⭐️ 5/5
Travel, Adventure, History, Discovery

Mark Synnott gives us a gripping, exciting report into his 2022 journey through Canada's Northwest Passage in his very own fiberglass-hulled boat. While navigating through the treacherous waters around the inhospitable Artic islands he offers a fresh look at the history of the land. He also wanted to investigate what happened to the legendary captain Sir John Franklin and his crew aboard HMS Erebus and HMS Terror; Mark details this adventure he took in hoping to uncovering the a 175-year-old mystery with excitement and tact.

Mark does an incredible job putting us in the setting of the rigid, vast environment he explored, and painted a vivid image of both the beauty and challenges he endured.
This is a fantastic narrative of his sailing expedition and thorough historic detective work and research.

Those who love and appreciate extreme adventure, expedition travel, explorations, voyages, geography, nature, and history will find this an inspirational and entertaining read!

Thank you Penguin Group and Dutton for providing me this ARC of the book for review consideration via NetGalley! All opinions are my own.

This book features the author's perhaps foolhardy expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage in a small fibreglass boat, Polar Sun, filmed and podcasted for National Geographic. With GPS, a drone, underwater camera, e-mail and radio, it's far from the days of Franklin. But the ice is still the ice.
Telling us as we travel about the doomed expeditions of exploration, finding small artefacts and notes from Inuit witnesses to probable survivors, the author looks for graves, wrecks and clues. He finds bears, among other things.
The journey in a cramped small yacht with a few recalcitrant crew is at times tough going. But when it's a case of, berth on land in September and return next year, or else keep going despite the near certainty of Arctic sea ice trapping the vessel or Pacific storms chasing one another up to Alaska, the reader desperately wants the crew to keep going. The worst storm in seventy years is about to hit.
I enjoyed the read and I would hope that the finished book carries photos. A list of resources is in the back of the book.
I read an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an advance copy of this new book that is a memoir of a life, a history of lost explorers, a documentation of a voyage of discovery and wonder of what makes people want to see what is just over the next horizon, even if they never come back.

I remember once doing some straightening in the history section of the bookstore I was working at, a section I loved, doing something I enjoyed. I remember getting to the Exploration section, and going wow I forgot how many book on polar explorations there are, and how many of them I had read. There is a siren song that makes people want to go to the ice. Numerous books, hiking, walking, climbing, dog sledding, sailing over, under even far above. Many of these books well the ending is quite clear, sometimes in the subtitle. Lost, missing, vanished are usually attached. And yet so many want to go North or South. This obsession runs also to scholars, with their need to know why expeditions failed. Humans aren't fans of mystery. We like knowing what is in the dark, what is out there, and what if pressed we as humans can do to survive, to thrive and come back alive to fame, glory, or just self satisfaction. Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery by explorer, writer and documentarian, Mark Synnott, asks these questions even while risking his life and his friends sailing the same waters that have taken so many lives before.

Mark Synnott has climbed the highest mountains, sailed seas, worked on documentaries, and has seen what an exploring life can do to people, and relationships. Still, Synnott had a dream of sailing the world with his second wife and children, but first maybe a little side trip. A breaking in trip along the Northwest Passage the sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific, with a few friends, just to see how a long trip could be. Synnott was able to afford this by working with National Geographic, who would film the voyage, and film Synnott working with other teams to find the lost tomb of Sir John Franklin. Franklin was the head of the Franklin expedition, who disappeared looking for the Northwest Passage 175 years earlier, with few traces of the 123 men left. Synnott sails the passage, becoming trapped in ice, dealing with a crew that had had their own opinions, meeting many other travellers and becoming aware of the fact that a way of life for many native people was slowly disappearing.

A fascinating book in so many ways. The book looks at the urge to explore, the love of ice, the hubris of exploration, human interactions, the perils of leadership, the use of vodka on tight boats, and how quickly something can go from normal to deadly. Also it is a celebration of people from difficult, his best friend, to generous, an elderly man sharing his knowledge and charts of the Northwest passage, another working hard to make sure that Synnott's boat will run correctly. One meets dreamers, obsessives, and people just trying to get by. As Synnott travels one gets the feeling why people explore, and what drives them. Also that maybe asking some questions of the local people might save a lot of work, money and time. I find it funny that so many people were looking for the missing Franklin boats, but the native people were like, you know we have a story about it being over there, and were right. However by being right, this could mean problems for their way of life, as tourists and others bring their own problems.

Synnott is a good writer, not afraid of looking foolish, and one comes away with a bit of mixed feelings about the man. However the book is riveting, with storms, ice, danger, financial ruin, and lots of great stories. Plus one gets a lot of insight on the explorer urge. A book for nautical fans, history fans, adventure fans, and people who like to read about the wide world, from the safety of their couch. One won't be disappointed.

