Reviews of In Antarctica:
Ariel Gordon in The Winnipeg Free Press
“Bold combo of memoir, travelogue”
Winnipeg Free Press [Winnipeg, MA] 3 August, 2013
IN ANTARCTICA: AN AMUNDSEN PILGRIMAGE
By Jay Ruzesky
Nightwood Editions, 240pp, $25
On his mother’s side, British Columbia poet and professor Jay Ruzesky is a cousin, twice-removed, of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
Ruzesky’s compelling new memoir, In Antarctica, tells the story of his trip to the Antarctic a century after his ancestor became the first person to set foot on the South Pole.
Ruzesky, who now teaches in Duncan, spent his childhood dreaming of the polar expeditions. But his adult life had been consumed by writing three collections of poetry and a novel, teaching and having a family.
As the 2011 anniversary of Amundsen’s achievement approached, Ruzesky tried to reconcile himself to not following in his ancestor’s footsteps.
He failed. Instead, Ruzesky found himself online, booking a berth on a ship that would take him from Patagonia to the Antarctic.
What’s more, he convinced his brother Scott to come along, even if his sibling’s first question was, “Which one of us is Amundsen?”
Ruzesky knew he was incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt but thought there might be a book in his trip across the ice. (Which, in case you’re wondering, makes perfect economic sense to a poet.)
Structurally, In Antarctica parallels Ruzesky’s 2011 trip with episodes from Amundsen’s 1911 voyage on the Fram and his earlier expedition to the Antarctic on the Belgica in 1887. His title is obviously an homage to the late Bruce Chatwin’s classic 1977 travel memoir, In Patagonia.
The sections from Ruzesky’s point of view meld travel writing with memoir, which effectively sets the stage for the writer’s month-long voyage.
For instance, though Ruzesky has called B.C. home for 20 years, he spent his childhood in the cold-weather climes of Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Saskatoon and Calgary.
One story that would be familiar to anyone who grew up on the Prairies details how the entrance collapsed to the quinzee he and his schoolmates had built in their school playground in Thunder Bay.
This is meaningful, given that Amundsen’s crew spent more than a year in a large hut connected to a series of snow caves on the Ross Ice Shelf before making their attempt on the pole.
Also interesting is Ruzesky’s anecdote of a failed dog-sledging lesson in Whitehorse in 2002. Knowing that Amundsen’s success in reaching the South Pole was largely attributed to his use of dogs instead of ponies, like his English rival Robert Falcon Scott, supercharges this story.
Ruzesky also includes meditations on exploration and cartography and provides context for Amundsen’s journey by providing thumbnail sketches of other voyages to both the North and South poles.
The other half of In Antarctica is in Amundsen’s voice, an incredibly detailed account that Ruzesky somehow cobbled together from the explorer’s journals and photographs.
More importantly, these sections are very finely written. Ruzesky illuminates Amundsen’s dreamy childhood and his possible motives for devoting his life to exploration instead of medicine, as his mother would have preferred.
Ruzesky’s description of Admundsen’s affair with the married Sigrid Castberg that preceded the 1911 voyage, however, read like the best historical fiction.
All of which is to say that In Antarctica is a bold and satisfying composite of creative non-fiction, memoir and travel writing.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg poet whose paternal great-grandfather died on the shores of Antarctica’s South Georgia Island in 1914.
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Colin Holt in The Victoria Times-Colonist
“A tale worth following to the end of the Earth”
Times – Colonist [Victoria, B.C] 16 June 2013: D.9.
IN ANTARCTICA
By Jay Ruzesky
Nightwood Editions, 239 pp., $24.95
Vancouver Island author Jay Ruzesky’s In Antarctica is a hugely enjoyable tale of a journey to Antarctica, both his own and that of his relative, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
Ruzesky alternates between his own voyage to Antarctica and Amundsen’s historic achievement of reaching the South Pole in 1911, managing to fill each chapter with adventure.
Amundsen’s attempt at the South Pole begins in secrecy as everyone, including the crew, believes he is setting out for the North Pole – one of the Norwegian’s many tactics used to get a time advantage over the British as they race to be the first to claim the Pole.
Amundsen’s experience is a hard and dangerous one as he has to battle the elements, the dogs and at times his own crew along the way. The relationship between the crew and the dog teams that eventually get them to their destination is a fascinating, and at times heartbreaking, story all on its own. The fact that he not only successfully made the South Pole, but then went on to be the first to reach the North Pole, makes him one of history’s greatest explorers.
Ruzesky’s route to Antarctica is a bit more relaxed, and he and his brother make stops in South America and spend time sightseeing in shorts and T-shirts – a far cry from the wintering the crew of the Fram experienced a century earlier. As Ruzesky points out, “I was taken to Antarctica because that is how one goes these days.” And while his route may have been less gruelling, it also allows him time to visit spots like the home of Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda.
If Ruzesky had to go to Antarctica because it was in his blood (Amundsen was his great-grandfather’s cousin) it could just as easily be argued that he had to go to Santiago because poetry is in his blood. In Antarctica may not be a book of poetry, but the respect and command of language that makes Ruzesky such a wonderful poet is on display throughout the book.
He vividly brings to life the beauty of Antarctica, a place that to the unfamiliar may seem like just a white barren wasteland. Ruzesky seems to find himself at home here and treats readers to wonderful descriptions of the animals (he grows particularly fond of penguins) and the many colours of the land that make up our least-populated continent.
A successful work of nonfiction should do at least two things for a reader: First, it should leave one feeling as though they have learned something, and second, they should want to know more. In Antarctica succeeds on both these counts quite handily, and includes a list of works consulted to point readers in the right direction should they want to spend more time in Ruzesky’s Antarctica.
Ruzesky closes out the book with a nice round of acknowledgements of all the people who helped with the book, and also includes a paragraph that states: “This story, while fiction, is based on actual events.” This seems to blur the lines even more than the creative non-fiction classification on the back of the book. It made me wonder just what was it that I had read, but it was immediately apparent that it wouldn’t have mattered if the entire story was made up. Ruzesky is such a fine writer – fact or fiction – that he is worth following to the end of the Earth.
— COLIN HOLT
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John Threlfall in CVV Magazine:
In addition to the new Royal BC Museum exhibit Race to the End of the Earth, local author Jay Ruzesky—ancestor of famed South Pole discoverer Roald Amundsen—will be launching his own book with an illustrated lecture called ”In Amundsen’s Footsteps” at 7pm Wednesday, May 29, at the Maritime Museum of BC in Bastion Square. His new book, “In Antarctica: An Amundsen Pilgrimage”, is a fascinating and eminently readable memoir recounting the author’s own personal history growing up in the shadow of Amundsen, combined with a travel narrative about Ruzesky’s journey to Antarctica to mark the 100th anniversary of the South Pole expedition. In addition to a lifetime of anticipation, Ruzesky brings along his poet’s palette as he discovers what it’s really like to set foot on the last truly wild place on Earth. “In Antarctica” is a finely crafted piece of creative non-fiction, well suited for either the veteran or armchair traveler. Since few of us will ever reach Antarctica ourselves, it’s a treat to have an author as accomplished as Ruzesky capture the experience for us.