WildTrekker

Coming in Fall 2022

This is the first biography of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) to do justice to his relationships with Aboriginal people, his passionate interest in acquiring new knowledge, and his research agenda. In leading the first expedition through the Northwest Passage, the first to the South Pole, the second through the Northeast Passage and the first confirmed to have reached the North Pole, Amundsen transformed science into a great adventure. And he left nobody indifferent. Based on exhaustive research in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, continental North America, Antarctica and Europe, as well as polar and family archives in seven countries, this biography explores Amundsen’s two-year apprenticeship with Canadian Inuit, who shared their knowledge system with him. The work combines scholarly rigor with creative non-fiction techniques, a cross-cultural approach, oral histories, a focus on physical and psychological health, and the refreshing eye-witness perspective of an experienced biographer.