A Woman in the Polar Night

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I’ve been drawn lately to books about people living off the grid. The crazier our society becomes, the more enticing an isolated existence sounds. But maybe not in the Arctic Circle. Maybe somewhere that at least has vegetation and temperatures above freezing. Maybe somewhere with individual days and nights: “For here there are no days because there are no nights. One day melts into the next, and you cannot say this is the end of today and now it is tomorrow and that was yesterday.” While the quantitative evidence for how nature affects our minds has grown over the last few decades, humans have always expressed the power of the wilds to offer mental succour. But few have written about it so generously and beautifully as Christiane Ritter. A rediscovered classic memoir - the mesmerizingly beautiful account of one woman's year spent living in a remote hut in the Arctic Obwohl der Inhalt des Buches sehr alt ist, ist es trotzdem interessant und ausgenommen einiger Punkte tatsächlich zeitlos. Klar, über gewisse Dinge/Ansichten muss man einfach hinwegsehen können und man darf nicht vergessen, dass aus dem Jahr 1934 berichtet wird. Wenn man das jedoch kann, wird man mit einem tollen Bericht belohnt. In Anbetracht der Erstveröffentlichung und der davor angetretenen Reise muss man den Mut der Autorin anerkennen. Die Malerin ließ ihr Kind bei der Mutter und reiste zu ihrem Mann nach Spitzbergen. Aufgrund der damaligen Zeit war Ritter eine wahre Abenteurerin.

Christiane writes in a spare and straightforward manner. She is very descriptive of the landscape, animals, weather, and the three's activities such as hunting, cooking, meals, going on hikes. You feel like you are right there with them in this isolated winter world. It was fun to read how her attitude towards her arctic home changed over the course of the year. The sweet stories in this book were the ones about a white fox adopting them, as well as a seal later on. And at least neither of these men, who were hunting for both of those animals, harmed them. What would cause a woman to want to go live in the Artic for a year? The young woman in this story is married to a man that is a hunter/trapper who takes expeditions to the Artic and lives in a hut on the small island of Spitsbergen. He asks her to come live with him, and that is all it took for her to leave their young child. She takes off on a boat with a mirror, a feather bed, books, camel hair clothing, spoons, and herbs. Speaking of herbs, you have to find some way to spice up the meals that they end up eating. The feather bed and books were a good idea too, but everything in the hut got damp, very damp. But I once spent the night in a jungle with a wet wool blanket, and it kept me warm, so maybe feather beds are like that, still warm when damp. One of the first things her husband does when she gets there is to leave her alone for 12 days while he goes hunting with his male friend who also lives with them. A snow storm came up, and she spent those days shoveling snow just to be able to get in and out of her hut and to prevent being buried. Are we having fun yet?In this extraordinary adventure, a reluctant visitor to the Arctic thrives in the awesome and unforgiving landscape.

Northern lights of incredible intensity stream over the sky; their bright rays shooting downward, look like gleaming rods of glass. They break out from a tremendous height and seem to be falling directly toward me, growing brighter and clearer, in radiant lilacs, greens, and pinks, swinging and whirling around their own axis in a wild dance that sweeps over the entire sky, and then, in drifting undulating veils, they fade and vanish. It's very much worth the search though, because of the beauty of the writing. The author spent a year in Spitsbergen in the Arctic, with her husband and another hunter, in a tiny cabin miles away from civilization and other people, isolated by the weather and the long polar night. She's able to find the majesty in the landscape and the animals, despite the loneliness and fear when the men leave on hunting expeditions lasting for days. It was such a peaceful read, it acted as a balm, although it did not leave me wishing to experience it for myself. I didn’t expect January to bring me a 5-star read, and I certainly didn’t expect to find it in the Arctic. Yet A Woman in the Polar Night enchanted me completely, giving me shivers and taking my breath away.In the valleys the wind howls, over the plain the snow is driven like a glistening river, but calm and unmoved the mountains soar into the star-glittering heavens.” I think there is an important truth in Ritter’s book. While researching for Losing Eden , the more I saw how strong and varied the evidence is for a connection between nature and mental health, the more I became convinced that we are losing something psychologically important as we continue to disconnect further from the rest of nature. Ritter, writing way before the climate crisis, global species decline and habitat destruction, was sounding an alarm. “I realise that civilisation is suffering from a severe vitamin deficiency because it cannot draw its strength directly from nature,” she wrote. “Humanity has lost itself in the unnatural and in speculation.” She agrees, leaving her small daughter with family in Germany and ignoring pleas about this being a "hairbrain" scheme. She arrives in August and she does indeed live for a year with her husband and, as an added bonus, his hunting partner, Karl, a Norwegian. I wondered how she felt when she found, with no warning, that she would be living in a 10x10 hut with not just her husband but a strange man! Her writing is both matter of fact and lyrical, with never a mention of complaint. I think she survived through her good humor and through discovery - the "strange illumination of one's own self" and of seeing the world anew. väidetavalt on raamat olnud pidevalt trükis alates 1934. aastast, kui ta ilmus, ja tõesti on tegu kuidagi ajatu teosega - võibolla poleks samas kohas elades praegu eriti midagi teisiti (kuigi vajalikud vitamiinid vast võetaks purgiga kaasa, selmet jääkaru peale lootma jääda). kuigi kas seda jääd kliimamuutuste järel enam nii palju on, seda ma ei tea. aga vast külm ja valgus (või selle puudumine polaaröö ajal) ja tähed ja sellised asjad on ikka samasugused. Ich bin so froh, es als Hörbuch genossen zu haben, denn beim Lesen hätte ich bestimmt am Schreibstil zu knabbern gehabt. So konnte ich mich einfach fallen lassen und mit der Protagonistin die Polarnacht durchleben und staunen. Ich weiß nicht, woher diese Faszination für Bücher, die im ewigen Eis spielen rührt, aber ich bin jedesmal wieder hin und weg.