Books: April 2004 Archives

I read a pair of related books over the weekend, "Canoeing With the Cree" by Eric Sevareid and "Distant Fires" by Scott Anderson. These two books are both about very long canoe trips undertaken by ill-prepared kids starting in Minnesota and ending in Hudson Bay. Each was a good read. "Distant Fires" was a lot funnier, but not quite as well written. Sevareid's book was better written, but lacking in some detail. Both books were lacking technical details of the trip, although the did have some gear and food lists as well as some maps.

Sevareid's trip started in Minneapolis, followed the Mississippi to the Minnesota, and follows the Minnesota to it's headwaters. Then the cross the divide where the waters flow north and head towards Canada. Anderson's trip begins near Duluth and follow Lake Superior to Grand Portage and then roughly follows the Canadian border west for some time. I would imagine that the Minnesota River route would be very hard to follow today as I am sure that there would be a lot of portaging in muck where it is low.

I am really astounded that each of these parties made their destination. Each was under prepared and used poor gear. Still they made it. Hats off to them, I've never done anything quite as exciting myself. The kind of intestinal fortitude it took to keep going when faced with the grind of the trail must have been huge. I also can't really imagine taking canoes across such large bodies of water. While I am no expert paddler, white caps and canoes don't seem like a good mix in my mind.

One other note, Sevarieds book occasionally paints relations with Native Americans in such a way that seems a bit shocking today. The world sure has changed for the better since the 1930s.

Amazon Links Distant Fires Canoeing With the Cree

I just finished up Proving Ground, by Bruce G. Knecht. It was about the 1998 Syndey to Hobart race. This race is famous for a couple of things. One, Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle was onboard his ship Sayonara, and two, a huge storm that claimed several lives. It had good descriptions of the storms. I wish there had been more maps and more race kind of information, as it was sometime hard to keep track of the who and wheres.

It was a good read, and really conveyed the characters pretty well. I thought the Larry Ellison accounts would have been more interesting as he is well known in the computer industry for being a rather "different" individual.

It's not my favorite sailing book, but it was a good read. I just wish I could get out on the water more than once per year. Wonder if I could ever get on a trip like this onerounding Cape Horn.

Just finished this sailing book. It was about the first "Golden Globe" round the world race. This took place in 1968 when no one had yet circumnavigated the globe without stopping. If you like long distance sailing you'll enjoy this.

The best part to me was the entrant who could have won, but decided to keep sailing.

I still can't figure out what internal compass or drive allows or compels people to take on these tremendous risks for almost no real payoff. I would love to do some deep ocean sailing, but in the end have no desire to put myself in the kind of risky situations these brave single handed sailors do.

I wonder if there are any adventure tours that do a sailing trip across Cape Horn?

I just finished this book. It was a really interesting read about this famous equation, but also about the history of the people who were involved in the physics reasearch that went into formulating this prior to it's inception and the folks responsible for utilizing (or almost unitilizing it) in atomic weapons and atomic energy research. I especially enjoyed the commando raids on the German heavy water plant. Lots of great tidbits in here, although there were a few moments when the gossipy parts of the book overwhelmed the science. Good read.