The Magnetic North

by Sara Wheeler

Book by Wheeler, Sara

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Science, Environment, History, Nature, Russia

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Sara Wheeler was brought up in Bristol and studied Classics and Modern Languages at Brasenose College, University of Oxford. After writing about her travels on the Greek island of Euboea and in Chile, she was accepted by the US National Science Foundation as their first female writer-in-residence at the South Pole, and spent seven months in Antarctica.

In her resultant book Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, she mentioned sleeping in the captain’s bunk in Scott's Hut. Whilst in Antarctica she read The Worst Journey in the World, an account of the Terra Nova Expedition, and she later wrote a biography of its author Apsley Cherry-Garrard.

In 1999 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. From 2005 to 2009 she served as Trustee of the London Library.

She was frequently abroad for two years, travelled to Russia, Alaska, Greenland, Canada and North Norway to write her book The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic. A journalist at the Daily Telegraph in the UK called it a "snowstorm of historical, geographical and anthropological facts".

In a 2012 BBC Radio 4 series: To Strive and Seek, she told the personal stories of five various members of the Terra Nova Expedition.

O My America!: Second Acts in a New World records the lives of women who travelled to America in the first half of the 19th Century: Fanny Trollope, Fanny Kemble, Harriet Martineau, Rebecca Burlend, Isabella Bird, and Catherine Hubback, and the author's travels in pursuit of them.

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a history book as much as it is a travelogue. Sara Wheeler travels around the Arctic from Russia to Alaska, to Arctic Canada, to Greenland, Lapland, Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, before finishing on Solovki in the White Sea. These journeys were made over many years and most of the historical research will have been done at home, I imagine. It is an interesting journey that incorporates a call for recognition of the injustices done to indigenous peoples everywhere:

All round the Arctic, I had seen every dominant culture grappling with a legacy of miscarried cultural assimilation and racial marginalisation.

As she travelled, she saw the same injustices and indignities repeated time after time on lands that had been cleared of their indigenous populations, taken over for the purpose of exploiting their mineral and carbon riches or for strategic military use: what had appeared to be a series of individual histories had merged into a universal saga.

She also adds her voice to the growing awareness of the effects of climate change and man’s contribution to it. She and her son join a cruise ship sailing from Murmansk to Franz Josef Land. My partner and I have been longing to go on an Arctic cruise but we struggle with the ethics of travelling there. Wheeler puts how we feel very succinctly when she reflects:

this particular ship of fools illustrated the environmental conundrum of our time. ….we were absorbed in the wonders of the natural world having burned up hydrocarbons by the tonne to reach them.

I learned a great deal from reading this. My interest flagged occasionally, usually when it got too bogged down in descriptions of scientific research, and so it’s not a 5 star read for me but it is close. It irritated me when she described the Scottish explorer, Sir John Ross, as English and the ‘shoe eating’ joke was made a few times too often. Those may seem petty annoyances and, to be fair, they probably are to a certain degree and reflect the book’s editing more than its authorship.

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've maybe read a few too many books in the 'wild, remote, travel writing', so this maybe affected how little/much I was ever going to enjoy this, but in truth this discussion of the author's travels in the Arctic Circle was one of the better books of the aforementioned ilk that I've had the pleasure to read in recent years.

I think Wheeler's merit lies in her slightly difficult to define sense of balance. There's not too much "look at my research, I'm going to tell you *everything* there is to know about this place and *everything* that has ever happened here", there's not too much of the author making themselves the centre of the story, there's not too anecdotal a stance where you start to feel what you are reading could be a bit trivial. The balance was good, and it made for a very complete, very well-described, and at times very enlightening read. It alas did start to feel a bit long during the second half (snowed in? trapped in sea ice a while?) but that's possibly more my interest in the subject waning slightly as opposed to any fault of the author.

[Daren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a bit dry, there were things I liked about this book:
- The chapter setup - a chapter for each country or region.
- The balance of travel and history
- The anecdotes and stories within the story
But there was really only one thing that annoyed me:
- The index to the illustrations - so annoying to have this at the start of the book, so that very time you come across an illustration, you have to return to the index to find out what it is. Why do this? Why not have the text at the foot of the illustration so you can read it as you view?
- Also i agreed with this review about this particular sentence, which I read three times, thinking WHY?, but it was by far the worst example.
Overall, probably a 3.5 - worth the effort, for sure.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive examination of some of the hidden aspects of arctic culture, from Alaska to Canada to Russia to Scandinavia. Ms. Wheeler describes historical lore about polar exploration, the stark beauty of many of the desolate areas she visited, and diverting stories about the people she met along the way. She has a captivating style, and this is a great book for fans of travel narratives.

