Adrift on an Ice-Pan

Exciting true life adventure

(5 stars)

Arch Stanton

An excellent first person account of being afloat, with little hope of survival, on an ice raft and the ingenuity taken to survive forms the centre piece of this work and makes up the biggest chapter. The first chapter can be safely skipped as being a somewhat tedious tribute to the hero and his ancestory. The last part is a recollection of the hero's recovery from a rescuer's viewpoint and adds some new to what has been said already. But is the main section that remains unforgettable of its sort. One or two gruesome moments mean this is probably not recommendable for younger animal lovers. Reading is very good although the accent adopted for the last part by the reader is less easy to understand.

(4 stars)

mafinokc

This memoir, though much briefer, transports the reader into the same world as narratives by and about Nansen, Scott and particularly Shackleton: a world that is both nightmarish and all too real. The reader, Sean Michael Hogan, wisely lets the story speak for itself by voicing the text quite undramatically. Hogan is actually from St. John, Newfoundland, and after the main course, i.e., chapter two, the listener gets a dessert treat: chapter three is an appendix in which one of Grenfell’s fisherman rescuers gives his own account of the adventure. In the book, this is transcribed phonetically in the “Newfoundland vernacular;” and Hogan faithfully reproduces the man’s speech as it must have sounded at the time.

A very interesting story

(5 stars)

ndmet

Skip the first and last chapters. The second chapter tells the story, and what a story! Although you know the author survived the ordeal, his tale is riveting. Here is survival that matches anything Bear Grylls has done.