Caroline Van HemertRezensionen

I told my husband about this book--a couple chose to take a 4,000-mile journey via boat, raft, canoe, foot, and skis across Alaska and the Arctic. He said, "Yeah, I wouldn't do that." Neither would I, which prompted me to say, "And that is why I love you."

But we do love a good adventure story. This book has that down, which allowed me to live vicariously through Caroline Van Hemert and her husband, Patrick. I didn't find the author insufferable as can happen when an outdoor enthusiast speaks to an indoor introvert such as myself. Van Hemert is also a biologist who has studied birds, so not only did we learn about what it takes to camp in the Alaskan wilds, but we also learned about the birds and other wildlife (bears!) along the way.

Along the way, the author looks back on her life and her relationship with her husband and ponders her future. I appreciate sharing that journey with her, and there is a nice surprise in the afterword.

I also appreciated the photos included with the ebook. What a beautiful place! That I will never visit! But I can in a book!

Here are some recommendations of other books:
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Out of Africa by Isak Dinseson

Perfection in a book. Great story. Great writing. I loved every word.

Wildlife biologist Van Hemert worried graduate school crushed her love of nature & science. In this absorbing story of wanderlust, she & her husband go on a journey to reclaim it & test their endurance.

“We all need to know that, somewhere, it’s still possible to lose ourselves in the wilderness.”

Invigorating, emboldening, and beautifully written. The Sun is a Compass presents a perfect blend of adventure/travelogue, personal memoir, and scientific observation as Van Hemert reflects on her youth, her relationships with her family members and spouse, and her stunning achievement in trekking 4,000 miles from the Washington coast to the Alaskan Arctic. Van Hemert’s journey and rediscovery of her passion for nature and ornithology is harrowing and breathtaking as she reflects on the stifling she’s begun to feel in a lab environment and contemplates the future that awaits her husband and herself. The wilds of the North that she experiences and describes are stunning in their stark splendor, unfathomable vastness, and unflinching indifference towards human life, all of which add to the sheer exhilaration of the journey. A thoughtful exposition, a remarkable story, and without a doubt a book worth savoring. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the mountains.

This is a great nature travel adventure story. The author and her husband go from Vancouver Sound, up to and along the Yukon all the way to the Arctic Ocean, then along the coast and eventually down through the Brooks Range, to Kotzebue, in Western Alaska. What an epic journey! It is a huge trip over amazing terrain. They have some crazy experiences along the way, especially watching migrating caribou. They seem to have been extremely lucky with the weather, and lucky in general---until the very end, when their resupply flight is delayed by four days by weather, when they were carrying zero days off extra rations.

The writing is nice and straightforward, not too ambitious but it serves the story fine. There's a bit of TMI. I don't particularly care about her story of falling in love, nor about her sex life. She learns about herself along the way, thinking about her career and about children. This wasn't very suspenseful, though. She is seriously into birds, and we learn about them along the way.

Met de zon als kompas, 6500 kilometer door de ruige natuur van Alaska. Door Caroline Van Hemert.

Wow, wat een boek. Op de achterflap staat: “Een liefdesverklaring aan de natuur en een indrukwekkend verhaal over avontuur en doorzettingsvermogen.” En dat is het ook, maar daarnaast is het nog zo veel meer! Het is een episch verhaal vol afzien, pijn en ellende maar dat wordt (voor ons lezers makkelijk) overtroefd door de liefde voor de natuur, vrijheid en elkaar. Want naast een wondermooi indrukwekkend verslag van een half jaar durende (niet gemotoriseerde) tocht is dit ook een eerbetoon aan de liefde tussen twee mensen. Hoewel er amper een romantisch moment in dit boek voorkomt is het toch een ode aan de romantiek en de ware liefde.

