North to the Night: A Spiritual Odyssey in the Arctic

I don't like sailing. I don't like to be cold. I cannot imagine locking myself up in a boat in the dark Arctic for more than about 3 hours. I'm not even a guy! However, I love this book. It has everything. Romance, adventure, humor, intrigue -- and it's TRUE. I read A LOT of books. I know a good story. This is a GREAT one.

All too often people with no experience of the Arctic think it'd be a really nifty idea to have an Arctic adventure. If they're climbers or sailors down south, and equipped with enough high-tech gadgets, they can't foresee any problems. After all, or so the reasoning seems to be, the unsophisticated Inuit have been getting by for centuries, and they didn't even have Gore-Tex. The Arctic hates arrogance and if you insist on bringing arrogance with you, it will kill you. Many adventurers don't live to write about their adventures, although their oft-times lugubrious demise does provide a kind of morbid entertainment for the locals. When Northerners tell you you're a fool it's because you are a fool, and not because they're trying to keep all the fun for themselves. Thus, I had to suspend my judgments of Mr. Simon as not only a fool, but a damned fool. Naiveté not being enough, he topped it off with an unhealthy taste for senseless risk-taking. But perhaps because at heart he wasn't an arrogant fool, the Arctic let him get away with it, so I decided that I could do no less and let his charm beguile me. His story-telling ability is entertaining and his sense of humor rises above the flaws in his common sense. If people did only sensible things then both books and the human spirit would be awfully dull and that has to be admitted when reading any true life adventure book. It's not the readers' job to psychoanalyze the writer, but simply to come along for the ride, and this is a fascinating ride. His spiritual insights develop naturally from his experiences and that makes them more meaningful to me than if he'd set out to look for them, and he succeeded well in making an ultimately uplifting story, despite the bleak situation. Oh, by the way, if this is an appealing book, a lot of credit must go to Halifax the cat, for her part.

In 1994-95 the author, his wife Diana, and their cat named Halifax, sailed to the Arctic in their 36-foot cutter, the Roger Henry, for an arctic experience. They spent a year in Baffin Bay, off the coast of Greenland, completely frozen in during the winter. His excellent writing is full of facts, from the mechanical details of getting making their boat seaworthy, to the history, geography, wildlife and interactions with the Intuit people.Beyond that, though, there was something more. The challenges he faces are stark and realistic and he makes mistakes along the way nearly costing him his life, grappling with internal challenges as well as external ones. Along the way he learns great lessons in life.As I read this book, I was right there with him, feeling his awe at the natural beauty, his thrill of the adventure as well as his loneliness and his fear. I was also constantly impressed by his ingenuity in solving the many constant technical unforeseen problems.I couldn't put the book down, staying up almost all night to just keep reading and reading. I know I'll never take a trip like this. But I thank him for writing the book and giving me the privilege of experiencing just a little bit of this wild and frozen landscape.Highly recommended.

If you are a lover of true adventure stories, this is one for you. It is a well written, in depth story of a remarkable experience in the far arctic north. Very few people have ever experienced such an epic and if they have, few have ever written about it in such vivid terms. This story allows the reader to live it vicariously through Alvah Simons detailed account. It ranks right up there with "Endurance" as one of my favorite tales of survival. A great read!

"North to the Night" would be a great true adventure story even if it were written only as a mere chronology of a fantastic trip to the high arctic. It is more than that. Fortunately, the author saw fit to weave the story of his own intra and interpersonal "voyages" into the narrative itself. For those, unfortunately, who are unable to indentify with his virtual despair on returning to "civiization" after thirteen years of sailing adventures or his obsession to spend a year virtually alone in the high artic, such intimate personal discussions might seem bizarre or self-serving. I found it all fascinating. So, too, with his discussions of the Inuit and the Arctic environment itself. Sensitive, insightful and, like the book as a whole, beautifully written. I have for years been a fan of sailing adventure stories and have read many. This is one of the best. I only hope his next book is not too far off.