How varied are the experiences one lives through in the Arctic. One can murder and devour, calculate and measure, one can go out of one’s mind from loneliness and terror, and one can certainly also go mad with enthusiasm for the all-too-overwhelming beauty. But it is also true that one will never experience in the Arctic anything that one has not oneself brought there. väidetavalt on raamat olnud pidevalt trükis alates 1934. aastast, kui ta ilmus, ja tõesti on tegu kuidagi ajatu teosega - võibolla poleks samas kohas elades praegu eriti midagi teisiti (kuigi vajalikud vitamiinid vast võetaks purgiga kaasa, selmet jääkaru peale lootma jääda). kuigi kas seda jääd kliimamuutuste järel enam nii palju on, seda ma ei tea. aga vast külm ja valgus (või selle puudumine polaaröö ajal) ja tähed ja sellised asjad on ikka samasugused.

And suddenly I realize that civilisation is suffering from a severe vitamin deficiency because it cannot draw its strength directly from nature, eternally young and eternally true. Humanity has lost itself in the unnatural and in speculation. Only now do I grasp the real meaning and the world-transforming element in the saying: “Become as the peasants, understand the sacredness of the earth.” WASHINGTON, D.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) — Every summer brings heaps of recommendations for books to read at the beach. But what if it is too hot to go to the beach or too hot to do anything outdoors? An Arizona friend of mine says his frisky cats balk at going out to play these days. My doctor sent all his patients a note on how to avoid heatstroke. Christiane Ritter- Künstlerin, Abenteurerin, Ehefrau und Mutter, doch vor allem eine Frau, die ihrer Zeit voraus war. This classic travel memoir is still so much alive and connects with readers like no other. You won’t be able to put down and keep dreaming. A must-read! Describing a boat trip, she writes, “We are seized by an over-brimming sense of happiness in our worldwide freedom, in the complete absence of restraint.”

Success!

My partner and I have spent weeks looking at cruises to Svalbard. It’s not such an unusual choice any more. We’re drawn to the landscape, the wildlife, the excitement of the experience. We’ve decided not to go because it seems wrong. I’m not saying it’s wrong for everyone but it feels wrong for us. Looking at the convoys of cruise ships rounding Cape Horn and exploring the Alaskan fjords, we don’t feel we want to contribute to the commercialisation of once wild places and would rather leave the wildlife and wild places in peace. I’ll leave the last words to Ritter. Christiane writes in a spare and straightforward manner. She is very descriptive of the landscape, animals, weather, and the three's activities such as hunting, cooking, meals, going on hikes. You feel like you are right there with them in this isolated winter world. It was fun to read how her attitude towards her arctic home changed over the course of the year. noh, ja kahtlustan, et loomi on ka praegu ikkagi vähem, kuigi peab nentima, et keset talve oli neil ka vähe ja täitsa nälg ähvardas. aga mu lemmikosa vist oli just see, kui kevad hakkas tulema ja kõik hülged ja hahad ja kes veel ilmusid välja ja kondasid onni ümber ringi ja keegi neid maha ei lasknud, sest enam ei olnud nii hädasti tarvis.

The writing is part memoir and a travelogue of sorts that does not keep its arc or sights on geographical indicators. Rather, it is a brisk yet deeply philosophical look at nature, the bonds between human and animals, the way human comfort can be stripped down to the barest essential when faced with the existential crisis of survival and the way, the human mind and spirit can wax, wane and make small steps to start all over again when nothing familiar exists except your own solitary self. It is a slim book that carries within valuable insights of how the desperate search for food means having to let go of sentimentality or how the need for human company can be fraught. Ritter's wry commentary over house duties, the depth of her contemplations on life and social ties, her emotional bonding to the animals she grows familiar with, the way she takes to life in sub zero temperatures on her own, all make for a compelling read. A Woman in the Polar Night is a beautifully written memoir from the 1930’s about Christiane “Chrissy” Ritter going to the arctic to spend time with her husband. She is warned about leaving Austria and spending time at an island in the Arctic. She is told that it is no place for a woman and warned by family, friends, and even people she passes by on her travels that she should not go. What beautiful writing with a great story, except sometimes she writes about trapping animals for the fur trade, which I am against. Still, she doesn't go into any detail, so if you have the mind to, you can let it go over your head like I had to do. We know Christiane Ritter returned to Austria with a heightened sense of equanimity. When the family’s estate burned to the ground, her daughter said, she took it in stride, no mourning. She died in 2000 at the age of 103.I look round for a bed. I am seized by a secret horror of the two bunks with their hard straw mattresses. Who knows what wild hunters last slept there. The savage magnificence of the landscape carries the book for me, but the interactions between Ritter (an Austrian artist), her husband and a young Norwegian adventurer, are cheerful and sincere, and also a highlight. The utter wretchedness of their hut ("a small, bleak, bare box") disturbed Christiane, at least at first. Although she doesn't actually admit it in her book, I suspect she was even more disturbed that another person-a Norwegian hunter named Karl Nicholaisen-would be sharing the cramped hut with her and her husband. For his part, Karl expected Christiane to go crazy sooner or later, probably sooner, and he figured that the various manifestations of this craziness would provide him with (as he later told explorer Willie Knutsen) "some mid-winter entertainment." Later, he changed his opinion of her. Christiane, he said to Knutsen, was "one hell of a woman." This is not a gendered or sexist remark, but-to this blunt hunter-a blunt truth.