[Cleokatra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished it! This was an interesting topic, but a real tedious read. The book chronicles the author's tour of various arctic regions. That's cool, but the writing style is really strained and difficult to get through. Some of word choices are just odd. For instance:

"I camped nearby, on a dot of the ice cap, with a team of atmospheric chemists who spend three or four months each summer in temperatures of -22 F measuring halogens, a nonmetal element group, that are coming off the snowpack in parts of one or two per trillion by volume."

The bit I italicized is distractingly awkward and suggests that the author doesn't know what it even means. "Parts per trillion" is a unit, like "miles per hour." You would not express concentration as "parts of one or two per trillion" any more than you would express speed as "miles of sixty per hour." The scientists measured concentrations of one or two parts per trillion (ppt) and I drove my car at sixty miles per hour (mph).

Yes, I know that is nitpicky, but there are dozens of similar instances throughout the book and it does get a bit distracting.

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting in the far east of Siberia, this is a travelogue with historical flashbacks, as Wheeler moves eastward around the Arctic Circle. Next is a chapter on Alaska, then Canada, Greenland, Svarlbard, Lappland, and the White Sea region of European Russia. We start and end with the ghosts of the Soviet gulags. Wheeler clearly loves her subject, both the land and the rugged people who have chosen to live there. She aims to catalog a rapidly changing part of the world that is the apex of climate change.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this very interesting, especially the bits on Greenland and Svalbard, which I would have liked extended to include more on the actual people living there now, and their life.
I enjoyed the history of the places and the explorers too, especially of the gulags, which I had previously associated only with Siberia.
Things I didn’t like:
The first chapter on eastern Russia, in part because the chapter’s map didn’t show most of the places mentioned (all chapters had that problem but this was the worst one);
There being an index of illustrations instead of these being shown below each picture. Very annoying as you had to break off reading to refer back to it;
Roman Abramovich being semi-deified, when now he is looked on as a baddie; this is due to the fifteen years passing since the book was written;
The scientific nature of a lot of the writing; I expected more on people living in places now.
Recommended still for those of us obsessed with the Arctic.

[Alex S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Travels through arctic regions, exploring arctic cultures and the impact of the various nation’s politics on the people and the land.

[Schopflin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Sara Wheeler's writing and approach. Here she combined an evocative sense of place with a nuanced understanding of the often depressing human story. However I was uncomfortable with some of the more cartoonish depictions of the people she meets. To be fair, she does this with a range of people, and to some extent even herself, but it felt very othering ('laugh at the Arctic person') and jolted what I thought was otherwise a sympathetic portrayal of the high northern latitudes.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the author could be wordy at times, I was riveted by these tales of places I hadn't known existed before now and found myself dreaming of the Arctic

[Katherine Liakos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed dipping in and out of this book to periodically get transported to the beautiful snowscapes and communities described within it. I'm a Sara Wheeler fan so I may be biased but I found this a fascinating read and admire the level of detail and research she put into this book. Fifth star is lacking purely because I occasionally found it hard to stay engaged (but probably more due to my attention span and lack of patience for detailed historical facts!).

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been in a pattern of reading books about the Arctic lately, and this is one of the best. Sara Wheeler has spent a great deal of time in both Antarctica and the Arctic. She divides the Arctic region into separate pie-shaped areas, each radiating out from the north pole. She spends time in each area, beginning in eastern Russia. She circles the pole, stopping in Greenland, the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic, the Scandinavian countries, and ends up in western Russia. In each area she spends time with residents and observes culture and customs and how change is occurring. Her descriptions are lively and vivid. Photographs also help depict some of the people and areas with accuracy. The author rides an icebreaker, stays in nomad huts, travels along the Alaskan pipeline, follows reindeer herders; her diet is the diet of the people she is visiting and is very basic. I was interested in the ways in which different groups of people dealt with the very cold climate and how the melting of the permafrost is affecting lives. The encroaching civilization and pollution from south of the Arctic Circle has had quite an impact on their lives; this rapid change is a challenge throughout the area.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this on a day when the heat index was 114 degrees. Perfect weather for reading about frostbite and men who were stranded in subzero temperatures eating their own shoe leather. (Heat index got up to 128 that week! Bring on the icebreakers!) It took me much longer to read this book, though – for several reasons. First of all, it was SO GOOD. I didn’t skim or skip any sections. Also, I read this before bed. So it stayed on my nightstand, and I read it roughly 5 pages at a time. And then had lots of dreams about the Arctic.

