The Oddest Place on Earth: Rediscovering the North Pole [Paperback]

Christopher Pala (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 24, 2002

When Christopher Pala first landed at the North Pole, he fell so much in love with it that he took his girlfriend to ride the polar treadmill on what he mischievously called the First Expedition to Nowhere. For a week, the couple skied every day to the pole, pitched their tent and drifted away from it as they slept. Between his five trips to the pole, Pala used his journalistic skills to peel away the layers of myth surrounding its discovery and capture the untold story of the first men who indisputably stood there. Pala is the first to chronicle the transformation of one of the most remote places on earth into a new Mecca for adventure travelers. Flying in every April on Russian jets, he joined risk-lovers to parachute over it, balloon across it, attain it on skis and scuba-dive under it. But as he discovers, mans presence at the pole is still ephemeral and there is plenty of opportunity to enjoy the escape from ordinary constraints of time and space provided by this breathtakingly gorgeous place that is not a place. Excerpts of the book have appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Blue Adventure, Polar Record and other publications.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christopher Pala is a free-lance journalist based in Almaty, Kazakhstan. His work with United Press International and Agence France-Presse took him to the Caribbean, West Africa, Russia and Central Asia, but no place captured his heart and mind more than the North Pole.

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (March 24, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595214541
• ISBN-13: 978-0595214549
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,878,449 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book..., November 27, 2002

By 

Bess Balchen Urbahn (Maine United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oddest Place on Earth: Rediscovering the North Pole (Paperback)

Christopher Pala brings the polar regions to life with his accounts of important but long forgotten or ignored expeditions. He describes his own trip to the Pole with wit and humor. A great book, don't miss it

5.0 out of 5 stars A light in a foreign land..., November 26, 2003

By 

Gwen Reid (Winnipeg, Mb., Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oddest Place on Earth: Rediscovering the North Pole (Paperback)

I truly enjoyed reading this book while travelling this fall. It is witty, exotic, engaging and informative. Gives you some background and history into past expeditions and brings it into context of today. Christopher a true adventurer!

5.0 out of 5 stars Trust the man who's been there, November 15, 2003

By 

Mr. R. K. MacPherson "robert_macpherson2" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Oddest Place on Earth: Rediscovering the North Pole (Paperback)

There's been a sudden rush of books coming out on the North Pole. Chris Pala's stands out because he's actually been there -- five times, in fact. He takes the sagas of history's most daring polar expeditions, and weaves them into lively accounts of current-day adventure tourism to the "big stick," complemented with a vivid record of his own "expedition to nowhere" in which he and companion Sylvia write themselves into the pages of polar history by running treadmill for several days on the drifting polar ice pack. Pala's command of the Russian language also gives him special insight into the role of all-too-neglected Russian arctic explorers. A labor of love, written in an engaging, accessible style, that's a must-read for armchair North Pole adventurers.

(Review first posted on Amazon.co.uk)