Customer Reviews

Death on the Barrens: A True Story of Courage and Tragedy in the Canadian Arctic

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I like stories of courage in the wilderness, fortitude in the face of adversity, and determination winning against great odds. I've read about Shackelford's incredible success in bringing his crew to safety after being marooned in Antarctica, a truly unbelievable feat; I've read Jon Krakauer's heartbreaking tale of the young man who died in a bus in the wilds of Alaska. This book does not come close to the pure nature of both of those expeditions; I hesitated even to give it four stars, for many reasons, but it is well-written.

George Grinnell, at the time a young man fresh from an exclusive school and with some experience canoeing in the wilderness, joins the expedition of Art Moffatt, an older (to Grinnell) explorer (Moffatt was 36) who is planning to canoe the Barren Grounds near Churchill on the Arctic Circle and down Dubawnt River to a Hudson Bay station. There were five young men plus Moffatt making up the team; all seemed to get along reasonably well, but I did not get the feeling that anything was allowed for; no limitations on food or equipment was made; no accounting, aside from Moffatt's mathematical calculations about how much would be needed for the trip, for use; and the calculations must have very early on gone by the wayside as whenever Moffatt wanted to declare a 'holiday' - which he did with alarming frequency - the whole team parked for sometimes days at a time. I also did not get the notion that anything was done for a purpose, other than the mere journey itself; and the word 'hedonism' must have come to my mind dozens of times. The team seemed to treat this journey, through some of the most inhospitable, uninhabited territory in the world, as an extended class trip. Days of lying around camp, fishing and hunting, were interspersed with canoeing down rapids and over stormy lakes. When someone should have been keeping an eye on the calendar, and the length of time they were taking to get to where they were going, it seems as though no one was taking the trip at all seriously, especially the leader Moffatt, who had an obligation to try to get his charges to safety well before the onset of winter.

The book is full of very nicely done black-and-white watercolor scenes of the Barrens, and of the wildlife that populate it; the men seemed to eat well enough, with many descriptions of huge, beautiful fish and fat caribou caught and cooked; yet Grinnell says they were always hungry. Of course, when they were hiking, canoeing, or otherwise not lounging around camp, they were burning huge amounts of calories; but certainly they were not starving on the scale of the crew of the Franklin Expedition. The troubles they got into were clearly through lack of foresight, and Art Moffatt should have been more mindful of the perils of travelling in such a remote and treacherous area.

Grinnell gets repetitious, and a bit preachy; he constantly falls back on recounting Buddhist jokes, which aren't really jokes at all, and also makes many references to a childhood spent in a wealthy but disconnected family with parents that clearly cared about him but also seemed more concerned about lineage and place than character. He was apparently a young man in search of self, and he didn't get what he was looking for from this trip. Through the inattentions of a leader who should have been following a script and through the inexperience of youth, the entire expedition was put in enormous peril; it's a wonder, at the end (they were still paddling into September, which in the Arctic is a long way from summer), that any of them survived to come home.

Not the best of its kind I have ever read by far, but absorbing enough to make me want to find out what became of them all - and to be glad I wasn't there to experience it myself.

This book was a bit of a disappointment for me. I expected a detailed account of a journey through the rough, uninhabited, northern Canada wilderness. So many adventure stories take you into the footsteps of the story teller and as the epic unfolds you can almost live the narrative yourself. Instead, much of this story revolves around the bickering and problems among the six participants. It baffled me how this group ever got together to make such a trip. They seemed to be fearful and not really sure what they were getting in to. They often argued over food rations, sleeping arrangements and other minor things. I found it strange that, often times, they wondered if they would starve to death. Yet, Canada is abundant in fish and wildlife. Surely, the must have known this.
The last part of the book, after Art Moffatt's death, is more interesting as the author details their survival and final push to their destination and journeys end. He also recaps his later years after this tragic event as he looks back and tries to recapture in words, his remembrance of that time.
I think the story would have been more interesting had the author given a greater description of the daily push through such a rough and beautiful area and spent less time on personal issues.

Under the leadership of Art Moffatt, an experienced wilderness canoeist, five young men from privileged Ivy League backgrounds set out in 1955 to cross the Canadian Barrens in northern Canada. The Barrens are a vast, harsh and uninhabited landscape where trees grow only a foot tall, where the aurora borealis casts cold green and red lights upon the frozen tundra, where the vast panorama of stars overhead are close enough to touch.

Little did they know, although leader Moffatt should have, that they were on a razor's edge between life and death and insanity and sanity. In a trip so poorly planned that there was not enough food to last the trip, amid childish squabbles among the men over petty things, they begin a leisurely trip with many days off from the chore of paddling north. Unforgiving winter was staring them in the face, a winter which comes in September, a beast ready to pounce, a beast that can easily destroy them. But still they loiter.

