The main purpose of our trip the year before on Akademik Ioff was
to find out the physical feasibility of our intended joint expedition
and to see what the ice conditions were like in the Northwest Passage.
For me, I hoped to gain a good visual sense of what I’d be trying to
capture on film. Within the first few days, I knew I would bring back
never-before-seen footage from The Passage. From Dan and Jim’s
perspective, they grew confident that a Nordhavn boat could take on The
Passage and survive. Each morning, the crew of Akademik Ioff provided
the ship’s passengers with its own newspaper, giving the latest
headlines. Each morning, the three of us would sit and discuss the sorry
case of the world in general and feel all the more secure that our
intended trip through the Northwest Passage was about as timely as we
could hope for.
On
September 15, 2008, with a growing sense of accomplishment and
anticipation, I sat down for breakfast and opened the ship’s daily
newspaper. I stared in abject and total disbelief at the latest
headlines noting that Lehman Brothers was crashing, about to be
financially erased from the face of the earth, and that the collateral
damage was going to be unprecedented.
The
collateral damage reached the Far North. As the days continued to roll
by, Jim no longer wanted to discuss the trip. In fact, Jim no longer ate
with
Dan and me. When the three of us actually were together, the talk was
of anything but their $300,000 commitment to the trip and perhaps
building a forty-foot boat so they could join in the adventure. By the
time the trip aboard Akademik Ioff had ended, there was no $300,000 commitment. I saw it coming a mile away.
Dan
Streech was the type of man who, when he told me of the offer’s
withdrawal, he did it with tears in his eyes. I was completely in Dan’s
corner. I couldn’t in good conscience ask for such a large amount of
money while he was looking at having to lay off longtime trusted
employees, people he truly loved.
But
as much as I appreciated Dan’s position and honesty, I was devastated.
Actually, more than devastated. I was completely and decisively screwed.
A sailor and his family’s harrowing and inspiring story of their attempt to sail the treacherous Northwest Passage.
Sprague
Theobald, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and expert sailor with
over 40,000 offshore miles under his belt, always considered the
Northwest Passage–the sea route connecting the Atlantic to the
Pacific–the ultimate uncharted territory. Since Roald Amundsen completed
the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906,
only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more
people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a
staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode
Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be
an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears,
and severe weather.
What
Theobald couldn’t have known was just how life-changing his journey
through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren
after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks
with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging
over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting
landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin
Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear
the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice a harrowing story of
survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.
( TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR “The Other Side of The Ice” [book and documentary] PLEASE GO TO: VIMEO.COM/45526226)
( TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR “The Other Side of The Ice” [book and documentary] PLEASE GO TO: VIMEO.COM/45526226)
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Memoir, adventure, family, climate
Rating – PG
More details about the author
Website www.spraguetheobald.com
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