Icebreaker: A Voyage Far North

by Horatio Clare

'We are celebrating a hundred years since independence this year: how would you like to travel on a government icebreaker?'

A message from the Finnish embassy launches Horatio Clare on a voyage around an extraordinary country and an unearthly place, the frozen Bay of Bothnia, just short of the Arctic circle. Travelling with the crew of Icebreaker Otso, Horatio, whose last adventure saw him embedded on Maersk container vessels for the bestseller Down to the Sea in Ships, discovers stories of Finland, of her mariners and of ice.

Finland is an enigmatic place, famous for its educational miracle, healthcare and gender equality – as well as Nokia, Angry Birds, saunas, questionable cuisine and deep taciturnity. Aboard Otso Horatio gets to know the men who make up her crew, and explores Finland’s history and character. Surrounded by the extraordinary colours and conditions of a frozen sea, he also comes to understand something of the complexity and fragile beauty of ice, a near-miraculous substance which cools the planet, gives the stars their twinkle and which may hold all our futures in its crystals.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Maritime, Memoir

224 pages, Hardcover

Published November 9, 2017

About the author

Horatio Clare (b. 1973) is a writer, radio producer and journalist. Born in London, he and his brother Alexander grew up on a hill farm in the Black Mountains of south Wales. Clare describes the experience in his first book Running for the Hills (John Murray 2006) in which he sets out to trace the course and causes of his parents divorce, and recalls the eccentric, romantic and often harsh conditions of his childhood. The book was widely and favourably reviewed in the UK, where it became a bestseller, as in the US.

Running for the Hills was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Horatio has written about Ethiopia, Namibia and Morocco, and now divides his time between South Wales, Lancashire and London. He was awarded a Somerset Maugham Award for the writing of A Single Swallow (Chatto and Windus, 2009).

Reviews

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.5/5 stars.

When Finland celebrated their 100th year of independence they did so in a way that enabled the whole world to share in a slice of their culture, customs, and the overall wonder of their country. This way was to enlist renowned author, Horatio Clare, and install him on an icebreaking ship for eight-weeks. During this time he learned about the job he was witnessing, those who spent most of their lives aboard the solid seas, and the land they returned to when their shifts were done.

This book had a fascinating premise but it wasn't until reading Clare's sublime The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal and hearing him speak about both books in Hay Festival that I was truly excited to read it.

I was already accustomed to Clare's skill with nature. In the aforementioned book he wove words into gardens; perfectly placed sentences structured the stalks and his lyrical prose bloomed into heady, drooping petals ripe for the reader's eager minds to pluck. Here, he worked his magic upon the black glass of ice. The ship he boarded churned a hollow path through the frozen seas and he brought the reader along to witness it.

Whilst I was anticipating this brilliance I was not anticipating to bond with the crew he travelled with or learn quite so much about the Finnish way of life. They were few who stood for many, and yet their personalities were given their own chance to shine through as well as Clare using them to highlight their... well, their Finnishness.

This whole book read like the ice field it was set upon - raw and sublime, irresistible beauty, cracked through with sparks of humour and set below the vast blue-black cavern of barely separated endless darkness and despondency, all settling itself upon a churning emotional undercurrent that threatened to sweep me away.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

The 2 star rating is entirely my fault. Why did I think a book about travel on an icebreaker would be interesting? I suppose I thought there would be more to it than that but there isn’t really. One or two diversions into Finnish history isn’t enough to hold my interest through Boys’ Own derring-do on board a ship. Hats off to the crews for doing invaluable, often life-saving work but a book about it just isn’t for me.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes it is who you know, rather than what you know, that opens doors and opportunities and Clare had a friend had a contact in the Finnish Embassy. A message came via this link asking:

We are celebrating a hundred years since independence this year: how would you like to travel on a government icebreaker?

As the sea is a natural draw for Clare; his Down to the Sea in Ships travelling with the modern container ships was a quality piece of travel writing about a system that most people are blissfully unaware of, he jumped at the opportunity and booked his flight.

Most people know Finland from the Nokia 3310 phones that almost everyone used to own, the completely mad rally drivers and the not so talkative F1 star, Kimi Räikkönen. The Finnish are a fiercely independent nation celebrating 100 years of independence from Russia who have a liberated modern life. Part of their character is sisu, it is this combination of grit and determination that helped them to fight off the Soviet invasion in World War II. Their spirit has driven them politically too, they were one of the earliest countries to allow women to vote, have a first class health system and are experimenting with the universal basic income for their population.

