Poles, Tasmania, Shetland, Sweden, Nunavut, Siberia and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich among other places; many periods from 1845 to the present, and many genres, historical novel, speculative fiction, missing-person mystery, with a dash of magical realism and spy story thrown in. At times the narrative disappears like tracks in a snowstorm, and the misdirections are many, like people and objects--even islands--that loom and vanish in the polar night. Mr. O'Loughlin tells a good story, which can be a disadvantage for the reader -- just as you're getting into a character and following their progress, they disappear, often for good. But following in the tracks of Franklin's last expedition to find the fabled North-West Passage, along the Cold War DEW line that was supposed to give us time to adapt to nuclear annihilation and over lonely mountain passes accompanied by the frozen ghosts of half-crazed gold-hunters, is a trip. The two present-day characters who hold the narrative together, sort of, don't really hold the attention -- but somehow this wandering narrative does. It's probably post-modern fiction, with a lot to say about identity, the unreliable narrator, the even less reliable object of the narrative, the nature of time and reality itself, but who really cares? It's a good read.

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ed O’Loughlin’s Minds of Winter makes me think of Aristotle’s saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but this time in reverse. The parts are excellent, but woven into a whole that is considerably less satisfying than each part on its own.

Minds of Winter combines one contemporary narrative in the North West Territories where Fay, a young woman seeking answers about her grandfather, meets Nelson, who is looking for his missing brother Bert Nilsson, a former geologist turned high school teacher. Nelson looks so much like Bert that local police think he is Bert, which is convenient since he is driving Bert’s car and staying at Bert’s apartment while he waits for Bert to show up. There are many odd coincidences and connections between Nelson and Fay, or more accurately between Bert’s research and Fay. There is a bit of mystery and they seek some answers.

Fay and Nelson’s story is broken up by historical narratives, news clippings, reports, and histories that take us from a ball on the decks of the Terror and Erebus four years before they disappeared with Sir John Franklin in the futile search for the Northwest Passage in 1845 through polar adventures at the North and the South Poles and all sorts of mysteries surrounded a ubiquitous chronometer that goes from the Franklin expedition to the Scott expedition in Antarctica to Siberia and the Yukon and even English parlors.

There is a lot of mysterious goings on. Cecil Meares, the intrepid explorer and soldier, is all over the place. There’s a mysterious trapper whose identity is clearly falsified and whose death was falsified as well. It’s all exciting in the immediate chapters, but woven together, too much is unexplained and unresolved. It falls apart. What is Room 38? Who was that trapper? Who is buried in that pass? What’s with the island and the house in the valley? How are they visible, invisible?

I am an enthusiast for Antarctic and Arctic exploration stories. I have read Apsley Cherry-Girard’s The Worst Journey in the World and Ernest Shackleton’s South and dozens of other memoirs and histories of polar exploration, including several on the Franklin expedition. It made me eager to read Minds of Winter. I enjoyed every bit of the separate narratives independently and could happily read those snippets expanded into a novel, but for me, this book felt incomplete. There was no resolution, unless leaving everyone in the dark is a resolution.

I also thought O’Loughlin was a bit profligate with death. Of course, a novel that centers on the disappearance and death of explorers in the Antarctic and the Arctic and the tragic loss of the 133 men of the Erebus and Terror is going to have many deaths. But there are unnecessary deaths, too. In an almost supernatural way, throughout its history, anyone who looks too closely at this mystery seems to disappear, wander into the ice, or die. There’s a tin-foil hat kind of omnipotence at work and it seems so unlikely they would be concerned with hapless amateur investigators wandering around semi-aimlessly in the North West Territories.

Just this last fall, in September 2016, the Terror was found. The Erebus was found only two years ago. These mysteries of the past are still current, still relevant, and O’Loughlin brings considerable talent and imagination to the work. It’s well written, I felt in the moment while reading. During long treks on the ice, I found myself wrapping a blanket around my shoulder to counter the chill. That is how effectively he writes. It’s almost like O’laughlin is someone who can knit an intricately patterned sweater, but does not know how to cast off at the end, so it all unravels.

But then, people mourn the loss of mystery, too, like the bartender complaining to Fay and Nelson about the discovery of the Erebus taking away one more mystery. Perhaps O'laughlin wants his novel to be like Franklin, lost in the arctic expanse, mysterious and never to be found.

Minds of Winter will be published March 7th. I received an e-galley in advance from the publisher through NetGalley.


