Customer Reviews

Last Places: A Journey in the North

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It is appropriate that Paul Theroux, that globetrotting curmudgeon who gave us THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS and so many other great travel books, should write the introduction for this edition of Millman's LAST PLACES. Millman takes Theroux's world-weariness to higher latitudes -- from Norway across to the Shetlands and Faroes, from there to Iceland and Greenland, and ending up in Labrador.

But like Theroux, Millman is wonderfully entertaining. See him witness a Faroese "grindadráp," or mass slaughter of a whole pod of whales, by throngs of gleeful Faroese bearing hooks and knives. See him wake up naked and hung over in a drainage ditch after a night of carousing in Reykjavik. And, most funny of all, see him fend off love-starved Inuit maidens in Nuuk who crave his bod and are not too dainty about their seduction technique.

Millman is a bit of a loner, and yet his book sparkles most when he is interacting with the locals. Because this happens hardly at all in the Shetlands, this is the weakest part of his book. LAST PLACES picks up steam as he visits an isolated lighthouse keeper in the West Fjords of Iceland whose library extends to 16,000 volumes. His encounters with Inuits in Greenland are priceless. And the episodes in Labrador show us a land of isolated cranks and eccentrics attempting to protect their way of life from do-gooder government relocation projects.

When the thermometer rises, pick up this book to cool you off. It makes for great summer reading. And it is excellent preparation for my upcoming trip to Iceland. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Lawrence Millman displays a rare ability to capture the shadows seen from the corner of his eye, our walking guide to Iceland's "back roads". He carefully meters the methodical pace of icebound survival with a traveler's fascination for all living things, without need to hold back any random or contrary observations. Many "naturalist travels" books describe places, people, and ancedotal passages, but "Last Places" really does draw the reader to this unlikely destination with its insight and humor.

A truly wonderful book about traveling in the North from Norway to Newfoundland. Millmand sets out to trace the Viking Route across the North Atlantic and along the way comes up with tales magical and gritty at the same time. My favorite is his meeting with the lighthouse keeper who lives with his library of 16,000 books. Millman has the ability to be open to every experience, take it all in, meet all kinds of human beings and make it come alive in words. This one goes on my short shelf to be read over again. A great book for travelers dreaming of a northern journey and for armchair travelers alike.

This is a really fun trip. Millman decides that he's going to follow the Vikings' original sea route from Norway to the Shetland and Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and eventually Newfoundland and the New World. The subtitle is "A Journey in the North," and that is quite true. For most of us, it is an alien landscape he travels through, eating fried seal nose bits, being propositioned in Iceland, seeing an albino moose, meeting a convicted murderer and enjoying other truly bizarre adventures. Last Places defines the success of the travel genre: you read it and then say, "I have to go there and see for myself."

Living in the warmth of Australia, I knew nothing and cared the same about the frozen north until I bought a copy of this book at a remainder sale. The author traces the Viking trail from the Phaeros through to Newfoundland.He manages to make a night in a tent, buffetted by a Force Nine gale sound like good boy scout fun. There are frequent touches of nicely ironic humour and evocative descriptions of people and places. I have now purchased a number of books on the north and am planning an extended visit in a couple of years.

I enjoyed this vicarious trip to lands I have always been interested in, but will never be able to travel to. Mr. Millman has taken this journey for me. He writes of his love for cold rocky lands, for tiny, sparsely populated islands out in the middle of the Atlantic and in out of the way places. He writes about what he has seen and experienced in these cold exotic places and wamts his readers to experience them also.

Lawrence Millman is very knowledgeable about the different floras and faunas in these islands and coutries and also knows much about geology. He felt he needed to take the journey because of his love of these places; plus he wanted to experience what the Vikings saw and experienced on their journies to what was in their time unknown places. Then he wrote this great book so others can also take this trip without ever leaving their comfortable homes and lives.

Mr. Millman is at ease with the animals and the natives and interacts with both groups.. At times he goes to their homes, eats their food which most of us would fear to do with people of unknown customs and ways of eating plus the type of foods these natives eat. He walks all over these rocky, barren lands eschewing renting a car for he wants to experience all types of weather, all hard climbs. Looking from the window of a bus is not for him.

However, toward the end of his journey though he really doesn't want to, as he prefers to travel as the Vikings did ,he takes planes and a bus to get to Labrador.

This is one great trip. I enjoyed the book and will read and reread it. Mr Millman is a man of courage, adventure and love of life. He writes about these lands just as he sees them and not through rose colored glasses. Because of his book I
was able to walk through cold lands, visit strange places and peoples, and take slow boat trips to tiny strange villages.

This book could be called Lost Places because they are not on the tourist trips and few people know or care about them except only the indigenous peoples and those like Lawrence Millman.

he takes planes and buses to get to Labrador.

A June through October vagabondage in the shadows of the Viking far-farers. Lawrence Millman wanders from Norway to Newfoundland by way of the Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland. His engaging mix of descriptions of the local color and his own wry humour make for some fine and entertaining reading. Written in a journal travelogue style with just enough history and customs mixed in to tempt you to visit these "last places".
An excellent adventure story. Highly recommended.

Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts

As a polar regions travel junkie, I devoured Millman's account of his journey through the Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, and places in between. I thought he did an admirable job of relaying the harships of life (especially in Greenland) while always coming back to the mysterious appeal that this region holds for many.

This is my favourite book. I have had to get myself several copies, because other people seem to like the book so much they have to take it home! I re-read it now and then, and it always puts me in a good mood. I find Millman to be both insprirational and very funny. This book makes you feel like wandering off somewhere.

Simply one of the best travel books ever written. How this could be allowed to go out of print is a mystery -- and a damned shame!