Reading between the Lines
‘Empire of Ice and Stone’: This page turner will have you appreciating Michigan winters
by Chuck Wisman
Levy’s novel is a guaranteed page turner that offers jaw-dropping suspense. Once you begin the adventure, it’s difficult to put the book down. Image: Amazon.com
“Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk,” by Buddy Levy, contains incredible episodes of heroism, cowardice, madness, hunger, bravery, death, fear, and survival in the everlasting night of the Arctic winter. It describes in great detail the daily challenges for the ship’s crew to simply survive in almost unfathomable conditions.
In the summer of 1913, a wooden-hulled brigantine, the Karluk, left Vancouver Island, British Columbia bound for the Arctic with 28 men, one woman, two children (ages 3 and 8), numerous sled dogs, and one cat. Of the humans on board, seven were Inuit. The goal of the expedition was to explore and map the Arctic. Within six weeks, the Karluk was trapped in a moving Arctic ice floe battling the seas, shifting ice, hungry polar bears, minus 60º F temperatures, hunger, and Arctic storms.
The Karluk was commanded by Captain Robert “Bob” Bartlett, a 37-year-old seasoned Arctic sailor who had previously sailed with Robert Peary. The expedition was organized and led by Vilhjalmar Stefansson, a charlatan who essentially abandoned the expedition early on. Over a period of several months, the trapped Karluk drifted in the pack ice from the north of Alaska to near Wrangel Island north of Siberia where it was crushed by the ice and sank. Levy conveys the hopelessness of the situation:
For some time, everyone stared at the surface of the water that had engulfed the Karluk. Two umiaks and the whaleboat, all three of which had been on the deck, floated aimlessly, buffeted by the wind. Bartlett pulled down his hood and tried to bite back tears. He’d been shipwrecked twice before — both times on Newfoundland’s southern coast — but this time felt different. The Karluk had been their home for seven months. (Empire of Ice and Stone, Levy)
Captain Bartlett and an Inuit hunter, Kuraluk (husband of crew member “Auntie” and the father of the two children), subsequently began a 1,000-mile trek together in subzero temperatures, across moving ice floes, mountainous pressure ridges, and barren land, among hungry polar bears, in an attempt to save the shipwrecked survivors.
“Empire of Ice and Stone” is a guaranteed page turner that offers jaw-dropping suspense. Buddy Levy is a master storyteller. All who survived were impacted throughout their lives. Once you begin the adventure, it’s a book difficult to put down.
This book is highly recommended for those looking for a true story of adventure and survival. The large number of photographs from the expedition are fascinating in their own right.
“Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk” is available through the Stockbridge Library.
Chuck Wisman still resides locally on the family farm and is retired from state government after almost 40 years of service.
