“Ice Diaries: An Antarctic Memoir”
ECW Press, $26.95
The dog days of summer often lead to thoughts about colder weather. In “Ice Diaries,” Canadian author Jean McNeil offers a thoughtful rumination on her lifelong obsession with cold. She also discusses the different forms of ice and offers general thoughts on the concept of coldness. “Ice has a life cycle,” she writes, “just as we do.” On the other hand, she contends that ice is, in fact, immortal: “It never quite dies but is reincarnated, through melt, into water, into vapour.”
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The focus of her intention in “Ice Diaries” is the continent of Antarctica, where she was based for several months as part of the British Antarctic Survey/Arts Council England’s international artists and writers residencies program. The Antarctic, she notes, has the largest concentration of ice on the planet. Like others before and since, she was taken by the Antarctic’s “cold charisma, its pristine wilderness.” One of her colleagues calls it “the most lethal place you can go” and that, too, is part of its enduring allure: an extreme environment where danger and the very real possibility of death go hand in hand. “Once you’ve lived there for any period of time, you can’t get the place out of your head,” says another colleague.
McNeil recalls the great polar explorers Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen. The works of the artists and writers inspired by the continent are here, too, such as Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and the famous watercolor by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai of a giant wave that, to the author’s mind at least, suggests the movement of glaciers.
“Ice Diaries” is part travel narrative and part travel diary, but more than this McNeil intends it to be what she calls “a witness statement,” a reflection on the most inaccessible of the continents, which leads to thoughts on climate change. It’s a discussion of the Antarctic as a physical landscape –– its impact on the imagination –– and an exploration of one person’s inner world.
“How to Pack for Any Trip”
Lonely Planet, $11.99
To Lonely Planet writers Sarah Barrell and Kate Simon, packing is not only a necessary evil but also a blend of art and science. “Not many of us … do it well, and even fewer of us approach it with any sense of pleasure,” they write.
The authors intend to remove the pain of packing by recommending that readers, no matter what type of traveler they are or what kind of travel they do, use their practical “cut-out-and-keep lists.” Not sure what kind of traveler you are? Barrell and Simon include a packing quiz to help answer that question.
The secret to pain-free travel is to travel light. (“When it comes to your suitcase, less really is more.”) But packing light takes time and thought. They discuss luggage selection, luggage technology (“smart luggage” will be the wave of the future), packing apps and packing techniques. They mention the increasingly popular trend of so-called wash ‘n’ go packing: Various locations in Denmark and Iceland, for example, have laundromat cafes, where patrons can wash clothes while reading books and perusing maps “so you can plot your next travels.”
The how to pack for your trip section includes tips on city packing for cool cities (such as Stockholm), exotic cities (Delhi), wilderness areas (Scottish Highlands, the Arizona desert) and extreme climates (the Arctic and Antarctica), as well as packing for safaris and camping.
All in all, a portable and useful little book.
June Sawyers is a freelance writer.
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