Caroline, ornithologe, weet na jaren van onderzoek, naar misvormingen van de snavels van matkoppen, niet meer waarom ze ooit biologie is gaan studeren, ze is de band met de natuur helemaal kwijt. Haar man Pat is iemand die al van jongs af aan de roep van de natuur voelt dus besluiten ze samen dat het nu of nooit is om hun droom te realiseren: 6500 km afleggen per kano, ski en te voet dwars door Alaska. Ze willen vrij zijn en hun band met de natuur (en elkaar) aanhalen. Het verslag van die tocht is dit boek, enorm goed geschreven door Caroline. Ze schrijft helder, bondig, meeslepend, met gevoel voor schoonheid en oog voor detail. Indrukwekkend hoe iemand zo avontuurlijk, sterk en moedig kan zijn én daarnaast nog een goede biologe én een super goede schrijfster.

Van Hemert schuwt de lastige momenten, de twijfels (ook over haar leven na de tocht), de angsten en kleinere gevoelens niet. Ze is eerlijk en openhartig en dat maakt dat dit boek zo goed is. Het is spannend, meeslepend, vol natuurschoon en -weetjes en echt een ode aan de liefde op vele vlakken. Zonder te prediken toont ze op een pijnlijke, overduidelijke manier hoe hard het gaat met de klimaatopwarming en hoe belangrijk het is dat wij maken dat al dit moois niet voorgoed verloren gaat.

Een extra plus, voor mij, is haar liefde voor en kennis van vogels. Die komen dan ook volop aan bod tijdens deze reis, maar ook beren, kariboes en walvissen spelen een rol.

De tocht die Pat en Caroline hebben gemaakt heeft van hen andere mensen gemaakt. Ik ben jaloers op de schoonheid en de lessen die zij onderweg tot zich hebben genomen. Zij deden iets wat anderen hen nog niet voordeden, en wat niet veel mensen hun zullen nadoen. Ik al zeker niet; daarom ben ik zo blij dat ik door het (gebiologeerd) lezen van dit boek toch een vleugje van de helderheid en rust die zij hebben meekregen kon ervaren. Ik heb vaak met open mond zitten lezen, helemaal meegesleept door kolkende rivieren, gegeseld door striemende hagel en verwarmd door de schoonheid van Alaska.
Diep respect voor de reis én het boek. Bedankt Caroline (en Pat)!

Just an extraordinary book! The fact that two people could actually be married and agree to this enormous undertaking---loved the book but I'm still in amazement! Caroline was so wonderfully completely honest about how she was feeling along the way---freezing and roasting and hungry!! Her descriptions of what they saw and experienced made me able to picture what they were going through. How will her sons view the outdoors as the years go by with this particular set of parents?

Sometimes when I think about doing something adventurous I read one of these memoirs and realize why I don't. Some of the author and her husband's experiences are memorable and glamorous - seeing some beautiful and pristine scenery and once in a lifetime experiences with wildlife. The counterpoint here are miserable conditions, mosquitoes, total dependence on others for your supplies and food, meager diets and countless hours of slogging along. The author spends too much time pondering her future (academia or adventure, kids or no kids). If this kind of book floats your boat you will like it.

Caroline and husband Patrick dreamed of making a 4,000 mile journey across the Alaskan Wilderness for many years. The time finally came to set out with the plan of traveling only by boat, skis or on foot. They set off from Bellingham Washington, with the hope of reaching Kotzebue on the western side of Alaska six months later. Caroline had just finished a Ph.D. but was unsure where she wanted to go with her career as a scientist. She felt a need to reconnect with nature and appreciate why she wanted to be a biologist in the first place after spending numerous years doing lab work.

Along the way, the couple encountered caribou herds, numerous bears and migrating birds. There was also a close encounter with a black bear who seemed eager to stalk the intrepid travelers. Luckily for them he lost interest after a while and disappeared. The couple also met some fascinating and generous people along the way, living in vast but changing environments. I can't imagine having the confidence to undertake an adventure across 4,000 miles of some of the most remote territory. But Caroline and Patrick seemed to thrive in the challenging and isolated environment.

The Sun is a Compass, is not just a recap of a physical trek in the wilderness; it is also a journey of heart and mind. One which made me want to head out into nature and enjoy what's around. It will no doubt encouraged other readers to see and experience the beauty of nature that we so often take for granted.

