In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Edition: Expanded
- Author: Valerian Albanov
- Publisher: Modern Library
- Release Date: October 2000
- ISBN-10: 067978361X
- ISBN-13: 9780679783619
- List Price: $14.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryIn the early 20th-century era of daring polar exploration, the less-trumpeted fishing and hunting expeditions went largely unrecorded. Except, that is, for a recently discovered tale about a Russian hunter and his shipmate. Valerian Albanov's account of his 18-month-long survival in the Siberian Arctic remained unknown until a group of polar-literature enthusiasts rediscovered it in 1997. Translated into English for the first time, In the Land of White Death competes with the adventures of famed heroes Robert Falcon Scott, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Ernest Shackleton. And like Scott's and Cherry-Garrard's narratives, Albanov's tale is penned from a diary he kept during his remarkable ordeal. Albanov's epic begins in 1914, after he leaves the Saint Anna, a sailing vessel bound for Vladivostok and new hunting territory, 7,000 miles across dangerous water. Only a few months into the voyage, the ship is trapped in pack ice, where it drifts helplessly with the Kara Sea ice flow for nearly one and a half years. With supplies dwindling and no hope of rescue, Albanov, the ship's navigator, and 13 of his colleagues leave the boat and the remaining crew to look for land. Outfitted with sleds and kayaks built from scavenged fragments of the Saint Anna, Albanov begins his 18-month trek to Franz Josef Land with a broken chronometer, scant supplies, and a team of inexperienced men. Facing starvation, subzero temperatures, and the loss of most of his team, Albanov persists, searching for an outpost rumored to be at Cape Flora, 120 miles from his original starting point. He and his last surviving shipmate survive a litany of amazing mishaps: asleep on an ice flow, they are dumped into frozen water while bound in a sleeping bag; scurvy nearly kills Albanov only a few miles from his destination; and once help arrives, they're caught in the first skirmishes of World War I, a conflict of which they had no knowledge. Albanov's experience is a brief, gripping account of a story that rivals the greatest survival tales in history. The diary style of his tale preserves its emotional authenticity as he trudges his way across the frozen Arctic, and his knack for clear detail only highlights the unbelievable fact that Albanov was lucid enough to write at all during his winter march across a deadly landscape. --Lolly Merrell |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
A Great Story Told in the First Person
Rating:
In the Land of White Death, An epic Story of Survival on the Siberian Arctic
by Valerian Albanov
Modern Library Edition, 2000; 190 pages plus notes.
Valerian Albanov, the feisty Russian navigator of Captain Brusilov's ship the Saint Anna, was 31 years old when his ship left port Aug.28, 1912. By October 15 the ship was frozen in ice. The summer of 1913 came and went without freeing the ship During a year and a half the ship drifted north 2,400 miles with the moving ice! In April of 1914, Albanov and 10 men left the ship and endured a three month struggle over 235 miles of ice to reach Cape Flora where they were rescued by another ship, the Saint Folka.
Reading of their extreme difficulties and troubles from the safety of one's easy chair, one admires the courage and determination of such men as Albanov, and feel a faint desire to share such adventures. We are lucky Albanov shared his adventure with us and perhaps the reading of it is enough adventure for us easy-chair explorers. He tells his story following the dairy he kept along the way: an autobiography of the hardest three months in his life without doubt. He and one other survived. Some died, and some wandered off and were lost, others became separated when they had to split into two groups. No trace of the Saint Anna with captain Brusilov and the remaining crewmen was ever found.
Nature is brutal and beautiful.
"One should not poke one's nose into places where Nature does not want the presence of man"---Valerian Albanov
Rating:
I brought this book on the plane and it proved to be the perfect flying companion. At just over 200 pages including acknowledgments and index, it is very small, even in hardcover form, and is so riveting you can't put it down. The hours and miles literally fly by. The story is told by Valerian Albanov, second in command of the Saint Anna which set sail in August 28, 1912 on an expedition to find new hunting grounds for walruses, seals, polar bears, and whales headed by the captain, Georgiy Brusilov.
