Read Online In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic by Jon Krakauer, David Roberts, Alison Anderson, Valerian Albanov - Free Book Online
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see. As I could distinguish nothing very clearly, my companion explained to me that there were huge blocks of ice heaped up in layers in the far distance. If we could get to the top of one of those icy towers, I thought, we might be able to spot land, or at least an even higher vantage point. Our five kayaks formed a long ribbon: Mine was being pulled by three sailors, and the others by couples. The weather was fine, warm, and windless, without a single cloud in the sky. The sun was dazzling. I had closed my eyes and pulled my cap well down over my forehead, but the intense light even penetrated my eyelids. From time to time I would open my eyes to check our heading. We strode rhythmically at a good walking pace, hauling strenuously on our ropes, with one hand bracing the kayak atop the sledge. In my right hand I held a ski pole which, as we advanced, repeatedly described the same figure with meticulous precision; swinging forward in a semicircle, then tilting slowly backward to be brought to the front again: the same gesture, over and over. It was as if the ski pole, which made an audible creaking sound upon contact with the snow, was measuring the ground we had already covered: a monotonous tune to accompany the travelers across the icy wilderness. They ended up believing that they could even hear the words to the tune “Far to go, so very far!” until all other thoughts faded away and all that seemed important was the same, mechanical gesture. We were all like sleepwalkers, placing one foot in front of the other, straining our bodies forward against our harnesses. . . .
The sun is a ball of flames. It feels like a torrid southern summer. . . . I can see a port: People are strolling in the shade of the high harbor walls. Shop doors are open wide. Aromas of tropical fruit fill the air with their fragrance. Peaches, oranges, apricots, raisins, cloves, and pepper all give off their wonderful scents. The asphalt steams after being sprayed with water. I can hear the strident, guttural tones of Persian merchants offering their wares. My God! How marvelous it smells here! How pleasant is the tropical air!
Suddenly my foot tripped over my ski pole. I quickly steadied myself against the kayak, opened my eyes wide, and was dazzled by the sun. For a moment I did not know where I was. What had happened to my tropical port? How the devil had I been transported to this icy wasteland?
“What happened?” asked my companions. “Nothing,” I answered, “I tripped over my pole.” The boreal landscape unfolded once more before me in an infinite expanse, and the sun which had fleetingly brought me such joy now sought only to blind and torture me.
Yet the hallucination did not completely vanish. My nose was still filled with the aromas of Mediterranean fruit. My companions were not conscious of my present condition. What did it mean? Was I ill? I shut my eyes tight once again. I was like an automaton, moving rhythmically with the pole in my right hand, and once again I could hear the monotonous tune: “Far to go, so very far!”
But what I had just experienced continued to trouble me. For strangely enough I had never liked those aromatic fruits: They had never tempted my palate. But I decided that as soon as I arrived home I would head south and find employment somewhere on the Caspian Sea, where I could gorge on apricots, oranges, and grapes, to make up for the years I had neglected them. Why had I come to this frozen wilderness on the edge of an icy sea, when the weather was so beautiful in the sunny lands to the south? What madness! Tonight we have a “cold evening” ahead of us, since we have no fuel whatsoever. There is not even enough to melt ice for drinking water. But what good would complaining do? All this torture is simply deserved retribution. One should not poke one’s nose into places where Nature does not want the presence of man. My one and only goal was to press onward and thereby escape the claws of death.
The sun is a ball of flames. It feels like a torrid southern summer. . . . I can see a port: People are strolling in the shade of the high harbor walls. Shop doors are open wide. Aromas of tropical fruit fill the air with their fragrance. Peaches, oranges, apricots, raisins, cloves, and pepper all give off their wonderful scents. The asphalt steams after being sprayed with water. I can hear the strident, guttural tones of Persian merchants offering their wares. My God! How marvelous it smells here! How pleasant is the tropical air!
Suddenly my foot tripped over my ski pole. I quickly steadied myself against the kayak, opened my eyes wide, and was dazzled by the sun. For a moment I did not know where I was. What had happened to my tropical port? How the devil had I been transported to this icy wasteland?
“What happened?” asked my companions. “Nothing,” I answered, “I tripped over my pole.” The boreal landscape unfolded once more before me in an infinite expanse, and the sun which had fleetingly brought me such joy now sought only to blind and torture me.
Yet the hallucination did not completely vanish. My nose was still filled with the aromas of Mediterranean fruit. My companions were not conscious of my present condition. What did it mean? Was I ill? I shut my eyes tight once again. I was like an automaton, moving rhythmically with the pole in my right hand, and once again I could hear the monotonous tune: “Far to go, so very far!”
But what I had just experienced continued to trouble me. For strangely enough I had never liked those aromatic fruits: They had never tempted my palate. But I decided that as soon as I arrived home I would head south and find employment somewhere on the Caspian Sea, where I could gorge on apricots, oranges, and grapes, to make up for the years I had neglected them. Why had I come to this frozen wilderness on the edge of an icy sea, when the weather was so beautiful in the sunny lands to the south? What madness! Tonight we have a “cold evening” ahead of us, since we have no fuel whatsoever. There is not even enough to melt ice for drinking water. But what good would complaining do? All this torture is simply deserved retribution. One should not poke one’s nose into places where Nature does not want the presence of man. My one and only goal was to press onward and thereby escape the claws of death.
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