Author Grinnell writes eloquently. The crew is hurtled into the very jaws of death when their canoes are swamped by freezing water and they are barely able to crawl onto land because their fingers and toes are frozen. The description of the men trying to warm each other up inside their sleeping bags, Grinnell inside his cheap six dollar one, is horrific. They pummel on each other trying to get the blood into their frozen limbs, they are a team, now, not a band of quarreling young men, but brothers trying to save each other's lives. However Art, with his rather frail physique, succumbs on September 14, when he literally freezes to death. They tuck him into one of the canoes and carry him up to a hill, and turn the canoe upside down where his body will be safe from marauding wolves.

When the men get back into their canoes again, they know a fear that they have never felt before, and Grinnell's hands shake as he pushes his paddle deep into the cold green water. But he has changed. He has survived, he has been delivered from the abyss, Daniel from the lion's den. He will see more tragedy: his two sons and a nephew will die in the wilderness. He spends the next fifty years of his life looking for meaning where none perhaps exists. But he finds inner peace, perhaps he has found his Shangri-La.

And oddly, in spite of the rigors of that fateful trek so long ago, Grinnell is still so affected by the sheer majesty of the Barrens, even when writing about them fifty years later, he makes you want to go too.

Unexpected and refreshing, the reader will find this to be much more than a typical adventure tale from "The Great White North." George James Grinnell (known at the time as Jim, for short), signed on to a canoe adventure in the high Canadian sub-Arctic (known as the 'Barrens' in the Northwest Territory) in the summer of 1955. This trip was only the third trip to be taken along this route by white men. Two prior trips, one in the 18th century and one in the 19th century were the only trips known to have occurred along this route of interconnected rivers and lakes previously. Those trips had Indian guides along.

Six men in three canoes, Jim's fellow travelers were young and inexperienced, four of them Dartmouth College students. The exception was their leader, 36-year Art Moffett. Moffett was an experienced outdoorsman, a former military man, a "seeker" of truth and inner peace who found himself more at home in the out-of-doors in wilderness settings than anywhere else.

An omen of ill-fortune when the trip began, it was three weeks late in starting. Timing would prove a factor of key importance in this adventure--for autumn in the sub-Arctic northland begins in August.

Why is this book such a good read? It isn't just the adventure part of the tale. Author "Jim" (who now goes by George) has thought about, pondered and re-lived this three-month adventure in his life for the last fifty years. Finally getting this book published in his early 70's, it is the distillation of earlier drafts, his recollections and musings over fifty years. This adds a real richness and depth to this tale.

"Death on the Barrens" is a study in group dynamics. The extreme events of the journey had transformative powers upon the personality of each of the six individuals on the trip. Jim's keen observations and insights into the behavior of the individuals could serve as a case study for a graduate-level seminar in small group psychology.

There are some great chapter headings which get to the heart of what the trip is all about: The First Sugar Dispute; the United Bowmen's Association; The Second Sugar Dispute; Caribou; Our New Leader.

I will resist giving too much away. Because the first word in the title is the word 'Death,' the reader knows in advance that not all participants will make it back home. What will surprise readers is that poor planning and permitting too many 'holidays,' leader Art, perhaps at a subconscious level, may have set the group up so that they would not be able to make it back home. For Art, finding inner peace in the wilderness of the Barrens was a more important goal than return-to-start. With returning home safely and on-time the implicit goal of the fellow travelers, Art's thinking ran along a different line.

Incongruously and more than a distraction, in the two final chapters of the book and the 'Afterword,' Jim frankly goes off-the-rail in bringing readers up-to-date with events in his personal life. Four marriages, three ex-wives, two dead sons, he brings issues and events into the picture that the reader is not able to absorb. His pace of writing quickens as he rushes through fifty years of living. He is not bashful in letting the reader know that he suffered serious mental problems in his life including a nervous breakdon and hospitalization.

Nevertheless, "Death on the Barrens" is a fine work, a book that a thoughtful reader will want to revist. I would be remiss if I did not mention the quiet and captivating artwork, a series of Arctic-themed watercolors done by the artist Roderick MacIver. These paintings evoke the feel of the landscape in the Barrens region, a wonderful supplement to Grinnell's tale.