Younger and less experienced than Albanov, Capt. Brusilov was ill prepared for the voyage. They had a riffraff crew, lack of antiscorbutics and fuel, and almost no arctic books in the ship's library. They left late in the summer guaranteeing they would run into icy conditions. Within two months, the St. Anna was trapped in ice in the Kara Sea. After staying a winter in the ice, Albanov had had enough and told his captain he and about half the crew would set out on foot to find the Franz Josef islands documented in the only useful book on board, "Farthest North" by Fridtjof Nansen. They began preparations in January 1914, building kayaks and sledges and beginning their treacherous journey April 16, 1914.
What follows is an exciting story of setbacks, struggles, loss and survival. Albanov made no bones about what he thought of the captain he left behind and the comrades who accompanied him. Brusilov scoffed at their efforts and had no awareness of the momentous task before them. Albanov found many of his companions to be slackers with no concept of the dangers they were facing. Two members of his group actually stole equipment and left on their own with predictable results. Albanov's candor in describing the shortcomings of those around him is very eye-opening. As is mentioned in the foreword, although Albanov had 20/20 hindsight, he writes the story without giving anything away and has a keen sense of what to leave out. He also had a flair for writing.
One qualm I have is that is ends too abruptly. I wanted more. What happened to Albanov and his surviving comrade when they returned home? Anyway, we are lucky to have this book today as it has not been translated until this edition. David Roberts, an expert of Arctic exploration, explains in his foreword that he had not even heard of the Albanov story until 1997. It was only available in Russian and a 1928 French edition which was located at Harvard's Widener Library and had not been checked out for sixty-eight years. I wonder if it was the anti-Russian feelings of most of the century that prevented the story from gaining interest in the United States, but that is not considered. Anyone interested in exploration books who has not come across "The Land of White Death" yet will probably find it to be one of the best books on survival out there.
An untold story that rivals tales of European & American polar thrillers
Rating:
If you enjoy books on polar survival and exploration, this book will be a welcomed addition to your library. If you've read other books of this type, you know that it quickly becomes difficult to find an original non-fiction story about polar adventure & survival. This book is a hidden jem! Of note is the fact that this is a translated text, but it still reads so well you don't even realize that it is a translation. I've read other translated books that result in awkward reading. The length of time that the party members survived is unparalleled when compared to other tales of artic survival. The resourcefulness of the survivors is truly amazing as they continue to face daunting task after daunting task even to the very end. This book is hard to put down and will not disappoint.
Grippingly Good
Rating: 
Talk about an incredibly survival journey, this is it. These guys were very resourceful and strong and tough. But the elements start to take there toll. Imagine yourself in a handmade tiny kayak, and you're making an open water sea crossing, and then the winds pick up to hurricane force. What would you do? Yeah, lash yourself upon an iceberg. This is great fictional non-fiction. And it's hard to put down, because what will happen next?
Don't Cry for Me, Saint Anna
Rating:
In 1912, the Russian ship Saint Anna, undersupplied and with an incompetent captain, set out to sail the Northeast Passage across the top of Asia. Frozen into the icepack in the notoriously treacherous Kara Sea, the ship drifted north for a year and a half.
At this point Valerian Albanov, chief navigation officer and former second-in-command (he had been relieved of duty by his commander; we don't know why), received the captain's permission to leave the ship with thirteen companions. In improvised sledges, skis, and kayaks, they set out for Franz Joseph Land to the south.
Only Albanov and one companion survived to be rescued from the same cape on the same island from which Fridtjof Nansen and his companion had been rescued twenty years before. (See Nansen's "Farthest North" to see how an Arctic drift SHOULD be handled.) This is the journal that Albanov kept, beginning from the day he left the Saint Anna hopelessly frozen in the ice. Saint Anna was never found.
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