In 1743, a Russian ship was blown off course and trapped in ice off the coast of Svalbard (Spitzbergen), a barren Arctic island. Four sailors went ashore with only two days' supplies. Upon return they found the ship had vanished, apparently crushed and sunk by the ice. The men survived more than six years until another ship blown off course rescued them.
An expert on the literature of adventure, David Roberts was incredulous when he first heard the story. His near-obsessive quest to find the true story culminated with his own journey to the same desolate island. Here, Roberts shares the remarkable story that he discovered, a meditation on the genius of survival against impossible odds.
The tale at the heart of this recording is one of the greatest feats of wilderness survival in history, though it's virtually unknown. In 1743, four Russian walrus hunters were stranded on Svalbard with two days' supplies and stayed alive for more than six years. Beginning with one unreliable source document, Roberts doggedly pursues every thread of the story in libraries, Russian archives, and on Svalbard itself, during a two-week visit. In the process, he becomes the story, padding it with self-absorbed detail but also with fascinating digressions. He's helped along by Robertson Dean's reading, which is well paced and keeps the narrative moving, even when it threatens to get stuck in the ice. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
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