As much as Clare is here to gain a little insight into the national character of the Finn's he is really here for the ice. During the long dark winters there, the Bay of Bothnia is frozen and the Otso, the ship he has been invited to join, assist cargo vessels getting through the sea ice to and from the port. The 99-meter long Otso is one of the most sophisticated icebreakers around. The specialist paint and stainless steel hull combined with air bubbling system, means it almost never gets stuck, it has almost 360-degree vision from the bridge and the highly trained crew can manoeuvre this powerful 9000-tonne ship to within feet of another to break them out of the ice. There are even two saunas on board for the officers and crew.

This world of ice in the Arctic Ocean may not be around forever, given how the world is warming in the far north. As with all his other books, it is full of nuanced observation and is a delight to read. He writes of smelling the sharpness of the ice, the clarity of the light as it reflects and sparkles in the weak sun and you can imagine the noise as the frozen sea succumbs to the power of the ship. If this had one fault, it was too short, but then Clare only had ten days travelling and he relishes every moment with the crew in this white world.

[Harry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. The cover was the best thing... as unfortunately the book does not do justice to the subject matter. Clare’s style just isn’t suited to this. At times he tries to elevate his writing with almost philosophical reflection, but doesn’t succeed. However, I thought his technical descriptions were fairly good for the general reader. As a seafarer myself, I just couldn’t help thinking he was a bit arrogant about the icebreaker and it’s hard-working crew. At one point he even writes that a life at sea isn’t hard... Which is absolute rubbish coming from his obscured view as a tourist aboard... That aside, I think the book did succeed in one area the Finnish authorities wanted; it increased my knowledge of Finland. All said, there are much better maritime stories out there. I’d give this one a miss unless you are desperately keen to fork out for a book that was so small in length, the publisher had to use massive spacing just to justify it as a hardback!

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If someone asks you for a recommendation of a book about Finland- this one it it!
Loved learning about icebreakers, and the ice formation and also about Finnish history.

[Stuart Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written, the book is a fascinating account of one voyage (effectively a work-shift) of an icebreaker (Otso) and her crew. Clare’s liking and respect for the men and women with whom he sails shine through, and you find yourself sharing his sympathy for the personalities - particularly Tem, the captain. The sinister undercurrent to the book is the environmental impact of humanity on the planet: global warming will result in the loss of the albedo, which will in turn will accelerate the heating of the planet, releasing plumes of lethal methane currently locked in the deep ice. In telling the story of ten days in the life of the Otso, Clare expertly guides you through Finnish history, and present society, as well as presenting to you the stark reality of our inexorable march towards extinction.

[Wif Stenger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some lovely writing, some cliches and quite a few misspelled Finnish names that would have been simple to fix...

[kallis.ema · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was quite excited to read this book and Horatio Clare did not disappoint me. While I enjoyed 'Down to the sea in ships' a bit more, since it covers a wider variety of topics, I still liked 'Icebreaker'. It was interesting to read about the lives of Finnish men on these ships and on Finland itself. Horatio Clare has a beautiful way of describing his surrounding and capturing little moments.

'When we get to consolidated ice, the heavy stuff? That can double or triple fuel consumption. We'll get through a hundred tonnes of fuel in twenty-four hours. When you think an average family house in Finland might need one and a half tonnes for a whole year... You can just leave your car running if you're icebreaking.'

'How can you hope to share a silence if one of you is eavesdropping on the other?'

'Scientists and newspapers will conclude that the influence of human activities on the climate system has become more and more evident - as if it had not been evident for forty years, as if there were still a reasonable doubt, as if by repeating the obvious with more and more evidence, deniers and the indifferent will be brought to a place of sudden realisation, after which humanity will work as one to make planet-saving alterations to our behaviour.'

'What is the difference between a Finnish extrovert and a Finnish introvert?' runs a local joke. 'The extrovert stares at your shoes when you talk to him.'

'Paasilinna explores the idea that hell is not the existence of other people, rather it is self-subjection to their opinion. (....) Perhaps Finnish taciturnity is a reaction to the torment of self-definition through the opinions of others: if I say nothing you have less by which to judge me, and I have less from which to suffer.

'Sea ice can be infinitely studied, tracked and measured, hymned and wondered at; sea ice can be hacked and broken, but sea ice cannot be made by us and cannot be controlled.'

