River of No Reprieve Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny

Describes the author's perilous 2,400-mile journey down the Lena River, from Lake Baikal above the Arctic Circle through the heart of Siberia, re-creating an odyssey first made by the Cossacks more than three centuries earlier, and details his close encounters with the region's primeval beauty, Cossack villages, Soviet outposts, ruined gulags, and a surly guide.