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Death on the Barrens: A True Story of Courage and Tragedy in the Canadian Arctic |  | Author: George James Grinnell
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy Used: $9.67
as of 9/6/2010 05:34 CDT details
You Save: $8.28 (46%)
Seller: proday65
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 227953
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 296
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8
ISBN: 1556438826
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.904633
EAN: 9781556438820
ASIN: 1556438826
Publication Date: April 20, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
A Letter to Amazon Readers from George Grinnell 
Dear Amazon.com readers, At the beginning of the trip that I describe in Death on the Barrens, I had said to myself, "If things get rough, at least I will not be the first to die." I had just been discharged from the Army and was in better physical condition than the others, but, by the end of the trip I was thinking very different thoughts: "I hope I will not be the last to die." By the end of the trip, I took pride not in my own strength, for it was laughable compared to the power of the wind that had ripped the tent I was sleeping in to shreds, or the power of the cataracts which had flipped our canoes as if they were toys, or of the cold which had killed Art--by the end of the trip, I took pride only in what I could do for others because I did not want to be the last to die. I was scared of dying alone. Although I was terrified of dying, there were moments when I felt so at peace that I just wanted to remain in the arctic forever. Having my terror transformed by beauty into awe was like receiving, what mystics call, the ecstasy of the grace of God. It is such a wonderful feeling--a mixture of awe, peace, and love--that, if I could, I would share it. Yours sincerely, George James Grinnell
Questions for George Grinnell Q: Recalling the hardships of the catastrophic canoe voyage of 1955 must be difficult and painful, at times. What made you decide to write Death on the Barrens?
A: I was telling the story to some friends at dinner one night, fifty years ago, and one of them, Professor Ed Chalfant said: "Write the book." The next day he gave me his typewriter. I have been typing ever since trying to convey what perhaps cannot be conveyed: the transformation of terror into awe. Q: Something that makes your book so wonderful is that you offer philosophical insight into the Barrens expedition, and reflections on your life since. What do you want readers to take away from reading the book?
A: I would like readers to take away the idea that awe transforms vanity into love, and love is the source of the inner peace which we all desire. Q: Through your experiences and through the writing of this book, what have you learned about human nature that isn't common knowledge?
A: I’ve learned that it is necessary to empty oneself if one wants to receive the gift of awe, love, and peace, which is the gift of the wilderness to troubled souls.
Product Description
Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes readers on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn. As winter closed in, they suddenly faced numbing cold and dwindling food. When the crew is swept over a waterfall, Moffatt is killed and most of the gear and emergency food supplies destroyed. Confronting freezing conditions and near starvation, the remaining crew struggled to make it back to civilization. For Grinnell, the three-month expedition was both a rite of passage and a spiritual odyssey. In the Barrens, he lost his sense of identity and what he had been conditioned to think about society and himself. Forever changed by the experience, he unsparingly describes how the expedition influenced his adult life and what powerful insights he was able to glean from this life-altering experience.
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| Customer Reviews:
Kids, Don't Try this At Home July 19, 2010
NyiNya (Out of my depth)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
After, one might assume, reading too many issues of National Geographic magazine,six callow young men get it into their heads that they should brave the Canadian arctic and decide to explore some of the least hospitable land on the planet via foot and canoe. Being young North American males, they were brimming with bravado and the certainty that they were Manly Men, capable of handling anything Mother Nature could dish out. Of course, not one of them had any idea what they were getting in to and their leader was neither experienced enough to take charge of this kind of situation nor smart enough to know it.
From the outset the expedition seems doomed. They plan poorly, fail to bring along essential equipment, and severely miscalculate the amount of food they'll need. Although they plan to explore the wilds for 3 long months, they run out of supplies in just a few weeks. Because their leader has scruples about "killing living creatures" they don't hunt for food. Their canoe skills are not up to the horrendously violent and unpredictable rapids they face, and their leader, the only one among them with a modicum of whitewater experience, is killed. The accident also costs them what's left of their limited resources...their food and equipment are carried away in the deafening roar of a raging river. The remaining five struggle against what seem to be insurmountable obstacles to survive the adventure they began so cavalierly.
This could have been an unforgettable adventure book with more action than Sebastian Junger's "Perfect Storm" and more edge of the seat suspense than Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" or "Into Thin Air." Instead, George Grinnell who was one of the five survivors back in 1955, turns this into a spiritual journey, a soul-searching exploration into the effect the experience had on his life. I would have preferred more of the adventure, less of the internal odyssey.
For brief moments the book soars...when Grinnel describes an untouched land of breathtaking majesty or when he talks about the truly terrifying plunge down a waterfal where his comrade is killed. But when Grinnel starts sharing his innermosts with us, the machinery of the narrative hits a big clunk.
If there is a moral to be learned here, beyond Stay the Heck out of the Woods, Town Boys, it is: don't muddle up a good adventure story with an interminable stream of innermost thoughts, regrets, hopes and dreams. Save that for the interview with Dr. Phil. Give your readers the exciting story they signed on for. Either that or post a warning on the book jacket: Danger, author seeks spiritual validation. The adventure is good enough to get four stars, but the soul searching makes a fifth out of the question.
 Adventure tale with insight into group dynamics May 28, 2010
James Denny (Catonsville, Maryland)
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.
A tragedy we all can learn from May 28, 2010
Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA)
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.
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