Icebound (2021) by Andrea Pitzer

Book Review

Icebound: Shipwrecked at the End of the World (2021)

by Andrea Pitzer

   Here is another example of a book I read simply because I'm trying to balance gender representation.  This is a work of non-fiction, written by a woman, about a subject, artic exploration, that I happen to find fascinating.  I'm generally interested in information about the icy north- certainly I watch many of the survival themed reality shows that populate the Discovery channel constellation of properties.  I think it's also a function of living in Southern California and having limited exposure to cold of any kind.  Pitzer's book is straight forward in recounting different episodes of would-be arctic explorers being stranded.  It's not particularly obvious from the title, but this is a book about being shipwrecked at the northern end of the world, not the southern.

   As you might expect, arctic capital E exploration was undertaken by men (I don't think there is a single woman mentioned in this entire book, which is written by a woman) who liked to keep journals, so there are a wealth of written materials for almost every incident that didn't end with the death of or disappearance of everyone on board.   The main thing a contemporary reader will pick up is the astonishing lack of preparation taken by men trying to sail to the northern edge of the world.  Like, they didn't have special jackets to wear for the cold until well into the 20th century.  Dudes would just head out in their boats, and get frozen in ice for months, unable to do anything about it.

  They also had to deal with tons of polar bears, who come off as not very sympathetic at all.