Sara Wheeler is one of my favorite authors – her book about Antarctica, Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, is one of my favorite books of all time.

It took me a long time to finish this because I kept rereading sections of it. I really love reading about polar explorers & scientists because I think in another life that could have been me. This book had a much stronger emphasis on climate change than Terra Incognita – either because the Arctic is more populous than the Antarctic, or because the world has focused more attention on the issue in the intervening decade.

I appreciated the way that this was not solely focused on non-native explorers or researchers, but included the people who actually live in the Arctic.

I wish this book was longer. Each of the chapters/sections on different countries/areas could have been its own book.

[K]

I had previously read Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica. I thought that since I really enjoyed the author's book about Antarctica, I would surely enjoy her book about the Arctic Circle. The result? No... not so much.

Terra Incognita had the appeal of covering the topic closest to exploring new worlds without having to go off planet (that, or deep sea exploration). Magnetic North has chapters on multiple countries that have territories within the Arctic Circle and instead of exploration and scientific discovery (as was the case in Terra Incognita), the common thread in Magnetic North is that outsiders came to the Arctic Circle, screwed up the lives of the indigenous people there, are exploiting the Arctic Circle's natural resources (oil) and are also dumping radioactive waste in the Arctic Circle (well, just the Russians). It's depressing.

Another issue I have with Magnetic North is that while it also has historical segments like Terra Incognita, I felt that it was incorporated into Terra Incognita's material more efficiently. Magnetic North had me wondering if an editor ever saw the book before it was published.

Read Terra Incognita; skip The Magnetic North unless you are an Arctic Circle fanatic and/or enjoy reading stories about Arctic expeditions gone bad as characterised by shoe-eating for survival or worse.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more, I love the setup, all the different stories and adventures of Arctic travel. But I found the author's writing very confusing, I couldn't follow along easily. The sentences are really "van de hak op de tak" (Dutch for randomly jumping), and often include names or locations that haven't been mentioned before. I found I had to flip back and forth a lot. I did like the many stories and featured people, but the flow just wasn't suitable for me.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, readable, recommended - I enjoyed her witty prose style, and she covers aspects of the Arctic I haven't seen much about. (Presumably for the reason that getting a visa to visit Chukotka is apparently nigh impossible. Sara Wheeler has quite a reserve of perseverance.)

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week production and very informative it is too - especially the last about Russia and the gulags.

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the end, I felt that The Magnetic North turned out to be a mixed bag: there are highs here in the broad scope that Wheeler gives herself, which in turn allows her to explore fascinating stories of historical and personal interest. Whether we're reading about Swedish explorers and Norwegian resistance fighters, roadtrips along long Alaskan highways, or Wheeler's struggles to reach Chukchi towns or her admiration for the Sami, there's always something interesting happening in this survey. The benefit of the book's organizational strategy – to be broken up in the "sectors" that reach above the lands surrounding the Arctic and into the world's topmost region – is that some differentiation is possible among this sea of anecdotes.

Less positively, I found that stories were often presented with slight effect; although analysis would have been helpful, it didn't feel that enough even narrative threads connected all these stories, the bulk of which occurred over a significantly disorganized personal chronology. This was a problem. Regions began to blur and blend into each other.

I found it fascinating, then, when Wheeler writes in her "Afterword" that "when I reread The Magnetic North now, it seems to me that it is not really about the Arctic at all. The issues I see hovering between the lines apply whatever the latitude: belief, hope, failure, being the best you can. Even the specifically Arctic business of melting glaciers, polar bears, and vanishing sea ice have moved south to join us, as the challenges of a changing climate are part of all our lives now." With this admission, Wheeler puts her finger on exactly what was bothering me about her approach. It is laudatory that she wishes to reconnect peoples of the Arctic with the sense of humanity, broadly conceived, but she also does much to reinforce myths of the Arctic as a "frontier" or "boundary" and a place where people are exotic and different – these efforts conflict with each other. Equally problematic, Wheeler's insistence on undifferentiation produces a sense of fuzzy greyness: while it's true that climate change is part of everyone's life, it is distributed differently, as too are the "issues" and lives that she sees that apply broadly. This is frustrating to me, as it's clear that Wheeler's experiences and stories are so good at providing material to differentiate regions, peoples, and cultures along with the forces that act on them and their own, specific ways of dealing with history, politics, and environmental change. Instead, she reaches too often for liberal platitudes.

Thus, while I forgive Wheeler's insistence that "the earth will regulate itself, as it always has. It is we who are at risk", I disagree with it and wish that in this book she more aggressively pursued the full implications of her following line: "we are more at risk now than the day this book was first published."

