This Land of Snow
A Journey Across the North in Winter
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A passionate skier since he was a child, Anders Morley dreamed of going on a significant adventure, something bold and of his own design. And so one year in his early thirties, he decided to strap on cross-country skis to travel across Canada in the winter alone.
This Land of Snow is about that journey and a man who must come to terms with what he has left behind, as well as how he wants to continue living after his trip is over. It is an honest, thoughtful, and humorous reckoning of an adventure filled with adrenalin and exuberance, as well as mistakes and danger. Along the way readers gain insight, both charming and fascinating, into Northern outdoor culture and modern-day wilderness living, the history of northern exploration and Nordic skiing, the right to roam movement, winter ecology, and more.
Throughout, Morley’s clear, subtle, and self-deprecating voice speaks to a backwoods-genteel aesthetic that explores the dichotomy between wildness and refinement, language and personal story, journey and home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Morley debuts with a thoughtful and inspiring account of his cross-country skiing journey across North America. A New Hampshire native, Morley writes of how he fell in love with skiing and literary tales of adventure from an early age, and planned his trip as "medicine for my diffuse sense of nostalgia and civilizational glut," while working as an English translator and living in Italy with his Italian wife. Though the intensity of organizing his trip fractured his marriage "perhaps beyond repair," he forged on. Morley, in his 30s, started in British Columbia and skiied nearly 2,000 miles east to Manitoba from November 2012 to early March 2013. He traveled solo, but the kindness of strangers rowdy loggers, hospitable First Nations folks, and fellow outdoors people among them buoyed his spirits and provided Morley with much needed support. These characters add an upbeat quality to the narrative amid the descriptions of Canada's cold, wintry landscape. Though the trip came to a chaotic, abrupt halt that left Morley thinking his trek was "a wasted opportunity," he soon realized the experience revealed his true weaknesses, which left him in a position to work on fixing his life and marriage. Morley weaves together human and natural history with skill, and his philosophy on winter and its purpose "to reveal weaknesses in living things" captures the season's beauty. Those with a taste for adventure and an appreciation for nature's gifts will enjoy this moving expedition.
