The Other Side of the Ice One Family's Treacherous Journey Negotiating the Northwest Passage

About this book

Sprague Theobald, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and expert sailor with over 40 000 offshore miles under his belt, always considered the Northwest Passage – the sea route connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific – the ultimate uncharted territory. After Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled "Northwest Passage" in 1906, only twenty-four pleasure craft had followed in his wake. Many more people have gone into space than have traversed The Passage, and a staggering number have died trying. Theobald knew that his desire to see The Passage for himself would be a monumental and epic quest.

From his home port of Newport, Rhode Island through The Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be 8 500 miles of near constant danger from ice, polar bears, and severe weather. What Theobald couldn't have known was just how life-changing his passage through The Passage would be. Reuniting his children and step-children after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging over their heads. The Other Side of the Ice tells the incredible story of the Theobald family's six-month Arctic odyssey. Filled with danger in the form of unrelenting ice, hungry polar bears, an unearthly and haunting landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear the crew apart, it is a harrowing story of survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.

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Biography

Sprague Theobald has received both national and international recognition for his writing, producing, cinematography and editing, including an Emmy Award for his work on The 26th Defense; The End of An Era. As a writer, Sprague has been published in The New York Times and was a successful screenwriter in Los Angeles. As a professional sailor, Sprague's resume includes 12 meter racing in the America's Cup arena, several transatlantic races, one of which was the Two Man Transatlantic Race, a complete circumnavigation of North America, and over 40 000 off-shore miles. He lives and works out of Newport, RI.

Allan Kreda spent almost two decades with the Associated Press and Bloomberg News in New York, where he covered money and banking, the National Hockey League and the sports media business. Now a freelance writer, editor and author, he is a member of the Friars Club in New York and is also a regular contributor to Athletes Quarterly. A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, he lives in New York City.