Some people at risk more than others. This must be worth remembering.

[Judd Street · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Magnetic North" is part travelogue, part non-fiction exploration of the people and culture of the far north. Set around a circumpolar tour, from Russia around and back again, Wheeler visits a variety of different geographies and cultural groups that call the north home.

For Wheeler, the north is 'magnetic' because of the people. While obsessed in early life with the people-free south, she describes now being drawn to the north precisely because of the complexity and messiness of the people that inhabit it. The culture; the governance; the struggle is what makes the north more appealing to her.

To be frank, I found the book very pleasant but also entirely forgettable. Each of the stories she tells is interesting in its own right, and some are bound to appeal more than others (for me, for example, I was particularly drawn to the various failed airborne expeditions and the attempts at governance). But, there's little in the way of thematic connection or narrative thread running through it all, beyond the fact that these are all places that Wheeler has visited. We don't get much justification of why these places (other than happening to be where Wheeler was able to go for a meeting or with an invitation), nor are they really linked to broader themes or their counterparts from around the north. Sure, ideas like fragility and climate and resilience and local knowledge crop up over and again, but they never really get woven into threads that go deeper than the superficial.

As such, it's a great book if you're sitting by a fire and looking for some tidbits about the north. But, it didn't really being much in the way of a thesis to the table, which limited its ability to lodge in the memory or change my way of seeing the world.

[Ziv · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a hard but very rewarding book to read. The title describes exactly what this book is like except the notes are very detailed and a little hard to read at times mainly due to the highly advanced vocabulary used in the book and the vast amount of local words that you learn in a short amount of time. This book follows the author's travel from the very east of Russia in Chukchi and all around the Arctic Circle until she circles back to Russia in Slavaki. This book taught me so much about the history and people of the Arctic. I learned about local cultures and how those cultures have been impacted by modern times. I also learned about the harshness of the Arctic and how life is shaped by this extreme weather. While it was a very long read for me and quite hard I think it was worth it for people interested in very northern climates and cultures.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hopscotch circumnavigation of the Arctic. Starting in Siberia and ending with the Gulag archipelago, with stops along the way in Alaska, Canada’s far north, Greenland, Lapland, and Svalbard. Bits of history and glimpses of present day life are mixed in with Wheeler’s own travelogue. Reindeer herding, polar exploration, oil exploration, and more are all touched on. A lot of topics are covered in a short span. The one common thread is that it’s all above the Arctic Circle. Unfortunately that thread is stretched a bit thin and the end result is quite a hodgepodge.

[Joel Cuthbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimately more scientific than biographic I must admit the more medium rating comes from what I was hoping vs what I found. If you’re interested in a naturalistic and historic view of various arctic areas this book definitely provides a good summary. It is full of rich detail and fact that might lead to some further reading. I was hoping for a more personal encounter, and my prevalence towards the poetic left me looking more forward to the conclusion than enjoying the sights along the journey.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author explores the various regions of the Arctic with prose that is at times technical and at times lyrical adding personal details and a bit of humor. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by seven countries(Canada,the United States, Greenland, Russia, Norway, Sweden and Finland) and the book explores each of these areas with details about the history, geography, and peoples. There is a good sense of the beauty, starkness and struggles of the region.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and well written. Some of her comments are quite memorable, such as that condition on Svalbard are so difficult that: "Lichen approaches the problem ... by living so long that it can grow so as slowly as it wants. Some patches on the bird cliff were alive before Britain became an island."

[Gillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and reported. This book was heavy on history of all the Arctic nations. It was informative to learn about the experiences of other cultures. While they do share similarities and harsh realities, there are unique elements to their history. Even though this was published in 2011, it’s relevant to today especially with the increasing significance of the Arctic in globalization.

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read on political and environmental issues facing the Arctic. Despite the fascinating material, unfortunately, I had trouble at times staying on track purely because the sentences were so long they'd become tedious.

[Madeleine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in the places, the people, and the themes of this book, so on the whole this was an illuminating read... but there was something off-putting to me about the narrative voice, so I didn't love it, either.

[Gail Richmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed examination of the cultures and people of the various lands of the Arctic Circle provides in depth analysis of history, politics, and science.

[JudithCollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOLLY CAKE HAS ESKIMOS IN IT!,,! I never connected the dots until I was reading this book and eating lolly cake at same time. One could say The Magnetic North is a thinking man’s book.

[Shatterlings · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book, the bits I liked the most were about the Inuit and other indigenous people, I already knew a fair bit about the historical expeditions.