When I read INTO THE ICE, I was thinking about two other books, both very disparate. The first (you will forgive me if I don't recall the title) was by my fellow Baylor Bear, Chip Gaines, and it was a kinda-sorta autobiography, the story of his career as someone who restores old houses on TV, and I came away from that thinking that Chip Gaines was the most obnoxious, self-absorbed, insufferable person I had ever ran across in print.

Generally speaking, if you are first-person narrating your own story, and you come across like Chip Gaines, even a little bit, you are in a lot of trouble. Mark Synnott is a much better writer than Chip Gaines and generally a more accomplished person. Synnott is a mountain climber (he climbed Mount Everest, and is the sort of person who feels the need to remind you about this every so often) and developed a love of sailing in the South Pacific. He then bought a boat, promptly got divorced, bought another boat and got another wife, and conceived the idea of sailing this boat from Maine, all the way up to Greenland, through the ice-bound Arctic Sea, ending up at Nome, Alaska. This is a fiberglass sailing boat, the kind you see in marinas everywhere, not exactly an icebreaker, you understand.

Why do this? The answer seems to be that very few people have climbed Mount Everest (including Mark Synnott! Ask him, he'll tell you about it!) but fewer have sailed the Northwest Passage, and Synnott wanted to be one of those people, too. But in order to make this a going concern, Synnott needed a sponsor, and that sponsor ended up being National Geographic, and they wanted to do a documentary that was basically (you will never believe this) NOT about Mark Synnott, necessarily, but was about something else entirely, and that something else was the Franklin expedition.

This brings me to the other book, THE MINISTRY OF TIME, by Kaliane Bradley, which is sort-of-kind-of about the Franklin expedition, or rather about a near-future junior bureaucrat in London who finds herself babysitting a refugee from the Franklin expedition plucked out of time. One of the pleasant things about THE MINISTRY OF TIME (other than it not having anything to do with Chip Gaines) is that... er... you don't actually have to know anything about the Franklin expedition other than the key facts that it was populated by a bunch of stoic stiff-upper-lip English types and that everybody died, because of course they did. You can move on to the story.

That strategy doesn't work here. Mark Synnott has read an appalling amount about the Franklin expedition, and shares a good bit of it. National Geographic, in its wisdom, decided that the long-lost Franklin expedition is much, much more interesting than Mark Synnott (I know, I'm as shocked as you are) and so that's what the documentary is going to be about, so the story of Mark Synnott sailing a ship there takes second place to that, and it becomes a big part of the book as well.

Several points to be made.

1. I like Mark Synnott much better when he is talking about the Franklin expedition than when he is talking about himself. There's a passage where Synnott gets crossways with one of his crew, and he pauses to reflect that, you know, people have told me I can be a little overbearing at times. Reader, I was reading this book on my phone, and I did not throw my phone across the room, because it is expensive. Had I been reading a physical book, there's a good chance it would have somehow become embedded in the drywall. "A little overbearing?" YOU DON'T SAY.

2. There is the question of "how much do you need to know about the Franklin expedition before you read this book?" I don't think the answer to that is "a whole lot," but more than the basics would be helpful. There are two reasons for that. First, the reason why the whole Franklin thing is interesting is because it is a mystery, we don't know exactly what happened when and what caused the death of all those people. Second, because Synnott tells the story non-chronologically, skipping around, depending on where he is geographically at the time.

3. You don't need to know anything about sailing, though, Synnott is just a good enough writer that you can tell what is going on without you having to know how to splice the bowline or anything like that.

Do I recommend this book? I mean, it more-or-less comes down to how much Arctic adventure you're willing to stand. I am generally okay with that, it's why I picked the book up in the first place. If you're fine with the rest of it, go for it. (But don't read the Chip Gaines book, I am begging you.)

Thanks to Mark Synnott, Dutton Publishers, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! It was the perfect book for a Northwest Passage explorer, historian, or avid armchair adventurer! The pace was continuously taught, I learned a lot about Arctic history, politics, and geography, and by the time that I came out on the Alaskan side of the Arctic passage I literally let out a sigh of relief because the outcome, as with any dangerous voyage, was far from certain success.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in nautical history, especially in the Arctic!

