About the Author

Jill Fredston and her husband, Doug Fesler, are avalanche experts and co-directors of the Alaska Mountain Safety Center. When they are not rowing, they live near Anchorage.

Reviews

"As with most trips, Rowing to Latitude rewards you when you finally get to where you're going. Fredston makes you see wilderness as a more precious commodity than you thought, and inspires you to stretch your limits physically and mentally." --Lynne McNeil, The San Diego Union-Tribune "An honest and self-aware woman's record of her unusual life...a shrewd analytical look at human existence as a balance of danger and joy." --Judith Niemi, The Women's Review of Books "Beguiling." --Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe "The book is far more than an adventure travel narrative. It also is deeply personal memoir and love story." --Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune "[Fredston] sticks to telling good stories about battling, on primitive terms, the weather, the water, the land, the animals and some of the demons that haunt us all." --Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily New "[Fredston] provides armchair travelers with a vivid portrait of wilderness rowing...full of intriguing personal digressions and moments of high drama." --John Freeman, The Wall Street Journal

Growing up in a house on the waters of Long Island, Fredston started rowing at the age of ten, when she got her first rowboat. She and her husband, Doug Fesler, are avalanche experts and codirectors of the Alaska Mountain Safety Center, but during the summer months they explore the desolate reaches of the North, traveling under their own power in oceangoing skulls and kayaks. This is the story of their 20,000-mile water journeys through Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Spitsbergen, and Norway. The pair sees the world pass by in reverse as they row, backwards, down remote rivers and along barren, rugged shorelines. They travel along many of the same routes that Jonathan Waterman detailed in Arctic Crossing (LJ 4/15/01), but Fredston focuses more on the trip and only respectfully mentions contacts with the indigenous people and their culture. Like Waterman, the couple encounters fierce storms, ever-present mosquitoes, and abundant wildlife, but Fredston maintains that it is worth facing all this adversity in order to see and experience the natural beauty of the North. Enjoyable and well written, this first book is sure to be popular in public libraries. John Kenny, San Francisco P.L. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

"As with most trips, Rowing to Latitude rewards you when you finally get to where you're going. Fredston makes you see wilderness as a more precious commodity than you thought, and inspires you to stretch your limits physically and mentally." --Lynne McNeil, The San Diego Union-Tribune "An honest and self-aware woman's record of her unusual life...a shrewd analytical look at human existence as a balance of danger and joy." --Judith Niemi, The Women's Review of Books "Beguiling." --Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe "The book is far more than an adventure travel narrative. It also is deeply personal memoir and love story." --Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune "[Fredston] sticks to telling good stories about battling, on primitive terms, the weather, the water, the land, the animals and some of the demons that haunt us all." --Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily New "[Fredston] provides armchair travelers with a vivid portrait of wilderness rowing...full of intriguing personal digressions and moments of high drama." --John Freeman, The Wall Street Journal