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The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery
by Mark Synnott
New York Times bestselling author Mark Synnott has climbed with Alex Honnold. He's scaled Mt. Everest. But in 2022, he realized there was a dream he'd never realized—to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat, a feat only four hundred or so sailors had ever accomplished—and in doing so, try to solve the mystery of what happened to legendary nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin and his ships, HMS Erebus and Terror.
Only a few hundred vessels have ever transited the Northwest Passage, stretching through Canada's north from Maine to Alaska—and substantially fewer have completed the treacherous journey in a fiberglass-hulled boat like Polar Sun. But Mark Synnott was determined to add his name to the list, and in doing so, also investigate a 175-year-old mystery, that of what happened to the legendary captain Sir John Franklin and his crew aboard the legendary HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.
In this pulse-pounding travelogue, Mark Synnott paints a vivid portrait of the modern-day Arctic like you've never seen before. With human-caused climate change warming the region twice as fast as any other part of our planet, Synnott offers a fresh and exciting look at the journey itself, but also of the history of the land and the people who live there today. At the same time, he searches for the tomb of Franklin, who, along with his entire 128-man crew, perished after their ships became trapped in the ice near King William Island.
In Into the Ice, Mark and his crew must race against time and horrific storms to investigate legends, and in the end, try to find the answer to why any of us would risk it all in the name of exploration.
"Synnott delivers a thrilling account of his 2022 journey through Canada's inhospitable Artic islands… while recapping heart-pounding encounters with blizzards, gales, polar bears, and an Arctic typhoon—all in a 47-foot fiberglass sailboat that could crack open like a walnut if caught in the ice…a page-turner." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Good history and a compelling extreme adventure." —Kirkus Reviews
"Weaving together maritime history, Inuit oral traditions, and modern climate science, Mark Synnott crafts a gripping tale of human ambition and folly in one of Earth's most unforgiving environments. Into the Ice is both a thrilling modern adventure and a haunting meditation on how the Arctic shapes the destinies of those drawn to its icy waters, just as it did tragically nearly two centuries ago." —Neil Shubin, author of the national bestseller Your Inner Fish and Ends of the Earth
"A reaffirmation that the spirit of exploration is thriving in the 21st Century. Into the Ice is a meeting of history, adventure and whodunnit that extends the thread of Arctic exploration from the first European expeditions to the present day, revealing how much has evolved over the centuries and how much remains unchanged." —Felicity Aston, explorer and author of Polar Exposure
This information about Into the Ice was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mark Synnott is a twenty-eight-year member of the North Face Global Athlete Team, an internationally certified mountain guide, and a trainer for the Pararescuemen of the United States Air Force. A regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, he is the author of New York Times bestseller The Impossible Climb and The Third Pole. He lives in the Mt. Washington Valley of New Hampshire.
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