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Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration Audiobook
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(3.07) - 105 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
His two companions were dead, his food and supplies had vanished in a crevasse, and Douglas Mawson was still one hundred miles from camp.
On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. The dogs were gone. Now Mawson himself plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface.
Mawson was sometimes reduced to crawling, and one night he discovered that the soles of his feet had completely detached from the flesh beneath. On February 8, when he staggered back to base, his features unrecognizably skeletal, the first teammate to reach him blurted out, "Which one are you?"
This thrilling and almost unbelievable account establishes Mawson in his rightful place as one of the greatest polar explorers and expedition leaders.
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"Compelling, well written, unbelievable. If you like Arctic adventure stories this is a must read. I still can't believe Mawson survived and even more unbelievably went on to go back and become a member of the that doomed Shackleton exhibition which got stranded on Antartica."
— Barbara (5 out of 5 stars)
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“Painting a realistic portrait of Aussie explorer Douglas Mawson and his arduous trek through some of the most treacherous icy Antarctic terrain, Roberts gives the reader a very close look at the huge risks and preparations of the nearly impossible feat…Harrowing, exciting and brutally real, Roberts provides a chilling backstory to polar explorer Mawson’s bold solitary survival tale.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Mountaineer and prolific author Roberts returns with a vivid history of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson and his 1912 exploration of Antarctica…Roberts creates a full portrait of Mawson and does justice to what famed mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary would later call ‘the greatest survival story in the history of exploration.’”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Douglas Mawson is not as well-known as Amundsen, Scott, or Shackleton, but as this intense and thrilling epic shows, he deserves a place on the pedestal next to these other great explorers of the Antarctic…This fast-moving account earns for Mawson and his team a well-deserved place of honor in the so-called heroic age of Antarctic exploration.”
— Booklist
Alone on the Ice Listener Reviews
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" Good artic survival story, but it's no match to Shackelton's "Endurance." It seems like I bounce back and forth between artic and jungle expedition books. "
— Greg, 12/11/2013 -
" Not as good as Endurance: Shackleton's incredible voyage (this book is a little more disjointed), but still an incredible story of survival in Antarctica a few years prior to Shakleton's trip. "
— Kevin, 11/27/2013 -
" Pretty much your run-of-the-mill historical treatise, which I liked only because of my extreme interest in polar exploration. Writing was nothing spectacular -- "So-and-so says this, and so-and-so also said that, but what's-his-face said that. We will never know the true story." *sigh* "
— Brad, 11/10/2013 -
" Well, I can't claim this was particularly well written. The beginning especially seemed awkward--like we just picked up in midstream and then found out later we were going to go back and then forward again in time. But I love polar survival stories, and I was riveted. "
— Michelle, 11/7/2013 -
" I have read quite a few Arctic and Antarctic expedition books before. It was truly epic what all these men went through, but the telling was drool, dry and boring to me. I was amazed to finally reach the end. "
— Natali, 10/10/2013 -
" Great book. Unbelievable tale of survival on one of the most desolate and inhospitable places on the planet. "
— Josh, 9/7/2013 -
" Good adventure book -- details the challenges faced during the Australasian Antarctica Expedition early in the 20th Century. If you liked this, read South, by Sir Ernest Shackleton. "
— Marc, 8/16/2013 -
" Riveting true story of first explorations of Antarctica. "
— Dean, 7/30/2013 -
" While I found what this man's survived amazing, the actual story was rather dry. "
— Sarah, 3/6/2013
About the Authors
David Roberts (1943–2021) was the author of thirty books on mountaineering, exploration, and anthropology. His books won the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature and the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Competition.
Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.
About Matthew Brenher
Matthew Brenher, originally from London, is an award-winning actor of stage, film, and television and an accomplished voice-over artist.