Arctic Quotes

“Have you heard of the illness hysteria siberiana? Try to imagine this: You're a farmer, living all alone on the Siberian tundra. Day after day you plow your fields. As far as the eye can see, nothing. To the north, the horizon, to the east, the horizon, to the south, to the west, more of the same. Every morning, when the sun rises in the east, you go out to work in your fields. When it's directly overhead, you take a break for lunch. When it sinks in the west, you go home to sleep. And then one day, something inside you dies. Day after day you watch the sun rise in the east, pass across the sky, then sink in the west, and something breaks inside you and dies. You toss your plow aside and, your head completely empty of thought, begin walking toward the west. Heading toward a land that lies west of the sun. Like someone, possessed, you walk on, day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and die. That's hysteria siberiana.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“The future says:

Dear mortals;
I know you are busy with your colourful lives;
I have no wish to waste the little time that remains
On arguments and heated debates;
But before I can appear
Please, close your eyes, sit still
And listen carefully
To what I am about to say;
I haven't happened yet, but I will.
I can't pretend it's going to be
Business as usual.
Things are going to change.
I'm going to be unrecognisable.
Please, don't open your eyes, not yet.
I'm not trying to frighten you.
All I ask is that you think of me
Not as a wish or a nightmare, but as a story
You have to tell yourselves -
Not with an ending
In which everyone lives happily ever after,
Or a B-movie apocalypse,
But maybe starting with the line
'To be continued...'
And see what happens next.
Remember this; I am not
Written in stone
But in time -
So please don't shrug and say
What can we do?
It's too late, etc, etc, etc.
Dear mortals,
You are such strange creatures
With your greed and your kindness,
And your hearts like broken toys;
You carry fear with you everywhere
Like a tiny god
In its box of shadows.
You love festivals and music
And good food.
You lie to yourselves
Because you're afraid of the dark.
But the truth is: you are in my hands
And I am in yours.
We are in this together,
Face to face and eye to eye;
We're made for each other.
Now those of you who are still here;
Open your eyes and tell me what you see.”
― Nick Drake

“Francis Crozier now understood that the most desirable and erotic thing a woman could wear were the many modest layers such as Sophia Cracroft wore to dinner in the governor's house, enough silken fabric to conceal the lines of her body, allowing a man to concentrate on the exciting loveliness of her wit”
― Dan simmons, The Terror

“Outside, though perhaps morning, it is still night, but a night of a thousand thrusting colors laid over the shaking stars. The shattering ice still sounds like a drumbeat.”
― Dan Simmons, The Terror

“In ancient times, when the world was cold, prosperous, and flourishing, it was a birthing place for our people. Newly married couples traveled to the cove, spending their first days as husband and wife. It is where love began.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“This is how our people face death. We walk to the tundra, underneath the sky, and we face death by ourselves. Even the Elders, old, feeble, and minds like children, somehow, they know when the time is near. I suppose I’ll know when it is time.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“For Churchill residents, particularly those who, like Lance, grew up in the community, bear awareness is. both ingrained and a matter of pride; appropriately safe behaviors are second-nature. The approach is one of neither blustering bravado nor crippling caution; common sense prevails”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“Bobier and colleagues give annual talks on safety to the town's children, lessons that they hope will stay with them through adulthood.”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“Bobier has been known to refer to tourists as "walking snacks”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“Or was it in fact displaying the predatory patience for which polar bears are famed, lying quietly in anticipation of the moment when one of us would lean too far forward and into striking distance?”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“But at the other end of the spectrum, they continued, are four 'ice-obligate' species that depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting, breeding, and resting, and for which future prospects are dim indeed. They listed the walrus as one of those species; bearded and ringed seals were two of the other three ... the fourth member of the afore-mentioned 'ice-obligate' club, is, of course, the polar bear.”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“This was the largest city on Svalbard, and the only one with skyscrapers. It was an old city, built over several hundreds of years. Aida had heard about the legendary skyscrapers on Svalbard ever since she was little. People talked about them with awe. The skyscrapers were just as tall as the ones in the ancient cities of New York, Toronto, and even the stunning ones in Dubai. Skilled engineers and architects had built the towering buildings to withstand the harsh winds of the Arctic Sea.”
― Margrét Helgadóttiradottir

“This was the largest city on Svalbard, and the only one with skyscrapers. It was an old city, built over several hundreds of years. Aida had heard about the legendary skyscrapers on Svalbard ever since she was little. People talked about them with awe. The skyscrapers were just as tall as the ones in the ancient cities of New York, Toronto, and even the stunning ones in Dubai. Skilled engineers and architects had built the towering buildings to withstand the harsh winds of the Arctic Sea.”
― Margrét Helgadóttir, The Stars Seem so Far Away

