Icebound : shipwrecked at the edge of the world

Resource Information

The work Icebound : shipwrecked at the edge of the world represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Randwick City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Icebound : shipwrecked at the edge of the world

Title remainder

shipwrecked at the edge of the world

Statement of responsibility

Andrea Pitzer

Creator

• truePitzer, Andrea

Author

• truePitzer, Andrea

Subject

• Large print books
• Northeast Passage -- Discovery and exploration | Dutch
• Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration | Dutch
• Novaia Zemlia (Russia) -- Discovery and exploration | Dutch
• Barentsz, Willem, approximately 1550-1597 -- Travel -- Arctic regions

Genre

• Large print books

Language

eng

Summary

The human story has always been one of perseverance-often against remarkable odds. The most astonishing survival tale of all might be that of 16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, who ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving ice. The men would spend the next year fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing hunger, and endless winter. In Icebound, Andrea Pitzer masterfully combines a gripping tale of survival with a sweeping history of the great Age of Exploration-a time of hope, adventure, and seemingly unlimited geographic frontiers. At the story's center is William Barents, one of the 16th century's greatest navigators whose larger-than-life ambitions and obsessive quest to chart a path through the deepest, most remote regions of the Arctic ended in both tragedy and glory. Journalist Pitzer did extensive research, learning how to use four-hundred-year-old navigation equipment, setting out on three Arctic expeditions to retrace Barents's steps, and visiting replicas of Barents's ship and cabin. "A visceral, thrilling account full of tantalizing surprises" (Andrea Barrett, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal ), Pitzer's reenactment of Barents's ill-fated journey shows us how the human body can function at twenty degrees below, the history of mutiny, the art of celestial navigation, and the intricacies of building shelters. But above all, it gives us a first-hand glimpse into the true nature of human courage

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

910

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps

Index

no index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Target audience

adult