Reading this book is like reading a Greek or Shakesperean tragedy, because you already know from the cover photo that Art Moffatt is going to die. How he dies and why he dies is revealed in painful detail, as you watch a poorly-planned arctic expedition devolve into fatal lethargy and chaos. In a sense, it's a classic example of "The Grasshopper and the Ant," because the six young men on this adventure play away the summer and get caught by winter completely unprepared. "Because we had lost our sense of getting anywhere," writes Grinnell, "we began to spend less and less time actually trying. The more time we spent hunting, fishing and gathering the fruits of the wilderness, the more at home we felt on the tundra..." With tragic results, since they were not equipped to deal with the sudden blizzard that roared in the arrival of winter.

This story is also a lesson in leadership, or the lack thereof. Opponents of "hierarchy" would do well to read this book and see what happens when nobody is in charge of life-and-death situations, and "majority rules" means that newbies are making some very bad decisions. There is a reason why hunter-gatherer societies, by and large, were not democracies. An expedition like this needs a strong, seasoned leader who is willing to take charge and push the group to keep on going, because winter is always stalking them like a hungry beast. Art was not that kind of leader, which put the entire expedition in peril.

This tragedy is set against descriptions of some of the most beautiful country in the world -- and that beauty comes out in Grinnell's account, as well as in the wonderful watercolor illustrations by Roderick McIver. I was especially fascinated by Grinnell's description of the mystical tie he felt between himself and the caribou they hunted. I myself am not a hunter, nor have I ever been in a situation where killing an animal was my only means of survival. Neither was George Grinnell -- until he and his six buddies were facing starvation on the tundra. Through the act of hunting and eating the caribou, Grinnell gets in touch with God and his soul in a mystical, shamanic sense. I did find myself wondering how much of the shamanic interpretation of these events came later, since there was very little academic or "new age" discussion of shamanism back in 1955. Then again, I wasn't on the expedition. Maybe these insights come naturally when you are in the wilderness, stripped of all the trappings of civilization. "As the caribou became part of my body," Grinnel writes, "it's spirit began an argument in my heart: which god did I really want to serve -- the god of the caribou that had just died for me or the god of the American empire?"

Good question, because the young men on this expedition, including Grinnell, came from privileged Ivy League backgrounds where they were being groomed for serving "the god of the American empire." On one level, this was a case of upper class college boys trying to prove their machismo and manhood. From that perspective, it's a stark and sometimes brutal coming of age story. On another level, it's a profound examination of life, goals and values, a struggle which continued for Grinnell long after this life-changing event. A most unusual adventure book that gave me much to think about.

I simply loved this book. I found it an interesting and entertaining read-- if one can say that such a tragic trip can be entertaining.

It's an account of a river journey made by five youngsters in their early twenties and late teens, and 36 year-old 'leader' through the wilds of northern Canada. Between you and me it's surprising that the whole lot of them didn't perish, they were so ill-prepared. Not only did they leave without the supplies they intended to take, but they left late in the season .AND. then they dallied along the way. Traits which, if you've read about any adventures in northern climes, are pretty much tantamount to a death sentence for someone if not everyone.

Never-the-less, they paddled for what they were worth and tried to do what they could to find food along the way. They fished and hunted and scavenged along the shore. But really their physical trip down the river isn't really what grabbed my interest. What really caught me up and kept me flipping page after page late into the night, was Grinnell's insight into what was going on in their little group; as well as his own reflections on his life and the upper class he belonged to. He doesn't, in fact, focus on descriptions of 'the barrens' so much as how being there made him feel. And his work ends up being more about group dynamics and sociology, religion and culture, than it is about a canoe trip.

For example, one of the things that Grinnell talks about is that nearly all of the young people underwent a profound change. Partly this was because their leader, Arthur Moffett, refused to lead them, and partly this was because they were put under so much pressure. They were alone, without supervision for probably the first time in their lives, isolated and starving, and yet dependent on other people they hardly knew. And under those circumstances, it's not surprising that the atheist Grinnell found religion, like many others who suddenly discover that their life isn't a sure thing, while sinking his teeth into a fresh caribou steak.

The other aspect of the book that I found interesting was the picture he painted of what it was like to be an exceeding rich rebel in a community of effete intellectuals in the last century. Grinnell went to Groton and Harvard, and what he has to say about the institutions' fraternity-like "hazing" system isn't very flattering. But he talks about these things, his failings, his families troubles, and how money and their 'Mayflower' heritage was mixed blessing. (124 of his relatives fought in the Revolutionary War....)

TALKING POINTS:::
If this book had only been written in the 10th Century it would be poured over and would find it's own Gibbons or Wallace-Hadrill to make it famous. Which is to say that it's a fabulous primary source that has a great deal to teach people if only their put on their history or sociology "hats".

