Arctic Traverse
A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range
Arctic Traverse is a captivating memoir about a fifty-eight-day trek across remote arctic terrain in northern Alaska.
During his “990-mile summer,” Michael Engelhard backpacked and floated the length of the Brooks Range, from the Yukon border to the Bering Sea. There were few established trails; Engelhard often followed caribou tracks, “straightforward” paths of least resistance. His treks across the boggy, tussocky Wind River country were arduous; he was soaked by rain and buffeted by wind. Other days were glorious, including an evening along the Kongakut River, when the “oblique light” etched “copperplate mountains” and the sun fired through the clouds like “spokes of a heavenly wheel marching across velvet slopes.” And he paddled an inflatable canoe down the Noatak River to the coast.
Engelhard’s daily accounts are stirring with their descriptions of profound solitude, vast spaces, and endless daylight. There are lyrical, often witty memories of grizzlies, arctic terns, ptarmigans, and lichen: after analyzing wolf droppings with care, Engelhard notes that “shit becomes entertainment” in the absence of human culture.
The book is critical of arctic drilling and the Alaska pipeline and calls for the preservation of wilderness as a “moral imperative,” crucial for the well-being of all creatures. Citing the influence of iconic nature writers, Engelhard hopes to make the Brooks Range “my jagged Sand County, my bottomless Walden Pond … my boggy Arches with bears.” In opposition to tourists who are drawn to variety and “conspicuous geographic consumption,” he moved at a “pedestrian pace, one step at a time.” He acquired deep knowledge by climbing the same mountain a hundred times: “Where a tourist wants the glittering skin, a true traveler pines for the bones, the structure that holds all together and determines appearances.”
Arctic Traverse is a poetic memoir about a solitary trek across a remote and majestic wilderness.
Reviewed by
Kristen Rabe
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
