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Jean in slalom race in Skopje, former Yugoslavia

Reprinted from Outside magazine Last year’s contenders in the race to reach the North Pole—losers all—included a Japanese actress on a snowmobile, another Japanese on a motorcycle, a Frenchman on skis, and an Austrian who set off on foot. The more auspicious Steger North Pole Dogsled Expedition, which ventured forth March 8, used dogsleds for … Read more

Reprinted from Outside magazine Since 1894, when Joshua Slocum departed from Gloucester, Massachusetts, on his way to becoming the first person to sail around the world alone, 37 others have made the lonely trip. Slocum’s voyage lasted three years; today the record is 313 days. But if it’s now faster and more commonplace, solo circumnavigation … Read more

Reprinted from Epoca (Italy) The last mapped American wilderness was the Canyonlands, a barren chunk of high desert in southeastern Utah. It was the last unexplored territory in the West when John Wesley Powell made his historic descent of the Colorado in 1867. Today, the Canyonlands are part national park, part proposed nuclear waste dump, … Read more

I sometimes wonder if his life flashed before his eyes down there on the shipwreck under 60 feet of water. People say that happens. What scenes swirled past his consciousness; what were his last thoughts? Me in my wedding dress with the veil swept back, a picture he always kept within reach on his desk … Read more

This is a Christmas story about two Jews from New Jersey who retired to North Carolina and made new friends, in particular a special friend named Logchain, a former trucker and national clogging champion. It’s my Christmas story, too. The setting: Weaverville, North Carolina, or “vee-wer-wille,” as my Norwegian and Jewish cousin Sissel pronounces it … Read more