Arctic Solitaire: A Boat, a Bay, and the Quest for the Perfect Bear

by Paul Souders

Overview

Photographer Paul Souders considered himself a lucky guy. He traveled the world and got paid to take pictures. Yet at age fifty he seemed an unlikely explorer. Recently married, he was leading a generally contented life as an urban homebody, ending most days with a cold martini and a home-cooked meal. So how did he find himself alone aboard a tiny boat, enduring bad weather and worse cooking, while struggling to find his way across more than a thousand miles of of Hudson Bay?

It was all for a picture. He dreamed of photographing the Arctic’s most iconic animal, the polar bear, in its natural habitat.

It was a seemingly simple plan: Haul a 22-foot fishing boat northeast a few thousand miles, launch, and shoot the perfect polar bear photo. After an inauspicious start and endless days spent driving to the end of northern Canada’s road system, he backed his C-Dory, C-Sick, into a small tributary of Hudson Bay. Battered by winds and plagued by questionable navigation, Paul slowly motored C-Sick north in the hopes of finding the melting summer ice that should be home to more than a thousand polar bears. He struggled along for weeks, grounding on rocks, hiding from storms, and stopping in isolated Inuit villages, until finally, he found the ice and the world was transformed. The ice had brought hundreds of walrus into the bay and dozens of polar bears arrived to hunt and feed. For a few magical days, he was surrounded by incredible wildlife photo ops . He was hooked.

A hilarious and evocative misadventure, Arctic Solitaire shares Paul Souders exploits across four summers, six hundred miles of a vast inland sea, and the unpredictable Arctic wilderness—and also offers an insightful look at what compels a person to embark on adventure. The accompanying images of the landscape, people, and wildlife of the remote Hudson Bay region are, in a word, stunning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680511055
Publisher:	Mountaineers Books, The
Publication date:	09/01/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	32 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

For more than thirty years, Paul Souders has traveled around the world and across all seven continents as a professional photographer. His images have appeared across the globe in a wide variety of publications, including National Geographic, Geo (France and Germany), Time, and Life magazines, as well as in hundreds of publishing and advertising projects.

Table of Contents

Hudson Bay Map 9

Repulse Bay and Approaches 10

Author's Note 11

Chapter 1 The Ice Bear 13

Chapter 2 Beginnings 23

Chapter 3 Zones of Conflict 31

Chapter 4 Transitions 37

Chapter 5 A Hole in the Water 43

Chapter 6 Directions North 51

Chapter 7 The River and the Bay 61

Chapter 8 Big Water 76

Chapter 9 The Empty Coast 94

Chapter 10 Pit Stop 111

Chapter 11 Repulse Bay 125

Chapter 12 Ice 137

Chapter 13 Pay Dirt 145

Chapter 14 The New Year 157

Chapter 15 The Ice Kingdom 169

Chapter 14 The Half Shackleton 177

Chapter 17 A Sinking Feeling 183

Chapter 18 Round Two 195

Chapter 19 Chasing Lights 203

Chapter 20 Foreboding 217

Chapter 21 Into the Water 223

Chapter 22 Away We Go 230

Chapter 23 Prisoner of the Wind 243

Chapter 24 Latitude 65 251

Chapter 25 Unwelcome 259

Chapter 26 The Gift 267

Chapter 27 Cape Fear 275

Chapter 28 Unwinding 286

Chapter 29 Loose Ends 295

Acknowledgments 300

Editorial Reviews

[Paul Souders] capture[s] numerous polar bears and other wildlife on film, all of which he describes in loving and lyrical tones. Interspersed with his personal narrative are reflections on the history of previous arctic explorers as well as commentaries on the native Inuit he encountered in the tiny, isolated villages he visited. Arctic Solitaire is also filled with beautiful color images that mirror the story he tells. This is a great read about a harsh region of the world few get to see on their own.

Shelf Awareness, STARRED REVIEW - Lee E. Cart

At its heart, Arctic Solitaire is both a paean and a caution to following one's passion to the ends of the earth. Few of us would push so far in pursuit of something as ethereal as a photograph, and fewer would attempt it alone. Souders illuminates what it is to follow a dream to extremes, and he does this with humor, humility, and, in the end, some serious thinking about what is most important in life.

Anchorage Daily News - Nancy Lord

In [Arctic Solitaire], Souders describes three years of solo voyages in the Arctic in search of polar bear images, a series of adventures told with humor and humility which nonetheless represent hair-raising acts of daring.