★★★
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpres...

[The Bibliofool · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ed O'Loughlin's Minds of Winter is epic, spanning centuries and the north and south poles, and it's part of the problem I had with the novel. The story is both a mystery and a history lesson, loosely following two strangers who struggle to find common ground as they untangle an enigma of missing explorers, possible family connections, cryptic artifacts, and many, many other loose ends. In between their sleuthing, O'Loughlin introduces the reader to a host of characters, from famous Arctic and Antarctic explorers to native peoples of the Arctic Circle. Some just pop up for a chapter, some for merely a page or two. It's hard to keep track of the scores of intertwining narratives here and it makes for a frustrating read, especially when the history lessons dispersed throughout the book that render vivid, exhaustively researched tellings of famous northern and southern expeditions are so rich. O'Loughlin must be commended for the scope of the story and he assuredly knows the real life tales of the explorers who appear like ghosts throughout the novel, but the story goes nowhere nearly down to the last page.

[Barb in Maryland · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars for this engrossing tale of Arctic obsession.
The story weaves back and forth between a modern setting and various historical vignettes. The modern features 'Nelson', who has come to far northern Canada in response to a strange note from his brother Bert, only to find that Bert has mysteriously vanished. Fay Morgan, an Englishwoman with Canadian ties, has come to the north in search of clues to the life her grandfather Hugh Morgan led. They meet by chance and fall in together.
The historical features many of the major figures in 19th and early 20th century Arctic exploration. We encounter them chronologically, through the papers Nelson and Fay find in Bert's files. While the parts featuring our modern couple seem firmly grounded in the 'real' world, some of the historical tales have an eerie, almost other-wordly, vibe to them.
There are stories of derring-do, bitter loss, bizarre encounters, at least one mysterious death, and perhaps a major conspiracy.
I was glued to the page, my brain trying to figure out how all the bits fit together. The author's prose varies to suit the style of each storyteller, admirably so. Over all this, I could feel the cold, sense the desolation and believe in the remoteness of the Arctic.

I will definitely be re-reading this, as I am sure I missed things on the first reading.

Hint: each section starts with a map that features the area mentioned in that section. Stick a bookmark at the map--I found myself flipping back to each map numerous times.

Note: I was familiar with only a few of the explorers; this did not hamper my enjoyment in the least. I suspect other readers, with a wider base of knowledge, will be interested in seeing how the author treated these historic figures.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Multiple stories, multiple time periods, multiple characters, multiple voices, multiple threads – this is not a book for the faint-hearted. It’s a complex narrative that demands much concentration to keep all the threads connected, not least because it skips backwards and forwards in time with alarming regularity. It’s a fictionalised account of various polar explorations and adventures interleaved with a contemporary story, all centred around the “Arnold 294” chronometer used by Sir John Franklin and which is mysteriously discovered 150 years later. On occasion the links between the various threads seemed a bit tenuous, and it was easy to feel overwhelmed by all the research that had obviously gone into the plotting – and I still feel confused about what certain characters were actually doing. But….overall I found the novel a really immersive experience, and it just about worked for me. Being able to read it more or less in one go helped. I think that not doing so would make it even harder to keep track of everyone and every storyline. I really enjoyed it, in spite of the complexity, possibly in fact because of it, and I found reading it a really rewarding experience.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A globe was round and you couldn’t fall off it. But a map was a map, a metaphor, full of judgements and choices and victories and regrets; a map was built on hacks heuristics and mistakes and lies, cracks through which you might, just maybe, someday slip away”. In one word: extraordinary. Ed O’Loughlin’s Minds of Winter is unlike any book I’ve read and brilliant in its execution. It is lengthy and meaty and requires time for you as reader to get the gist of where he’s going with this story. But, when you do, if you’ve been patient, you will be swept away with how truly excellent this novel is. Interspersing interesting and well-researched history with a mystery to be solved that is purely fictional, O’Loughlin takes you into the world of polar exploration and sweeps you away to a time when there was still unknown parts of the world that have never been seen, catalogued or mapped and introduces you to those intrepid and often foolhardy explorers who would venture into these dangerous worlds of discovery, frequently at their peril. The breadth of detail and insight included in these historical vignettes shared throughout the story is awe-inspiring and compellingly interesting. Not only that, but these story arcs build towards a solution of how a piece of navigational equipment (a chronometer) lost in the failed Franklin Expedition of 1848 appears over one hundred years later at an auction in Europe in mint condition now constructed into a carriage clock. In the modern day, Fay Morgan from the UK appears in Inuvik, Northwest Territories to look into the murky history of her Canadian grandfather and then inadvertently hooks up with a drifter who��s arrived in this remote northern town at the same time looking for his missing older brother. Fay’s search for understanding of her grandfather’s life and Nelson’s introduction to the research his PhD-trained brother was working on prior to his disappearance, slowly and eloquently tie together around the mystery of the magically reappearing chronometer leading these two on a journey that, instead of bringing them closure, leaves them with unwelcome insights and understanding of who they are and where they may have come from. Outlined in the quote above and like the many explorers who just one day disappear into the frozen unknown through the years: Franklin, Crozier, Oates, Amundsen, Fay and Nelson’s lives in modern day are equally tenuous as they are both adrift without anchors or connections; cracks that could easily enable them to “slip away” some day, from the reality of their own empty lives; unnoticed, unmissed and quickly forgotten. Minds of Winter was a well-deserved finalist for the 2017 Giller prize and will definitely be shelved on my “Most Memorable Reads” shelf. I highly recommend it.

[Doug Lewars · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

This book, I believe, falls into the genre of Mystery but it could also be classified as Historical Fiction and there is even a hint of science fiction. It is not an easy read. It was on the shortlist for a 2017 Giller Award and, having read both the shortlisted books and the eventual winner - Bellevue Square - I've come to the conclusion that if one wants to win a Giller Award, a prerequisite for doing so is to stop writing at some point instead of supplying an ending.

If you like character development then don't bother with this book. There isn't any. There are, however, a multitude of characters. It reminded me a bit of a relay. Characters would appear, make their contribution to the story, and then pass the baton to the next set. Seldom would they reappear and when they did they were generally in secondary roles. The exception is the two protagonists whose investigation in the present, interleaves all the stories from the past. They are constant throughout the book - really constant - they're flat and they don't improve much.

Much of the setting is in the high arctic or subarctic. These are areas of the world that are difficult for most people to imagine and I have to give Mr. O'Loughlin credit for making them come to life within the pages of this book.

It is the mystery that kept me reading. Part of the mystery is that the mystery itself is mysterious. This isn't a whodunit with a detective trying to find a murderer. In this book one mystery is that a chronometer from the Franklin expedition mysteriously winds up back in England when it should have been at the bottom of the ocean; but that's minor. Of more interest is that there's something unexplained going on in Canada's far north. Unfortunately it never does get explained. It would appear that the author's premise is that rationality varies inversely with distance from civilization. Mixed in among the rest, is the hint of various governments' secret services sneaking around for purposes that remain unknown. Fingers may be pointed at whatever secret service is run by the British admiralty. Or possibly it isn't a government agency but some sort of freelance group. Everything is vague and remains vague throughout the book.

If you read this, be prepared to just go along for the ride. You won't be able to follow most of the characters with the exception of the the protagonists; but the story, such as it is, unfolds in an interesting manner. It would be nice if the author had added an ending but he didn't so I guess the reader is expected so supply his or her own. The good news is that the modern obligatory sex scene is minuscule - little more than waking up the following morning so it's not necessary to wade through a morass of heaving passion.

This author has a nice flair for description and creates settings that are readily imaginable. There isn't much humor in the book but there is a bit. My favorite quote is, "One of the guys from the airstrip said they had to call the bear warden today to come deal with a bear. When he showed
up all he had with him was a single-shot twenty-two. So now there's a bear out there with a really sore ass and a deep sense of grievance."

For lovers of mystery, I think I can recommend Minds of Winter with the proviso that you won't get a solution for any of the mysteries that are presented. You'll have to provide your own.

[Candace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had so much potential and started off so interesting! In the Prologue, there is a mysterious chronometer that arrives in London from the ship that was lost. Then we begin story lines in the North West Territories in Canada and also the beginning of a ball on a ship in 1841 before an expedition to the Arctic. So much intrigue.

The NW Territories story line that is more current has two characters trying to figure out the connection to this lost expedition to both of their family members.

Then there is the second story line that traverses through time with the chronometer.

The writing is filled with historical facts and characters. This must have taken forever to research and write. I just wish that I could have enjoyed the chronometer story line more. It was almost too dense, and because many of the players were in these segmented timelines, I wasn't able to gain much of an emotional attachment to anyone of them. Let alone keep them all straight! I was always waiting to get back to the more current storyline as I could follow it much more.

