Prisoners of the North

The frozen wilderness of the Far North has long tested the most extreme and reckless of adventurers. In his fiftieth and last book, legendary narrative historian Pierre Berton portrays five extraordinary characters in thrall to the Arctic's forbidding landscapes whose desire for adventure exceeded even their instinct to survive. Meet Joe Boyle, who built the largest gold dredges in the world; Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who claimed to discover a tribe of "Blond Eskimos"; Lady Jane Franklin, who set out on a transcontinental journey in search of her lost husband; John Hornby, the fatally charismatic "hermit of the tundra" who lured two youths to their death; and Robert Service, the Bard of the North, who became the wealthiest and best-known poet of his day. Berton applies his finely honed talents to the magnificent exploits of these dazzling personalities, weaving their stories of courage, fortitude, and recklessness with an unquenchable love for the harsh North. With his sharp eye for detail and faultless ear for a good story, he shows why he was one of the world's most popular historians. Book jacket.Berton, Pierre is the author of 'Prisoners of the North ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780786718375 and ISBN 0786718374.