Anchorage Daily News - Charles Wohlforth

Souders’ quest to photograph polar bears led to this memoir detailing a series of solo, accident-prone adventures piloting a 22-foot boat through Arctic waters. The search for the iconic animal takes Souders from Hudson Bay up to Repulse Bay, in northern Canada, stopping at Inuit villages along the way.

National Geographic Traveler

In every great adventure story, a personal inner journey mirrors the physical one. And in the course of reading his captivating 2018 book Arctic Solitaire, it becomes clear that Souders’ search for the perfect bear would lead him to far more important discoveries.

Boating Magazine - Heather Steinberger

[Paul Souders] tells the story of his adventure with stunning photographs from the trip in his book Arctic Solitaire.

Travel with Rick Steves

Paul Souders's obsessive quest is weirder than his lighthearted tone would suggest. From the rim of the world, he brings back plenty of wisdom about the mania of professional photographers in this point-and-shoot age of easy adventure tourism. Also useful: tips about when to stop clicking—and start walking backwards.

Tom Kizzia

In freely sharing what he sees and experiences, Souders immerses his audience in a captivating adventure, offering an intimate view of both the perils of lone exploration and the stunning beauty of the wild. The result is a rare, enchanting treat for any reader.

Foreword Reviews - Barry Silverstein

In every great adventure story, a personal inner journey mirrors the physical one. And in the course of reading his captivating 2018 book Arctic Solitaire, it becomes clear that Souders’ search for the perfect bear would lead him to far more important discoveries.

Boating Magazine - Steinberger Steinberger

09/01/2018
Award-winning photographer Souders spent four summers traveling Hudson Bay's Westernmost reaches searching for polar bears to photograph. Judging by the pictures that accompany this work, he succeeded. Souders used his journals and notes to recount his trials and tribulations aboard C-Sick, his 22' fishing boat, with self-effacing humor and wit. The author often found himself at the mercy of the Bay's wind, tides and weather, searching for a safe harbor in an unforgiving landscape. When he was able to spot a well-camouflaged polar bear, he would anchor the boat, throw equipment and gear into a smaller and more maneuverable Zodiac, and drift closer to where the light and setting coalesced. Only once did a bear puncture one of the Zodiac's air tubes, making for a hasty retreat. Souders also describes his visits to isolated Inuit communities and the people who helped him along the way. VERDICT Souders writes with such intelligence and authenticity, amateur and would-be adventurers will be charmed by his travels.—Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN

Library Journal

2018-09-06

Souders offers a debut account of his photographic travails in Canada's Hudson Bay area.

The author, a Seattle-based photographer who's done work for National Geographic and Life, tells of when he went in search of polar bears in the remote reaches of northeastern Canada. This book, based on his notes from four boat trips between 2012 and 2015, offers a pleasurable excursion into the arctic wilds, interspersed with excellent, colorful images that give a good sense of the landscape, such as one of melting sea ice and a distant forest fire. Before embarking on an account of his journeys, however, Souders describes his own background, including his youth in rural Pennsylvania, his time in journalism school at the University of Maryland,and his experiences as a photojournalist in Haiti and South Africa. After Souders decided that he wanted to pursue nature photography, he studied "the masters of my craft—everyone from Ansel Adams to Art Wolfe, Galen Rowell, and Frans Lanting—and I did everything I could to make my photographs look like theirs." In Seattle, he purchased a C-Dory boat—nicknamed "C-Sick"­—for his excursions throughout the Hudson Bay. The rest of the book relates in sumptuous detail how he searched for sea ice and polar bears from Marble Island to Wager Bay and Melville Peninsula. While exploring the Nunavut and Manitoba Territories, he chatted with Inuit hunters and fishermen, made satellite calls to his wife back home, sipped bourbon alone on his boat, and, of course, took photos. Souders writes with a journalist's eye for detail: "I glassed all the different shapes and contours of the melting sea ice looking for any sign of polar bears." It's also a pleasure to read his descriptions of the landscape, animals ("Mom and cute cubs on a summer stroll across the rocky tundra. I watched her progress through the long lens, the steady click, click, click of the shutter matching her steps until she filled the frame"), and locals he met along the way.

Adventurous memories of a talented photojournalist that abound with wonderful surprises.

Kirkus Reviews