Last Places: A Journey in the North

This is a really fun trip. Millman decides that he's going to follow the Vikings' original sea route from Norway to the Shetland and Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and eventually Newfoundland and the New World. The subtitle is "A Journey in the North," and that is quite true. For most of us, it is an alien landscape he travels through, eating fried seal nose bits, being propositioned in Iceland, seeing an albino moose, meeting a convicted murderer and enjoying other truly bizarre adventures. Last Places defines the success of the travel genre: you read it and then say, "I have to go there and see for myself."

It is appropriate that Paul Theroux, that globetrotting curmudgeon who gave us THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS and so many other great travel books, should write the introduction for this edition of Millman's LAST PLACES. Millman takes Theroux's world-weariness to higher latitudes -- from Norway across to the Shetlands and Faroes, from there to Iceland and Greenland, and ending up in Labrador. But like Theroux, Millman is wonderfully entertaining. See him witness a Faroese "grindadráp," or mass slaughter of a whole pod of whales, by throngs of gleeful Faroese bearing hooks and knives. See him wake up naked and hung over in a drainage ditch after a night of carousing in Reykjavik. And, most funny of all, see him fend off love-starved Inuit maidens in Nuuk who crave his bod and are not too dainty about their seduction technique. Millman is a bit of a loner, and yet his book sparkles most when he is interacting with the locals. Because this happens hardly at all in the Shetlands, this is the weakest part of his book. LAST PLACES picks up steam as he visits an isolated lighthouse keeper in the West Fjords of Iceland whose library extends to 16,000 volumes. His encounters with Inuits in Greenland are priceless. And the episodes in Labrador show us a land of isolated cranks and eccentrics attempting to protect their way of life from do-gooder government relocation projects. When the thermometer rises, pick up this book to cool you off. It makes for great summer reading. And it is excellent preparation for my upcoming trip to Iceland. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

A truly wonderful book about traveling in the North from Norway to Newfoundland. Millmand sets out to trace the Viking Route across the North Atlantic and along the way comes up with tales magical and gritty at the same time. My favorite is his meeting with the lighthouse keeper who lives with his library of 16,000 books. Millman has the ability to be open to every experience, take it all in, meet all kinds of human beings and make it come alive in words. This one goes on my short shelf to be read over again. A great book for travelers dreaming of a northern journey and for armchair travelers alike.

Lawrence Millman displays a rare ability to capture the shadows seen from the corner of his eye, our walking guide to Iceland's "back roads". He carefully meters the methodical pace of icebound survival with a traveler's fascination for all living things, without need to hold back any random or contrary observations. Many "naturalist travels" books describe places, people, and ancedotal passages, but "Last Places" really does draw the reader to this unlikely destination with its insight and humor.

Living in the warmth of Australia, I knew nothing and cared the same about the frozen north until I bought a copy of this book at a remainder sale. The author traces the Viking trail from the Phaeros through to Newfoundland.He manages to make a night in a tent, buffetted by a Force Nine gale sound like good boy scout fun. There are frequent touches of nicely ironic humour and evocative descriptions of people and places. I have now purchased a number of books on the north and am planning an extended visit in a couple of years.