Tricet let na zlatem severu (Edice Slunovrat) (Czech Edition) (Unknown Binding)

by Jan Welzl (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes
Text: Czech

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 231 pages
• Publisher: Ceskoslovensky spisovatel; Vyd. 6 edition (1989)
• Language: Czech
• ISBN-10: 8020200878
• ISBN-13: 978-8020200877
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,347,065 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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4.0 out of 5 stars Details of a life long ago and far away, July 15, 2002

By	Erika Mitchell (E. Calais, VT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book (published in English in 1932 as "Thirty Years in the Golden North" by MacMillan) is the memoirs of man who set out for adventure in the northernmost corners of the world in 1893. At the time, Jan Welzl was working on the Siberian Railway. Co-workers told him that "the Far North was a country where any man with a good pair of hands and good head on his shoulders could make himself independent." So Welzl struck off for the North, first with a horse, later a team of reindeer, and finally, with a pack of dogs. After several years journey, Welzl ends up in New Siberia, where he sets up housekeeping, and later shop, in a cave far above the Artic Circle.

This book is long on stories and short on historical detail that can pin down exact dates and locations, so we might expect some facts to be muddled or exaggerated. Nevertheless, the overall story is quite believable, and some of the details that Welzl provides about life in the North can be quite revealing. For example, Welzl describes Northern "dentistry", and other medical procedures, and he explains the relations and interdependencies between the settlers, Eskimos, and whalers, as well as the typical methods used for finding gold. Welzl boasts of hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit that he made in his trading business, which sounds a bit less credible, but perhaps this potentially reflects a separate currency system in operation in the Far North during those times. This book cannot be taken as an accurate historical record of the Far North, but it does contain many hints and could be a very useful starting point for further research. It's also quite captivating in its own right.