If I were a place, I'd be Labrador: improbable, impossible, tempestuous, serene, thinly populated. I'd be smooth boulders carried by great rivers of ice, plopped down at random, and balanced, precariously against the odds of gravity for thousands of years. I'd be spired mountains, crumbling ridgelines, and winds that literally make the water smoke. I'd be purple sunsets, bedrock that looks like marshmallows, and relentless green waves beating against the shore... I'd be Windy Tickle, Slam Bang Bay, White Handkerchief, and Blow Me Down Mountain. I'd be sun one minute and rain like Ping-Pong balls the next, with rainbows that seem to span the world.

It has been two weeks since I finished Jill Fredston's Rowing to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge, which I posted a few quotes from a while back.

I've been letting it marinate to see if I would feel as strongly about it now as I did when I was in the midst of reading it; and I do.

I like it so much, I've been holding onto it for as long as I can, even renewing it once (two days late, so I owe fifty cents), well after I had finished it, just so I could sneak peeks at passages like the one above. In another week, I'll have to surrender the book to the library and then I'll have to make a journey to the bookstore because buying it would be easier than transcribing my own copy.

Rowing to Latitude is one of those books I would reread in a heartbeat and not feel like I was missing out on reading something new. It's not just the fascinating places Fredston visits (the Yukon River, the coast of Labrador, Norway), but the way she writes about them that keeps me engaged. Her passion for rowing, traveling, nature, and life are evident. She interlaces the narrative of her trips with other parts of her life -- her career as an avalanche expert, her marriage (her husband, Doug, is also her traveling companion), and her family (her mother's battle with cancer). Some pages are dedicated to describing dry topics like packing supplies or kayak specifications, but they're saved by the power of her writing.

One of the reasons I loved this book was that I could relate to it as somebody who enjoys exploring the outdoors. The feelings she describes while rowing (the joy, the fear, the pain, the ups and downs) are similar to the ones I feel when hiking. There's the feeling of entering a different world when one steps on the trail, just as when one enters the water. There's the beauty of rhythm, whether it be paddle strokes or footsteps. There's also the eagerness to return to nature at the end of the journey, to rush home, look at the map, and plan the next adventure. I have yet to undertake an expedition as long or dangerous as anything she has undertaken, but I hope to one day (and live to write about it).

In Rowing to Latitude, Fredston shares the full landscape of her life and it's a life well-lived. This is one of my Top 5 favorite books of 2008.