Northabout

Having successfully circumnavigated the world via the northern polar icecap, the crew were ready for another adventure. This new edition of the book describes another challenge; the transit of Stalin’s infamous White Sea Canal, built by Gulag labour and costing an enormous number of human lives. Later voyages sailing to the Caribbean and cruising Newfoundland seem tame by comparison.

In the final chapter Jarlath revisits Shackleton’s escape from Elephant island in a small boat named James Caird. To honour the ships carpenter, Henry McNish, Jarlath built a replica of the James Caird, to better understand the role played by McNish in saving the entire crew of the doomed Endurance.