Personally, I found the group dynamics fascinating. Here were these coddled children thrust into a very dangerous situation with no recourse but to muddle through. They look naturally to "the adult" to guide them, but unfortunately "the adult" wasn't there for them, and they had to 'find themselves' in a way most of us wouldn't envy.

If you are looking for simple book about a travel adventure, "Death on the Barrens" is not it. This book isn't simple at all. There's a great deal of soul-bearing and talk about spiritual experiences. As well, there's a great deal of reflection about what life was like for the upper class mid 20th Century.

Pam T~

This book is very well written. It tells about a journey that many men would love to take but do not dare. These men dare, or at least attempt, to conquer nature only to learn that it is nature and the power of God which controls us. Grinnell has a gifted way of telling what will happen yet leaving the reader wondering how it will happen. He also cleverly points out different worldviews and how they can change and be manipulated when humility before God is the only option. If you take this journey along with Grinnell under the leadership of Art Moffat, you may never return as the same person.

I read DEATH ON THE BARRENS almost immediately after receiving it, and found the story compelling. So, why my 8-month delay to review it? It may be related to the reasons the author waited so many decades before penning this epic memoir. This is not a "macho" story; it details very human fallibilities on many levels. Grinnell's journey was a profoundly personal one; it took him many years to understand the experience and place it in the context of his life. His sojourn's transformative impact is not one that could be easily articulated. Thus, I was greatly moved in highly personal ways and have had difficulty knowing how to write this review.

I've spent a lot of time in the outdoors, including extensive mountaineering and serious rock climbing. Like anyone else who spends time in the wilderness, there have been times I feared for my life, as well as that of my companions. Some of the experiences Grinnell had, and issues he addressed, were ones my companions and I have encountered - but not often discussed.

This is a beautiful and evocative story, and Grinnell tells it well. My biggest criticism is the book's pacing. Early on, the story lagged - but this may have been a stylistic decision, to reflect the dangerously deceptive languor that beset Grinnell's expedition early on. Another example is that after the culminating episode of the book, Grinnell rushed through the last weeks of his epic travails so rapidly that I had a hard time fully comprehending what I knew had to be great physical and emotional suffering.

Even so: eight months after reading this book, I still think of it frequently and doubt I will ever forget it. Reading DEATH ON THE BARRENS is uncomfortable, but the time invested in pondering its lessons is time well spent.

~Sharon

Advance Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the Publisher.

This book is a page-turner. The author does an excellent job of conveying not only the details of the journey and it's fateful outcome, but also the feeling of being there. In my opinion, many books of the true adventure genre attempt this, but it is rare that they actually pull it off. Instead of feeling like an outside observer, you end up feeling like you've become another member of the expedition. Immersed in their stuggles, you get well acquainted with each explorer and the interplay between their personalities. You get caught up in their anxiety over delays and lack of supplies. Then in a single moment, a small misjudgement causes the entire world to change. Just like George, we're left to struggle with the "what-ifs", and just like George it forces us into some deep introspection to make try and sense of it and gain a margin of comfort from it.

The clear title makes further summary by book review rather superfluous. I'm generally not a spoiler in my reviews, so - taking a look at style . . . .

Exceptionally well written. (Brings to mind Krakauer only much better). A nice blend of stark (and sometimes horrifying) factual narrative, nicely balanced with introspection, remembrances, nature studies, travel log, and intricate studies in human relations. And high adventure of the highest order. Beautifully illustrated (also a couple of photos), beautifully told. As a bonus, the reader is transported to a remote part of the planet where few have ventured.

The author is surprisingly honest regarding himself, exposing his own weakness and selfishnesses. He is likewise as candid about the other members of the party, good and bad. I find myself thinking back on this read often. Is even possibly a "behavior changing" read.

Let me reiterate, "well written". George Grinnell is an unknown (to me). I thought this would be about an adventurer who wrote a book. As it turns out, this is about a gifted author who had a great adventure a wrote about it. He's a keen observer, well educated (Groton, Harvard) and very intelligent. This story, of a recreational wilderness adventure trip, is unsettling right from the get go. While even the pretrip euphoria is reigning, there is a distant rumble of impending doom. So as not to ruin the story for you, I'll stop there . . . adding one thing . . . I'll never consider the ideas of hunger (read starvation) and cold (fatal cold)the same way again. And this is such an education about relationships.

This true story contains the situations of a well constructed adventure novel, and is one of those rare books that one finds now and then, that I was always eager to pick back up for another bite. I easily could have immersed myself in this and read it in a couple of sittings, but I rather tried to stretch out the experience and enjoy it as long as possible. Read, "Death on the Barrens".