But for me, the descriptions of the arctic weather and wildlife are the best aspects of the book. Not completely knowing what to expect going in, she winds up realizing that a life lived without a connection to nature is a lesser life. In 1934, at age 36, Christiane Ritter, an Austrian painter and housewife, agrees to join her trapper husband in Spitsbergen (Svalbard), Norway for one year. This area is solitude and remoteness like no other place on the planet. “Chrissie” has no survival training and no real travel experience. A Woman In The Polar Night is a collection of her poetic reflections on that year - the days, weeks and months filled with beauty, danger and courage, howling winds and crashing ice floes, arctic ptarmigan and polar foxes, northern light and profound darkness. I highly recommend this German classic to anyone who enjoys reading detailed descriptions of the natural world and our tiny place within it. Ritter lived to be 103 years old, so maybe a year immersed in an Arctic landscape with nothing but nature for companionship is worth consideration after all.I didn’t expect January to bring me a 5-star read, and I certainly didn’t expect to find it in the Arctic. Yet A Woman in the Polar Night enchanted me completely, giving me shivers and taking my breath away. Ritter manages to articulate all the terrible beauty and elemental power of a polar winter" Gavin Francis, author of Empire Antarctica veeta terve aasta, sh polaaröö JA talv (selgub, et need ei kattugi) Teravmägedel mingis imetillukeses onnis koos kahe mehega, süüa ainult hülgeliha ja hahamune, loota üle kõige sellele, et saaks vahelduseks jääkaruliha, lõbustada end põhiliselt õmblemise, söögitegemise ja koristamisega? ei iial, aga samas tundub, et Christiane'il oli suurepärane aasta :) One of the first things her husband does when she gets there is to leave her alone for 12 days while he goes hunting with his male friend who also lives with them. A snow storm came up, and she spent those days shoveling snow just to be able to get in and out of her hut and to prevent being buried. Are we having fun yet? Do we really need the force of contrast to live intensively? It must be that. For a gentle song would not shake us if we had never heard a loud one."

Conjures the rasp of the skin runner, the scent of burning blubber and the rippling iridescence of the Northern Lights…” Sara Wheeler, author of Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica Ritter doesn’t only vividly describe how she adapts and changes from a housewife into a hardened, clever Artic hunter, but also the terrifying power and beauty of the polar landscape. On dark frozen days, the land becomes an intoxicating lunar landscape, the frozen sea can shine like an immense opal, and a furious snowstorm feels terrifying yet exhilarating, shaking humanity to its core. How varied are the experiences one lives through in the Arctic. One can murder and devour, calculate and measure, one can go out of one's mind from loneliness and terror, and one can certainly also go mad with enthusiasm for the all-too-overwhelming beauty. But it is also true that one will never experience in the Arctic anything that one has not oneself brought there." (loc. 1297) They have some provisions but must rely largely on what they kill. Her first seal dinner — she was told to cook the liver first — is a trial for her. But soon such dishes are a feast. The threesome sometimes come worryingly close to running out of food. When the sun comes out in the spring, they celebrate with “a whole spoonful of honey with our coffee and cold seal.” The book was written ninety years ago by a woman who decided to spend a winter in the remote north with her husband, who apparently had been living there for some time without her. Not until she's underway does she learn that another man will be living with them. The human relations among the few people in the area (the closest neighbor is sixty miles away by non-motorized means) are intriguing, and she also spends a lot of time alone and writes about it well.

It's worth noting that one of the major points of this Arctic adventure was to trap and hunt for fur—something that has fortunately gone out of fashion. I've been vegetarian since I was four and cannot imagine hunting, especially for something under so much threat as polar bears; the attitudes toward hunting have to be taken within the context of the book's time. But it says something about Ritter's writing that by the end of the book even I (well, part of me) was hoping(!) for a polar bear for Ritter and her husband.