'While standing on a mountain top grants you the vista of a scoop of space, from valley bottom to cloud level and beyond, standing on the sea under clear air erases depth and height. The sky begins in the snow under your boots. You are simultaneously huge and as tiny as a fleck.'

[Chris Aylott · Rating 4 out of 5]

British writer spends a few weeks on a Finnish icebreaker keeping the sea lanes open in the Bay of Bothnia. The first couple of chapters on land are a little shaky, as Clare never really gets beyond the stereotypes of Finnish culture. Once he settles down on board, though, he has a chance to closely observe the crew and their world. He has sharp senses for detail, voice, and character, and I found it easy to see and hear through him. An excellent look at life here in the north and how it is being affected by changes around the world.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cold-lover in me wanted to enjoy this book; the degreed meteorologist could not.

Minor offenses include a stunning lack of detail on the ice environment for a book titled "Icebreaker." Here's a short list of things I had to use Google to figure out: what the icebreaker ship looked like, what the ice looked like, what the typical coverage of the ice would be and its proximity to land, how far they were from the arctic circle, the time of year they were at sea, approximate sun angle at the latitudes where the author was (lots of description of the sun in the sky, but how high?) where the ship typically operates, port city or location the author departed from (I couldn't tell how much time he spent in Helsinki or Oulu, and that wasn't where they returned to port... why? And how long were they at sea? Ugh.)
I was able to glean, from searching the website of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, that as of this writing in January 2018, solid ice extends maybe 5-10 miles from land along the northern coasts of the Bay of Bothnia and this is near-normal. The center of the bay remains ice free (though presumably a bit brisk). So I made the assumption that our band of merry icebreakers were probably operating very near the coast, with the main goal of getting ships in and out of port. Somewhere around pg. 170, Clare casually mentions that in his time on the boat (still of indeterminate length), he never lost sight of land. This confirmed my suspicion, but gosh, wouldn't that have been an interesting detail to mention earlier?

So Mr. Clare is a journalist, not an engineer, and wants to capture the mood of the ice and of Finland. Fair enough. Unfortunately he is so paralyzed by climate anxiety, the poor guy can barely sleep at night. He is plagued by dreamscapes of the near future, where humanity can no longer interact with their environment. He sees the perfect metaphor of our impending climate doom reflected in a collision between ships, where by the time the pilot determines an action to take, it is too late to prevent catastrophe. He is mortified to learn that one of the first mates drives a Chevy Silverado around his Finnish homestead because its convenient for moving firewood. The singular Silverado really bothers him (how could a progressive Finn want to behave like a Trump-loving American?!) even as he fawns over his host icebreaker and the global shipping industry it supports... which if measured by emissions, would be the 7th most polluting country on the planet.
Where I was hoping for a nuanced discussion of ice and its conditions, I found myself yet again watching the extreme politicization of my field by an outsider. Science is not "fact" or "real." Science is belief... endless debate, with transparent discussion of assumptions, methodology, data interpretation, and uncertainty. Climate science should not be treated any differently, and that applies to both the leftist alarmists and the rightist hoaxers. It's absurd and misleading trying to boil down the truly mind-boggling complexities of our atmosphere, climate, and environment to sexy catchphrases intended for silencing opponents... but you know, it sure does sell journalism!

I'd like to end on a positive note, so here is a joke from pg. 111: What is the difference between a Finnsh extrovert and a Finnish introvert? The extrovert stares at YOUR shoes when you talk to him."
Ha ha! My kind of place.

[Rosario · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Icebreaker, Clare jumps at the chance to spend some time on a working Finnish icebreaker. Not while it's on shore for the summer, but right in the winter, as it trundles along freeing stuck ships and helping get them to where they need to go.

To an extent, this suffers from some of the same problems as Sixty Degrees North. I wanted to know about icebreakers, but even though pretty much the entire book takes place on an icebreaker, there wasn't enough about icebreakers! I read the whole thing and I don't feel I completely understand how the whole system works.

Plus, the book felt a little bit boring. There are pages and pages of extremely non-scintillating conversation with members of the crew. They all seemed like a nice bunch, but bless them, not great conversationalists. Underwhelming.

MY GRADE: A C+.

