Rowing to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge

Arctic coasts seem to have been made for Jill Fredston and her husband Doug, and they for the coasts. As if their income career as Alaskan avalanche forecasters wasn't thrill enough, in summers they airfreight his kayak and her scull from this to that spot in the Arctic, and then row - yes, oars - 900 to 1,500 miles down rivers, along coasts, around islands like Svalbard (Spitzbergen on some maps) so remote that rare few have ever examined close-up the majesty of their unpeopled sides. They've been wined, dined, drank to, photographed, endured the insults of hostile locals, even shot at. Their litany of terrifying waveform to tremulous eddy is why this book is such a page-turner. Yet they keep going - 20,000 miles worth thus far.

Arctic seas are not for everyone, nor its shores. Times of paeanic bliss are cleft short by howling ice storms from out of nowhere. The inexpressible shoreside beauty of a hundredfold pod of whales is quite another thing if you are in a nineteen-foot rowing scull surrounded by twenty-foot thrashing flukes. The utter peace of standing before a 680-year-old, six-foot-diameter cedar is, a few hours later, a gut-wrenching horror trying to navigate through sucking tidal gyres like tornadoes of the sea, dozens of yards deep and just as merciless. They routinely assail waves that would give a Hawaiian surfer pause - not eight, not ten, but fifteen to twenty feet, whose tops are being truncated to spume by the wind. The Perfect Storm without a motor. The white shape afar in the midst of a skyscape of blue and worldscape of white is just another piece of ice till it rises to ten feet, has claws, and is charging at you, roaring, roaring. It is hard to believe that two 5" by 8" pages sprawled across your lap can evoke the same gut-wrenching fear as a Hollywood special-effects epic, but about a quarter of this book does just that. Perhaps they are so fearless because they are so well conditioned. Their resting pulse rate of 37 (versus 60 to 72 for most people) surely has something to do with their icy unintimidability.

Why would anyone in reasonable possession of their wits opt for this as a lifestyle? It's certainly not for merit-badge product endorsements. They are a very private couple, even humble when around people. Not so around sea, wind, ice, and cliffs. Ms. Fredston articulates her philosophy at the outset:

"In the process of journeying, we seem to have become the journey, blurring the boundaries between the physical landscape outside of ourselves and the spiritual landscape within. Once, during a long crossing in Labrador, we found ourselves in fog so thick it was impossible to see even the ends of our boats. Unable to distinguish gray water from gray air, I felt vertigo grab hold of my equilibrium, and the world began to spin. I needed a reference point - the sound of Doug's voice or the catch of my blades as they entered the water - to know what was right side up. Rounding thousands of miles of ragged shoreline together, driven by the joys and fears of not knowing what lies around the next bend, has helped us find an interior compass."
A little later, using images reminiscent of T.W, Eliot's poem "The Dry Salvages," she becomes that which she experiences:

"By the time I reached the sea, I know that I could do far worse than to live life like the Yukon [River]: Keep moving but find places to slow down. Don't go straight at the expense of meandering. Nurture others; accommodate both change and tradition. Savor the element of surprise. Be gracious, accepting, resilient."

Further on she again addresses her sense for spirit of place:

"Person, place, or thing? The games we played as kids had such seemingly simple answers. How can a person be a place? How can a place not become part of a person? We remember a place not just for its beauty but for the way that beauty made us feel; these feelings are woven into an emotional tapestry we call self. The most special places are the ones that give texture to our dreams, that ground us, make us whole, remind us of what is real."

Rowing to Latitude would be just another human-conquers-nature thriller if it wasn't for Jill Fredston's writing. Where has she been all our lives? Erudite, heartfelt, eloquent, adventurous, witty, tragic, liberating, concerned, poetic, blunt - all this can happen on a single page, and very often does. Her entire book has the quality of the moods of the sea, vividly personalized by her ability to melt the descriptive into the spiritual. She writes rings around the mass-market travel scribblers autographing books at Borders these days. It is a pity that she and her husband are Arctic devotees; there is a whole rest of the world that surely could do with her talent, with his compassion, with their insights. However, considering the fact that they think a fifty-degree day a swelter fit only for basking on a beach surrounded by icebergs, you know they would melt into popcorn oil if they tackled, say, Bali and the Sunda Islands.

So let's hope they don't run out of shorelines, their bones don't give out on them, and Ms. Fredston's hard drive doesn't crash. Five more books from them would be just about right. More pictures, too. The sixteen herein were a saucer of chip dip compared with the image banquet that is the Arctic. In this environment, where the energy of life is dribbled so sparingly, Ms. Fredston sees the underlying spiritual energy of the earth which must be before life can be, just as soul and heart must be before mind can be.


Fantastic   January 9, 2003
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

I can honestly say that normally I don't really care for books like this...basically it's an adventure journal with moments of introspection. I said basically because this book is much, much more. With a little caution I let the author, Jill (I almost feel we're on a first name basis), take me along for the highs and the lows of her adventures with her loving husband. Anything I say about it will probably not do this book justice. You don't have to be a rower, kayaker or even a nature lover to enjoy this book...the author has a little of everything for just about everyone. I only have two regrets: 1) I finished the book and 2) that it wasn't me that wrote this book!


Inspiring, Adventurous, Real   September 21, 2003
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

I just finished reading this book. I stopped part way through, because it was so good, I didn't want to finish it yet. Now, I'm going to name it as the book of the month when I host my book club next. This book is so fresh, so in-your-marrow real, so insightful, adventurous, and breathtakingly descriptive, it defies easy categorization. Ms. Fredston is a fantastic writer, and after hearing her words for the last 286 pages in my head, I sincerely would consider it a tremendous privilege and honor to meet her in person. She has sent me on a search for the woman in me who is so wise, so calm in the face of crisis, so adaptable, so loving, and so passionate about life and living it. I know I have emerged from this reading with a sincere desire to make my life what it is I desire, instead of waiting for "someday". I am thrilled to have her voice added to the voices of other women, so few, who lead us boldly into our dreams, fears, and wildest adventures. You must read this book, and if you have a daughter in high school or college, give her one as well.


Incredible person - Incredible life   November 13, 2001
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

Wow.

Jill Fredston is the kind of person we all would like to be, living the life we all would like to live. She certainly has not wasted any of it. In the winter she and her husband work as avalanche experts among the big Alaska avalanches and run most of the mountain rescue operations in Alaska. In summer, they disappear for as much as 3 months at a time on extended sea kayaking expeditions along the arctic coasts of North America, Norway and Spitzbergen. After a life of hundreds of close encounters with big bears, dangerous ocean crossings, big waves, big storms and avalanches, yes, she certainly has something to say. While most other people collect their sponsorships, do a 2-month expedition, then go on a speaking and writing tour, Jill and Doug live it as their life. Only after 15 years of adventures, she collects it all into a book. This is nature writing and adventure writing at its best.


Rowing To Latitude:Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge   November 28, 2001
Lois S. Dubin (New York, New York USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Rowing To Latitude is a privilege and joy to read. Jill Fredston's eloquent, lively writing allows us to intimately experience-physically and spiritually-- her remarkable arctic rowing journeys. Fredston's authenticity at every level gives the book a unique cohesiveness. I was inspired by her wholeness of thought and being, her bravery, her loving (and rowing) partnership with her husband Doug, her tributes to her parents. And she tells a great story. I read a few pages of the book every night,so that I could go to sleep with her incandescent images of landscapes, sea creatures, and arctic light. Jill Fredston reminds us of all that is truly important. I cannot think of a book more relevant in these troubled times than Rowing to Latitude. I will give a copy to everyone that I love.