Explorer Memoirs

Leaving behind friends, family, and life as they know it, the Wards embark on a journey into the Alaskan wilderness that will change them forever. Winds of Skilak traces a young couple’s adventurous move from the suburbs of Ohio to a remote island on ill-tempered Skilak Lake. As Sam and Bonnie adapt to a life without running water, electricity, and telephones, the unforgiving, desolate environment tests their courage early on.

Captain Scott's ill-fated journey to the Antarctic Pole in 1911 is part triumph, part tragedy - an epic tale of heroic endeavor which has inspired books and films over the generations. Despite the simple outline of the story, Scott and his fellow explorers emerge as richly varied characters, brought to life by the diarist's skill as a story-teller. Scott's journal reaches its moving and dramatic crescendo when the explorers reach the Pole, only to discover that the Norwegian, Amundsen, has beaten them to it by many weeks.

Audrey Lessard est née dans la petite ville minière de Thetford Mines en mai 1982. Elle y a grandi auprès de ses amis, ses cousins et sa famille. Une particularité : Audrey est née sourde. Elle n’est pas malentendante mais bel et bien sourde. Elle n’entend rien de rien ! Pourtant ses amis, pour la plupart, sont des personnes entendantes. Et depuis l'enfance jusqu’à ce jour, tous communiquent sans problème avec Audrey.

A man walked into the woods, destined to spend eight months living in the wild. Exhausted and emotionally ruined living the fast-paced life of a successful young professional, it was all too easy to give up. The challenges came on the adventure of a lifetime. Months in the woods that would provide adversity, healing, and tranquility.

Stuck in a corporate job rut and faced with an unraveling marriage at the age of thirty-six, Roz Savage sat down one night and wrote two versions of her own obituary - the one that she wanted and the one she was heading for. They were very different. She realized that if she carried on as she was, she wasn't going to end up with the life she wanted. So she turned her back on an eleven-year career as a management consultant to reinvent herself as a woman of adventure.

River Magic: Tales from a Life on 1000 Rivers takes the listener on an amazing global adventure by river. Mark Angelo, one of the world's most acclaimed paddlers and river conservationists, who has paddled more rivers than perhaps anyone on Earth, recounts a selection of his encounters with amazing animals, big fish, unique cultures, and wild rivers.

Canoeing the Congo narrates the journey of Phil Harwood, who undertook an epic five-month solo attempt to canoe the Congo River in war-torn Central Africa. It was a historic 'first descent' from the true source in the highlands of Zambia. Just short of 3,000 miles long, the Congo River is the eighth longest in the world and the deepest river in the world, with a flow rate second only to the Amazon. Along the way, Phil encountered numerous waterfalls, huge rapids, man-eating crocodiles, hippos, aggressive snakes...

This is a brilliant dual biography charting British Robert Scott's and Norwegian Roald Amundsen's race to the South Pole during 1911-12. Huntuford's is the accepted, definitive account of the race and a reassessment of the two men. Thoroughly researched, revealing the adventures and misfortunes that befell them both, he describes the driving ambitions of the era, and the complex, often deeply flawed individuals who were charged with carrying them out.

When expat blogger and mother of four Eva Melusine Thieme first harbors the idea of ringing out her three years in Africa on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, it sounds easy. In fact, it has all the trappings of a dream vacation: no cooking, no fighting kids, and an army of porters to lug everything up the mountain. What can go wrong? Tag along as Eva takes you on her journey up the slopes of Kilimanjaro together with her teenage son and a group of hilarious South African friends.

His plan was to stay in Iowa, maybe get a job counting duck, or do a little farming. But events conspired to fling Carter Niemeyer westward and straight into the jaws of wolves. From his early years wrangling ornery federal trappers, eagles, and grizzlies, to winning a skinning contest that paved the way for wolf reintroduction in the Northern Rockies, Niemeyer reveals the wild and bumpy ride that turned a trapper - a killer - into a champion of wolves.

Unexpectedly denied a visa to remain in the United States, Qanta Ahmed, a young British Muslim doctor, becomes an outcast in motion. On a whim, she accepts an exciting position in Saudi Arabia. This is not just a new job; this is a chance at adventure in an exotic land she thinks she understands, a place she hopes she will belong. What she discovers is vastly different. The Kingdom is a world apart, a land of unparalleled contrast. She finds rejection and scorn in the places she believed would most embrace her.

Meet Doctor Ben MacFarlane - a very modern flying doctor. His job is get on a plane and bring patients home after holiday disasters, gap year crises, embarrassing incidents on business trips and all the other things that can go wrong when we head overseas. Holiday SOS is his extraordinary story. It’s a unique medical memoir of the people he helps - and a year in the life of one of the world’s most frequent flyers!

WALKING WILD is not your typical safari — no game drives, no cool sundowners and definitely no fences. Instead, it's 605 km of dust, sweat and unforgettable moments as an unlikely group of strangers sets out to walk the entire length of Kruger National Park. Over six stages and three years, they walked from Crooks' Corner in the far north to Malelane in the south, averaging 20 km a day with heavy backpacks and only the wild for company.

In 1963, the world followed the first American Mount Everest Expedition, and watched as "Big Jim" Whittaker became the first American to stand on top of the world. He returned home a hero. My Old Man and the Mountain is Leif Whittaker's engaging and humorous story of what it was like to "grow up Whittaker" - the youngest son of Jim Whittaker and Dianne Roberts, in an extended family of accomplished climbers. He shares glimpses of his upbringing and how the pressure to climb started early on.

A bracing memoir about self-discovery, liberating escape, and moving forward across an adventurous and volatile American landscape. One year. One national park at a time.

In an era of grand risk, fur moguls vied to command the northwest and China markets, gambling lives and capital on the price of beaver pelts, purchases of ships and trade goods, international commerce laws, and the effects of war.

The extraordinary true story of a young Jewish art student who not just survived but resisted and saved hundred of lives—all while retaining his infectious zeal for life.

Al Mennie, internationaler Big-Wave-Surfer und Mental Health Advocate, teilt seine Reise durch die Gewässer des Nordatlantiks, sein Wissen über die gesundheitlichen Vorteile nächtlichen Schwimmens und wie er seinen „Mond" fand – etwas, das hell in seinem Leben leuchtet. Al kombiniert motivierende Texte mit eindrucksvoller Erzählkunst und gibt den Leser:innen Werkzeuge an die Hand, um selbst durch die Dunkelheit zu navigieren – buchstäblich und metaphorisch.

A veteran dog musher, Dave Olesen finished the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race eight times. After a 15-year career as a sled dog racer, Olesen set out to fulfill a lifelong dream. In four successive winters he steered his dogs and sled on long trips away from his remote Northwest Territories homestead, setting out in turn to the south, east, north and west, and home again to Hoarfrost River. His narrative ranges from the personal and poignant musings of a dogsled driver to loftier planes of introspection and contemplation.

Jacques Cartier prépare minutieusement son premier voyage. Comme il est soutenu par le roi de France, il parvient à lever son équipage. Le 20 avril 1534, il assiste à la messe et au sortir de l’église, toute la ville l’accompagne sur les quais. La foule en liesse veut assister au départ de ce grand personnage auquel rien ne résiste. Il appareille avec deux navires ornés du drapeau fleurdelisé, symbole de la royauté. C’est le départ pour la grande aventure. En moins de trois semaines d’une traversée assez tranquille, Jacques Cartier passe au large de Terre-Neuve.