Into the Ice by Mark Synnott

Synnott has written a mesmerizing account of his journey in a 47 foot fiberglass sail boat through the Northwest Passage. He intertwines his experiences with the history of various Arctic explorers, most notably Captain Franklin who disappeared, with his ship, Erebus, and his companion ship, Terror, captained by Crozier. The historical sea voyage in the 1850’s is woven in with Synnott’s own exploration. Surprisingly, the book is riveting. The amazing descriptions of the ice, the storms, the beauty in calm, the conversations with local Inuits, and the debates with his own crew keep us engaged. Some parts are so captivating it becomes a page turner. Synnott also brings his own humanism into the narration, looking within at his role in any discord with his friends/crew and seeming to have an honest inner insight. Synnott is a reflective author, great researcher and extreme adventurer.

Mark Synnott decided in 2022 that he wanted to get extremely into sailing, so much so that he essentially moved onto his boat and set a goal to sail through the Northwest Passage, something only a few hundred boats have ever done. Along the way, he wanted to solve the long-standing mystery of what happened to the 19th century explorer, John Franklin, whose expedition disappeared 175 years ago.

This is in the same vein as another of Mark's books, The Third Pole, in which he goes to Everest to solve the mystery of whether George Mallory and Sandy Irvine summited Mt. Everest before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Spoiler: they don’t solve the mystery on Mt. Everest, nor is anything resolved about Franklin’s Arctic expedition. Anyhow. Good writing and fun adventures, but I don’t like these long stories wherein the author doesn’t actually solve any mysteries/questions (I didn’t like the podcast, Serial, for the same reason).

Mark Synnott takes readers along a journey to unearth the mystery of what happened to Sir John Franklin's 1845 voyage through the Northwest Passage with the Erebus and Terror. More than just a historical retelling of Franklin's adventure, Synnott travels the route and opens up his own soul to discovery as he searches for the remains and records of the lost crews. Themes of friendship, sacrifice, survival, pride and humility are explored as everything is laid bare in Synnott's travels. Well written and well researched, this book is a worthy addition to exploration literature and study.

I am always amazed with always amazed with people who love to climb, as I am a big chicken and never would do it myself.

For this reason, I love reading books on peoplè's various climbing experiences and this one was definitely THAT.

Not only has Synnott climbed Mt-Everest, he had one of the most scary, in my opinion, bucket list items to do and check off.

What followins is a book that completely engrossed me. At times, I did not understand the passion for the Northwest Passage but the author does such a great job of detailing his experiences, feeling and even his thoughts.

So good and so well described and laid out.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
This was a great book that I really took my time to read. I love nonfiction adventure stories. I have read other books about the Franklin expedition before. I liked how this book mixed in the right amount of history along with the current expedition. Also a great insight into the native people who inhabit these remote places and how they survive.
Really well written and interesting.

This book was very engaging at points and hard for me to follow at others. It was easier for me to follow the modern timeline voyage and understand that, than the Franklin chapters. The bouncing between years and viewpoints was a little confusing for me. Trying to picture the locations and keep track of where things were located without a map was essentially impossible for me, so maps might be a helpful addition for this book.

I enjoyed learning about the Artic and the native people survival skills and how the European expeditions didn't learn that as much as they maybe ought to. Additionally, the facts of climate change and the impact that has on livelihoods of people still living in remote places was disheartening but interesting.

Would recommend this book if you already have an interest in the Artic, otherwise might be good to start with something else.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

A real page turner. I love reading about extreme adventures in cold regions, and Mark Synnott is a great storyteller. He skillfully combines the narrative of an attempt to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat with a lot of historical background - not only stories about the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin, but also about the indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic.

My main objections are actually raised by the author himself. At one point he begins to question his motives: “This voyage was a dream come true for me, but it was also expensive, had no intrinsic purpose, and certainly wasn’t serving the locals in any way”. And a little earlier he admits:

“I’d come to realize that there was something alien about moving through these waters aboard a modern sailing yacht with a fixed timetable, requisite fuel stops, and a need to always keep pushing as fast and hard as possible. Ensconced within Polar Sun’s canvas enclosure or in my bunk deep inside the ship, I often felt removed from the landscapes, the wildlife, and the people who lived in the communities through which we passed. It was obvious that the best way to travel through this realm was by foot and paddle, as Inuit have for millennia with their dog sleds and kayaks, traveling nimbly from one community and hunting ground to the next. And it saddened me that I might be missing the essence of the place that I so badly wanted to experience.”

While I don't want to undermine what the author and his crew did, the reader's thrill is a bit diminished by the knowledge that they could abort their voyage and evacuate at any time. I have to admit that I prefer to read about more daring adventures, like Adam Shoalts' explorations of the Canadian Arctic - yes, by foot and paddle, alone and self-sufficient for weeks at a time.

Still, Synnot's voyage "makes a hell of a story," to quote the author, so if you like that kind of armchair travel, you should definitely read this book.

Thanks to the publisher, PENGUIN GROUP Dutton, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.