Thanks to Little Brown Spark for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.
More reviews at: www.susannesbooklist.blogspot.com

I find I can't concentrate on this book. My mind wanders wildly. I usually love books like this but somehow I can't find any empathy for the writer. Maybe it's because I have a tooth that is cracked and giving me considered pain as I await a dentist appointment Monday. Or maybe it's because I hate what happened at the Derby yesterday. Whatever, my heart ain't in it. But I'll finish it and then decide thumbs up or thumbs down.

I did not like this book as much as I enjoyed WILD, or EVEREST, or TRACKS, the girl who took a camel across an Australian desert with her dog, or that Christine Dowd, who went down the Amazon, got sick and the nuns begrudgingly nursed her. Or the book I found at the friends of theabout the guy who crossed Brazil, WHO GOES OUT IN THE MIDDAY SUN . THE OREGON TRAIL, by Rinker Buck (great book!!)This book, though beautifully written with lots ( and lots) of bird references, just did not do it for me.

I realize from the many reviews I've read I am the only negative one. Perhaps, as I ponder the why, it's the lack of any humor in this story. Sometimes people can take themselves too seroiusly.½

4.5 I love reading adventure stories, especially ones set in cold climates. This is a book that contained so many beautiful descriptions of nature and wildlife, that I could have read it indefinitely. A biologist, working in a lab studying chickadees and the crooked beaks that have been forming on many, Caroline loses touch with the reasons she became a biologist. She really needed to get out of the lab and back in touch with nature. She and her husband plan a 4000 mild trip from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic. Using no motors, boats they make themselves, skiis, and a vast network of planned connections to pick up food supplies and other needed items. Just the planning for this would do me in.

The things they see, face, the weather, the soreness, near starvation, run in with a bear, so danger yes, but so many beautiful things. I'll let parts of the book speak for itself.

I needed a crash course outdoors to remind myself that life is not merely a tally of days, that what matters most cannot be quantified. The glimpse of a wolf's tawny back, his coat shimmering with dew.

"We wanted to hear the crunch of lichen beneath our feet, to smell the tundra after a rainstorm, to understand how it felt to walk in a caribous tracks, or paddle alongside a beluga whale."

"Chickadees calls vary in tone and duration. When responding to a predator or intruder, the number of Dee's reflect the level of threat."

"By September, the ice should be gone, next winter's pack ice not yet formed. But as the words take shape in my mouth, I see the ice levitate and rise into the sky, shattering into pieces. Swans. Thousands and thousands of tundra swans, with golden necks and wings on fire. Their heavy steps patter against the water as they take flight, a gathering of Angels against the steel blue sky."

Gorgeous writing and the very best of armchair travel.

ARC from Edelweiss.½

I love a good adventure story and if it involves ice I'm in. Caroline Van Hemert's memoir The Sun is a Compass is a beautiful and thoughtful exposition on her love of the Alaskan wilderness and the 4,000-mile journey she and her spouse shared over six months. The memoir transcends the typical story of man (or woman) vs nature, for Van Hemert also documents her struggle to find her life path--will she be content in a research career, what about children, how long will their bodies allow them to follow their hearts?

Working in the field as a student, Alaskan native Van Hemert became interested in ornithology, and in particular why so many chickadees beaks were misformed. Lab work was soul-deadening. She and her husband Peter, who at eighteen trekked into Alaska and built his own cabin by hand, had long discussed a dream journey from the Pacific Northwest rain forest to the Arctic Circle. Before Van Hemert decided on her career path they committed to making their dream a reality.

Their journey took them across every challenging terrain and through every extreme weather imaginable, bringing them face-to-face with predator bear and migrating caribou, driven near crazy by mosquitoes swarms and nearly starving waiting for food drop-offs. But they also met hospitality in far distant corners and saw up close a quickly vanishing ecosystem.

It is a story of a marriage, as well; how Peter and Caroline depended on each other while carrying their own weight--literally, with seventy-pound supply packs.

I enjoyed reading this memoir on so many levels. Van Hemert has written a profound memoir on our vanishing wilderness and the hard decisions women scientists must make.

I thank the publisher who allowed me access to an egalley through NetGalley.