INTO THE ICE

High Arctic sea exploits in expert hands.

Adventure writer Synnott wanted to sail the Northwest Passage across northern Canada and write a book about it. He knew that every attempt in the 19th century had failed, and hundreds died; Roald Amundsen achieved it first, in 1906. Global warming has converted the voyage into a garden-variety extreme adventure à la climbing Mount Everest, although many more have made the climb. Author of The Impossible Climb and The Third Pole, Synnott took the essential first step: raising the money. The magic words “Sir John Franklin” produced it. Sir John sailed into the passage in 1845 with two British ships and 128 men, then vanished. Rescue missions and missions to learn what happened remain a British and North American obsession. More men have died in those excursions than in the original voyage. Franklin’s ships were discovered only a decade ago, and artifacts continue to turn up along with some of the men’s bones, but most of the crew are unaccounted for. The jackpot would be to find Sir John’s grave or details of the expedition’s fate, such as a ship’s log. After recruiting a few friends (and a National Geographic filmmaker) and fitting up his ship, Synnott headed north. He writes, “Could I sail a forty-year-old fiberglass boat from Maine to Alaska—a voyage of some seven thousand miles—and live to tell my own tale?” His account alternates between his voyage and Franklin’s, with a steady stream of follow-up expeditions mixed in. Despite global warning and 21st-century technology, sailing the Northwest Passage remains a brutal experience. Several crew opted to go home, and the ship barely escaped disaster.

Good history and a compelling extreme adventure.