“My children tell stories of the ancient world, the old world. They search for Little People on the tundra, little beings not taller than a human hand. They tell stories of strong men who stayed underwater for days. The strong men cupped their hands against the ocean floor, breathing with pockets of air made by their cupped hands. My children try to forget death by telling these old stories. They’ve carried dead bodies to the graveyard with their own youthful hands.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“The healers drained our old blood in the arms or back of the knee. They tattooed ancient symbols on our bodies, especially children. Tattoos protect our spirits.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“Instead, I think of my husband hunting in the foothills surrounded by fog, walking on tawny rocks and smoky green lichen, like we did in our early days of marriage when we wandered in the country on our dog sled, unrushed, unhurried, filled, and content.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“In ancient times, at this shallow cove, the Koyukon attacked our people. The women fought alongside the men, running half-naked from their homes to show their courage. The Elders took the children into their umiaqs, fleeing to the sea. The Elders shielded the children’s eyes but could not shield their ears, and land went silent. The Elders and children buried the Inupiaq and Koyukon people side-by-side on the stilts of the whalebone, then they journeyed north to begin again.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“On an idyllic summer day, we walked through the meadows and hillsides, sitting in circles, laughing and filling sacks of cottongrass, salmonberries, crowberries, cranberries, mountain alder, northern golden rod, and rose hip roots. We collected cloudberry tea and Labrador tea, and wild celery. The Elders walked together, laughing, talking of the old days when they would travel to the Messenger Feasts, across the channel to Siberia, or south to trade in Qikiqtaġruk. We’d mix a dessert of fresh berries and lard, whipping and whipping the lard until fluffy.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“My husband trudged up the ridge, stumbling, but determined. My children and I watched him until he disappeared over the ridge, out of view, vanishing into the abyss. It wasn’t an extraordinary day, not foggy, not stormy, or a bright day. It was grey and cloudy when a good man and a good father walked up to face death like our people have done for a millennia.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“Below deck is suffocating, smelling of sweaty, spermy, unwashed armpits, unwashed groins, moldy wood, bilge water, and the green smell of algae, all congealed in thick streams. I’ve learned to sleep by breathing out of my mouth. On deck, we escape the bed bugs biting away at our skin, clicking cockroaches hiding in the shadows, and the rats gnawing away at every cask. I look forward to the cold sea air.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“We’re splicing rope today. Yesterday we cleaned out the trypots, the pots for boiling whale blubber, dry as an old maid in heat, Remigio says.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“At the Galapagos Islands, the cook wanted fresh wild pigs. He said we needed fresh meat to last until San Francisco. We tried. We heard pigs squealing on the island, running, large leaves moving as they ran underneath the foliage. Merihim said we’ve no time. So, we killed two large turtles, the biggest I’ve ever seen. The cook dried and cured the meat into jerky.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“Gerald and I saw the Azore Islands, Talcahuano, Tumbez, San Francisco, and Nome from afar while the captain and officers rowed to shore for fresh food and fresh whalers. Even at Nome, not two days ago, Gerald and I watched the Alaskan town from the ship.

We saw Talcahuano at night, the town alive with lights and torches. We heard music across the water. People celebrated an event on shore. We thought it might be a wedding. We imagined walking the clay, brick roads, ordering crabs and clams near the sea, sampling the local exotic fruits and plants growing in their vibrant colors and prickly skins, and of course, seducing the dark- skinned indigenous women emanating macadamia oil, musk, and leafy air. Merihim laughed at our children’s eyes and said to act like men, not like guttersnipes at a bakery window.”
― Lily H. Tuzroyluke, Sivulliq: Ancestor

“I have never seen an aurora. They happen in the arctic and antarctic circles normally, close to the north and south poles.”
― Steven Magee

“Part of the book is also becoming part of me: some of the ink is leaching minutely from the paper and into my pores, and some of the grains of the paper are detaching themselves, floating into the air and being drawn irretrievably into my lungs. In these small ways we are blending together, the wizard and his book of spells.”
― Clare Dudman, One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead

“For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”
― Sir Raymond Priestly

“An explorer soon discovers that the world is full of busybodies righteously ready to save him, as they probably think, from himself. The only way to deal with such people is to agree to their terms and then go ahead as one pleases. There are enough legitimate discouragements in the world without submitting to artificial ones”
― Lincoln Ellsworth

“When it is darkest there is always light ahead”
― Roald Amundsen

“A good book we like, we explorers. That is our best amusement, and our best time killer”
― Roald Amundsen

“Is it possible that somewhere there are people even now being ostracized by their kind for eating olives with a fork or peas with a knife? People who judge a man by his grooming, his bank account, or his ancestry? Our new world has stripped us to the fundamentals; and it is salutary, if not a little humbling, to reflect that these fundamentals--intelligence, character, and health--are not peculiarly human, that they are the same with men, with horses, with dogs, and with ants.
- Harold Noice, captain of the Donaldson, the ship that saved sole survivor Ada Blackjack of the Wrangel Island expedition, describing the Arctic”
― Jennifer Niven, Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic