Arctic Traverse offers both a back country narrative and more than a few bear encounters, but these features mesh seamlessly with natural history notes, digressions on exploration, the words of writers who influenced the author, and the author’s own thoughts about what it is to spend life in untamed lands. It is a wilderness journal, prose poetry, a treatise in philosophy, a primer on northern ecology, and pure magic, all rolled into one seamless volume.
Grand and thoughtful ... Arctic Traverse is a rare entry in the outdoor genre. The author’s expertise is clear, but more important, his wit invites readers to laugh and occasionally shudder with him as he makes his way to a final landing in Kotzebue.
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 ... a poetic memoir about a solitary trek across a remote and majestic wilderness.
