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Series

Field Notes

Arctic and Subarctic travel and fieldwork

  1. A Most Valuable Utensil October 19, 2026 Wherever I happen to go, I always take a pencil with me. Write down that damn story immediately, the pencil I have in my hand will declare, and I feel obliged…
  2. Kuujjuaq Project Report October 12, 2026 To the best of my knowledge, no one had ever given serious attention to the fungi (i.e., mushrooms) of the Kuujjuaq region before my August 12-18, 2007 visit…
  3. Meeting an Ancient Creature December 6, 2025 So there I was, swatting mosquitoes on Victoria Island in the Canadian Arctic. I didn’t come to this relatively remote island because I wanted to engage…
  4. Why I Dropped Out of the Explorers Club December 8, 2018 Once upon a time the Explorers Club was one of the most prestigious organizations on the planet. Its past members included such eminences as Richard Peary…
  5. A Walk on the Wild Side June 8, 2018 So there you are, walking along the Atlantic City Boardwalk. The crowds are oppressive, Nature seems to have disappeared, and there’s nary a spouting…
  6. Sir John Franklin’s Lost Diary November 2, 2015 On September 9, 2014, Parks Canada discovered the remains of the HMS Erebus, explorer Sir John Franklin’s remarkably newsworthy flagship. Among the…
  7. An Unsung Hero April 23, 2013 In honor of the excessive media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, I’ve decided to write this bog posting about an Arctic explorer named Paul…
  8. North of Siberia (Part 2) July 8, 2012 Still on Wrangel Island (red arrow) For those of you who read my previous bog post , I still haven’t left Siberia’s Wrangel Island. In the…
  9. Bibliodeath Date unknown Bibliodeath, by Andrei Codrescu Poet, NPR commentator, novelist, literary magazine editor, travel writer, English professor, polyglot, gentleman farmer, and…
  10. North of Siberia Date unknown The more remote the destination, the happier I am, so in the summer of 2003 I joined a Russian expedition to Wrangel Island, a 5,180 square kilometer chunk of Arctic real estate several hundred miles north of Siberia.

All of the Bog