[Anna Iltnere (Sea Library) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cosmic dust is covered in ice and gives stars their twinkle. Sea ice covers the polar saltwater and works as an Earth conditioner. Have you ever wondered, how amazing this solid form of water is? Ice has many different states and as much names. Northern seafarers now them well.

If interstellar ice may expand your awareness of space, then permafrost will blow up your sense of time. Deep inside the Arctic seabed is permafrost from the last ice age. It is many thousand years old and encapsulates huge methane plumes. When the ice will melt, the gas will erupt. Methane is twenty-three times more effective in raising global temperature than carbon dioxide, writes Horatio Clare quoting Peter Wadhams, one of the world’s leading authorities on sea ice.

This book will cool down your illusions of global warming and melt your heart.

10 days in a row the Welsh-British writer Horatio Clare spends on a Finnish icebreaker Otso, who works in the Bay of Bothnia, helping ships that are stuck in ice. Horatio loves ships. When Finnish embassy invites him to step on board, he doesn’t hesitate and starts a freezing voyage that results in a wonderful book “Icebreaker: A Voyage Far North”.

The book isn’t just about the ice and the icebreaker. It’s also about Finland. On 2017, when the book came out, Finland celebrated 100 years of independence. Between the paragraphs about experience on Otso, Horatio Clare tells stories of Finnish silence and many different kinds of it. Stories of fights for freedom and of Finnish women, who were first women in the world to be able both to vote and to run for office (since 1906).

Author writes about smart building blocks of national welfare and of educational system that you can truly envy. He also tells about high suicide rates in Finland, about alcoholism and loneliness in the Internet age. There is also the sad story of Estonia catastrophe in 1994, that I remember well (a family friend of mine overslept and the ship left without him, sweet dreams saved his life) and of the amazing national epic “Kalevala”.

Nevertheless the main character is ice. During his voyage, Horatio Clare starts to see it as a being. Beautiful and endangered being.

I read “Icebreaker” in just a few sittings. Partly because the author writes so well, the sentences stick to each other like lovely crystals, and partly because I wanted to get off that ship as soon as possible. “Ships magnify and transfer moods and there is no way off them.” This is an environment where you are left face to face with your inner ghosts and deepest fears. As strongly as Horatio Clare paints the surreal and dreamlike scenery outside Otso, he also manages to give you a taste of the claustrophobic and melancholic nightmares that hide in the corners of cabins.

Life on a ship is not for everyone. “This is why you make Tem the captain, for his miraculous ability to synthesize and broadcast well-being.”

Yet as soon as I’ve left Otso and closed the book, I already want to go back. There, where the frozen sea and colors on horizon make you freeze in awe. When the author steps on ice in the middle of the sea for the first time in his life, he is euphoric. The depth and height is erased.

“The sky begins in the snow under your boots.”

[Jeff Foot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have heard more than read Horatio Clare, having listened to a podcast as he traced Bach's walk across Germany and as he climbed the four highest peaks in the UK a couple of years ago, and having read The Light In The Dark during the second Covid lockdown. I recently caught a clip of him talking about Icebreaker when he appeared at a book festival in Cornwall and his brief reading from it made me think I might like it, even though I'm not given to reading travel books.
I was not wrong and this was not what I expected from a travel book.
There is an intriguing back story to his being invited to join the crew of an icebreaker in northern Finland but what keep me reading was a lovely mix of humour, self-deprecation, awe (both of the crew's skills but also of nature) interspersed with snippets of history about Finland.
I found this an easy read, by which I mean I enjoyed picking the book up and there was no real effort in "making myself plough on" - the writing flowed well in my view and while it may not be "high literature" or a detailed account of the development of a nation, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it.
I now have another book by the same author - A Single Swallow - to see if he's consistent in his writing style and whether I enjoy that as much.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous book. Clare’s writing is almost like poetry, with vivid imagery and sentences that feel wonderful rolling around your mouth. He is quite the wordsmith. I also learned so much, about Finland and its history and culture, as well as about ships and the environment; naively, I had never really thought about ships needing to break ice so other ships can pass! Having said that, there were definitely moments when I had no idea what Clare was talking about, recording snippets of conversations that I found hard to follow without any additional context, and I still don’t really understand the different types of ice, except that there are, in fact, different kinds of ice. Still, a beautiful book.

