FOUR AGAINST THE ARCTIC Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World

The tale at the heart of this recording is one of the greatest feats of wilderness survival in history, though it’s virtually unknown. In 1743, four Russian walrus hunters were stranded on Svalbard with two days’ supplies and stayed alive for more than six years. Beginning with one unreliable source document, Roberts doggedly pursues every thread of the story in libraries, Russian archives, and on Svalbard itself, during a two-week visit. In the process, he becomes the story, padding it with self-absorbed detail but also with fascinating digressions. He’s helped along by Robertson Dean’s reading, which is well paced and keeps the narrative moving, even when it threatens to get stuck in the ice. D.B. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 04]