The Sun Is a Compass by Caroline Van Hemert

She also weaves in her doubts, questions, and insights as a woman and bird biologist. Alongside her husband, she faces predatory bears, roaring rivers, and 4,000 miles of the worlds most remote, wild country. Caroline Van Hemert follows in the tradition of wilderness adventurers John Muir, Margaret Murie, Cheryl Strayed, and Robert Macfarlane, but she is not one to stick to well-trodden trails. Her book is a welcome invitation to do the same.- Nancy Lord, Anchorage Daily News A truly astounding journey, beautifully written. Caroline and Pats epic journey will rekindle your faith in human endurance, and intimacy.- David Rothenberg, author of Nightingales in Berlin and Why Birds Sing A beautiful and utterly engrossing book.Caroline Van Hemert so clearly loves our world, with all its challenges, beauty, and mysteries. It is thrilling, uplifting, and hopeful, both as a journey across northern wilds and as a diary of a couple growing ever closer together. Winner of the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Competition: Adventure Travel Review Quotes The Sun Is a Compass is an adventure story, but also a love story. Inspiring and beautifully written, this love letter to nature is a lyrical testament to the resilience of the human spirit. A unique blend of science, adventure, and personal narrative, The Sun is a Compass explores the bounds of the physical body and the tenuousness of life in the company of the creatures who make their homes in the wildest places left in North America. Together, they survived harrowing dangers while also experiencing incredible moments of joy and grace - migrating birds silhouetted against the moon, the steamy breath of caribou, and the bond that comes from sharing such experiences.

In March of 2012, she and her husband set off on a 4,000-mile wilderness journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic, traveling by rowboat, ski, foot, raft, and canoe. Worried that she was losing her passion for the scientific research she once loved, she was compelled to experience wildness again, to be guided by the sounds of birds and to follow the trails of animals.

During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of chickadees, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert began to feel stifled in the isolated, sterile environment of the lab. Book Synopsis For fans of Cheryl Strayed, the gripping story of a biologists human-powered journey from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic to rediscover her love of birds, nature, and adventure. About the Book Documents the biologist adventurers treks in the vast wilderness region spanning the Pacific rainforest through the Alaskan Arctic, where she and her husband tested their physical boundaries while making profound natural-world connections.

The Sun Is a Compass by Caroline Van Hemert