Aside:
Here is a sentence that has stuck with me, some words on fearing depression:
“The trick is to see it not as incipient isolation but as a confirmation of solidarity: everyone feels blues and apprehensions; everyone is vulnerable to a tightening of the spirit, whether caused by thought, memory or passing shade.”
Particularly poignant for me, given a history of depression, and more broadly, given that Clare will write Heavy Light only a few years later.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly, I have to admit that this would not have been my first choice of reading material. You see, I'm doing my local library's reading challenge at the moment, and I picked this book up for the 'not my bag' element. I really thought that it wouldn't be 'my bag' at all - but I was pleasantly surprised. I liked the interactions with the sailors, and the little history lessons were really interesting. There was a lot of description though. In a 220 page book, you would think that there would be only so many ways to describe ice: what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it smells like, how it breaks up, how it doesn't break up. You name it, he described it. I have to admit to skim reading a fair bit of this. There's only so much one person can take.
Would I recommend it? I don't know. I don't think I know anyone who is that into ice, to be honest.
I do have a confession to make, though. I'm going to Finland in the summer for a long weekend, so I might just try and check out some of this history for myself!

[Caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great follow-up to dragging through a dense 500 pages is a light 200 page travelogue. Right book, right time. Clarke writes of spending several weeks on an ice breaker on the Gulf of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland. The book examines Finland and its people as well as considers global warming and its effect on the Far North. It handles Finland and the Finns well and probes a group of people I find interesting. I was less interested in the global warming topics, though obviously it's a concern of our times.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book as it describes a situation which seems likely to not be required in the near future. This will be a good record for future generations how ports were kept open in the Gulf of Bothnia. My one complaint is the lack of maps showing the area where the ice breaking took place. The background about the history of Finland was very interesting as it is something that rarely gets mentioned in any news items. It makes us realise just how little we know about our near neighbours.

[Crissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is a nice book but not for me. The title fooled me as I enjoy reading about ships and sea adventures. The writer has what I would call a quiet attitude to his subject in that he clearly enjoys what he is doing but it did not enthuse me. Granted I know a bit more about Finland and a bit more about ice and also how hard the captain works to keep his crew happy but I just felt that the voyage was unexciting.

[Anna Sayburn Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this poetic, funny and moving insight into a world I'd never even considered before. Clare somehow makes an ice-breaking ship in the middle of the Bay of Bothnia seem like the best place to be in the world. His descriptions of the ice, the crew and the boat are evocative. A testament to the quiet satisfaction people get from doing a job they love, and doing it well.

[Vince Summers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this as had seen it recommended somewhere. The story of the voyage, the crew and how the ice was changing and what these icebreakers do was interesting. However it was a bit spoilt by the emotional/spiritual musings of the writer at various points which just seemed self indulgent. Otherwise quite well written.

[Xanthe Waite · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed thoughts on this one. The author goes aboard a Finnish icebreaker for one of their several day long shifts. It started well & I liked the mix of travelogue & more lyrical writing about ice, etc. But it kind of lost it's way, became more confused & nothing really happened of note in the 2nd half so it took me ages to finish it.

[Laura (Reading is a Doing Word) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a delightful read. An interesting insight into Finnish history is married to an intelligent and empathetic observation of life on an ice breaker ship. The men are sensitively portrayed and the role of the ship is described beautifully. A joy to read!

[The Pink Panther · Rating 4 out of 5]

He joins a Finnish icebreaker in the Baltic Sea, which sounds like dangerous work. With very few birds or animals on the ice it also has a feel of loneliness and bleakness, like a nightmare future world.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads should introduce a sixth star solely for the writing of Horatio Clare, I have yet to come across another who writes more beautifully. Fabulous book, off to search for more books on Finland.

[Debbie Willer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely done. Loved the descriptions of the ice and the lovely icebreaker crew. Read this from the extensive book collection on a Viking cruise. Love they even slide a bookmark into my room for my books!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started off really well with loads of fascinating insight into Finland and culture in the far north. Gradually I felt my interest waning though and I felt the book lacked direction a little, making similar points repeatedly.

[Flint · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging read which begins as a travel book and ends as a reflection on life. Well written, quirky and delightful!

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. An eminently readable book, which makes ships and ice and icebreaking seem beautiful, while also discussing the effect of climate change on the work.

[Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautifully written response to a coming New York summer heatwave. Clare is a lovely writer.

[M.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delight to read, beautifully written prose. A melding of agency and reflection, and an insight into Finland's nature, both earthly and characterful.