**Two by sea: a couple rows the wild coasts of the far north in Rowing
to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge.
**
Jill Fredston has traveled more than twenty thousand miles of the Arctic
and sub-Arctic-backwards. With her ocean-going rowing shell and her
husband, Doug Fesler, in a small boat of his own, she has disappeared
every summer for years, exploring the rugged shorelines of Alaska,
Canada, Greenland, Spitsbergen, and Norway. Carrying what they need to
be self-sufficient, the two of them have battled mountainous seas and
hurricane-force winds, dragged their boats across jumbles of ice, fended
off grizzlies and polar bears, been serenaded by humpback whales and
scrutinized by puffins, and reveled in moments of calm.
As Fredston writes, these trips are neither a vacation nor an escape,
they are a way of life. Rowing to Latitude is a lyrical, vivid
celebration of these northern journeys and the insights they inspired.
It is a passionate testimonial to the extraordinary grace and fragility
of wild places, the power of companionship, the harsh but liberating
reality of risk, the lure of discovery, and the challenges and joys of
living an unconventional life.