Jill Fredston

The author recalls her many adventures as she explored the coasts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Spitsbergen, and Norway in her ocean-worthy rowing shell.

Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge

Rowing to Latitude

Sarah Sammis

Some of the best books I've ever read have just fallen into my lap. Rowing to Latitude is one of those books. 

Rowing to Latitude chronicles a number of kayaking trips that Jill Fredston took with her husband, Doug. When they aren't kayaking, Jill and Doug work as avalanche experts in Alaska. Most of the the trips described are along the Alaska coast or along rivers that end in the Arctic Circle. The final chapters of the book cover their trips around Greenland.

I enjoyed the Alaska and Canada trips the most as they describe areas I am familiar with either through direct experience or through reading and correspondence with friends.

Fredston writes vividly, involving all the senses. Full color photographs included in the middle of the book verifies just how well she writes.

Francine Corry

Rowing to Latitude
By Jill Fredston
4 stars
pp.289

I’m not a rower and truly, I’m not much of a water person. I can barely doggy paddle, but I picked up Jill Fredston’s Rowing to Latitude because my sense of adventure is easily satisfied by the turn of pages. I hoped for a book which would give me a peak at the Arctic and its animals without having to suffer its chill and biting winds. I was satisfied on that count as this description of her journey from Seattle to Skagway Alaska describes:

The sun reappeared shortly after Petersburg. In celebration, we stopped uncharacteristically early on the end of Cape Fanshaw, a low-lying peninsula that protrudes into Frederick Sound. Though shiny, sculpted pebbles spoke of frequent waves, the sea was docile that day. As soon as we landed, we began to turn in circles, like chickens on a rotisserie, binoculars and cameras in hand. All around us were humpback whales, at least twenty-five of them, spouting geysers of spray, swimming with gentle undulations of their dorsal fins, leaping into clear sky, and slapping the water with their fifteen-foot side flukes and broad, notched tails. A mother and clad eased by, their sides touching. Only a hundred yards away, a forty-foot whale repeatedly torpedoed free of the water, twisted sideways in midair, and landed with a cannonlike explosion. Another whale, closer to shore, continuously and deliberately beats its tail against the water like a gong.

Jill Fredston was a competitive rower in college, she is an environmentalist and an avalanche expert with her husband Doug Fesler. Together they spend their summers engaging in mind boggling Arctic trips. Jill rows while her husband Doug paddles in a kayak. This works well for them as it provides them with a good 360 view with Jill rowing backwards and Doug facing forward.

Rowing to Latitude is a memoir giving the reader a glimpse of the forces that shaped Fredston’s life, her philosophy as well as following along on her amazing journeys. We are introduced to some of the Inuit people who she meets on her journeys, we admire the wildlife and are scared by bears during the night. Jill takes the reader through some truly scary moments she has had in her boat and we witness some extraordinary sights as a whale suspended in an iceberg high above their heads by Spitsbergen Island.

For those who are fond of the environment and love tales of travel and adventureRowing to Latitude is a great book to read

Rowing to Latitude Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge

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