It was interesting the part how O'Loughlin pulled Jack London in, but then I was frustrated with the story within the past storyline. How deep can we go?!

I felt there was a very unexpected ending that I was pleased to be shocked with. I think that if someone read this that is more familiar with North West Canada they might enjoy it more. There is much detail about particular islands.

I really think that Roman Clodia sums up the explanation of the book best in her review.

[E.F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I excitedly requested Ed O’Loughlin’s Minds of Winter from NetGalley when I saw the Franklin Expedition’s prominent place in the blurb:

In a journey shrouded in mystery and intrigue, Sir John Franklin’s 1895 campaign in search of the Northwest Passage ended in tragedy. All 129 men were lost to the ice, and nothing from the expedition was retrieved, including two rare and valuable Greenwich chronometers. When one of the chronometers appears a century and a half later in London, in pristine condition and crudely disguised as a Victorian carriage clock, new questions arise about what really happened on that expedition—and the fates of the men involved.

There are many new questions, but few answers. Most chapters are flashbacks to historical events, but two modern-day characters, Nelson and Fay, surface regularly to frame the historical anecdotes without quite tying them together. The best parts of Minds of Winter are the accounts of various expeditions sent to search for the Franklin Expedition and the fabled Northern Passage.

The strongest chapters are those most rooted in history, but some passages are more effective than others. The first occurs in 1841 as Sir John Franklin’s niece, Sophia, opens a dance. While she spends time with Captains Ross and Crozier (the eventual captain of the H.M.S. Terror), there’s more detail in her character than almost any other in the novel. Her passage closely follows her inner turmoil and excitement. Unlike other sections that stuff in years of biographical details and character development, Sophia’s chapter describes a single night. It’s a beautiful and immersive scene that allows the reader to see these men from an outsider’s perspective.

Other characters and voices are captured well too, but the scene frequently changes just as their story reaches its climax or introduces an intriguing detail. Minds of Winter is ambitious; many chapters raise the curtain on a new set of characters and the reader must trust that these characters are relevant to the overall narrative. Often, the connections are tenuous and slow to appear amidst an onslaught of background information and context. It was tough seeing one story end just as I became acquainted with its style and peripheral characters, only to be introduced to another group from another decade. Seeds of a conspiracy are planted, but come to nothing. It’s true that open endings can spur a fun debate, but this ending is too open for my taste.

Some people will really enjoy this book and there’s an easy way to ensure you will too: Do research before reading or keep a search engine up. Familiarize yourself with the names of the Franklin Expedition and some of the key players in the later search parties up through Amundsen’s flight over the North Pole. If you know the names of key characters, the blend of fact/fiction is impressive. More than anything, this dictated my enjoyment of a chapter: familiar names elicited curiosity and excitement while unfamiliar names added to the quagmire of places, dates, and names—so many names!—of people, cities, ships, waterways, etc. Being able to appreciate the blend of fact and fiction is key to appreciating this book.

Overall: 3.8 The mechanics and writing are sound, but the story meanders in ways I found difficult to follow. The Nelson/Fay chapters fall flat when surrounded by the adventures of more dynamic, adventuresome people.

NB: This book was provided for review by the publisher, Quercus (via NetGalley)

https://www.efsunland.com

[Cindy H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for offering me an ARC of Minds of Winter for review.
I must admit, I'm fully dealing with a summer mind at the moment. Winter had passed, the sun is shining and my attention span has dwindled. This book is an epic; spanning decades & continents featuring dozens of characters. I found much of this book disjointed and reading it as an EBook, it was difficult for me to look back to other passages for clarification and memory jarring.
I'm sure had I read this in print form, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
I commend the author for his vast amount of research and knowledge. I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading this book. I think in this instance it was more a reader's ineptitude than an author's.

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The breadth of the history and learning in this book is really impressive but its the simple contemporary story that winds through it all that moved me the most. The connections are so well worked out and turned, the atmosphere and setting of it all is so moody and palpable. I really loved it and will be keen to check out more from him.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my all time favourite books. It's beautiful and mysterious in many different ways. It travels across space and time and lets you get to know some of the most famous explorers and characters from Canada's history and beyond. It's got Cloud Atlas vibes. Anyone who has a love or fascination with the arctic will love it. I love it.