Cold Welcome

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Once again, many people helped with specific points of this book, and I will undoubtedly miss mentioning a few whose contributions, in casual conversations, slipped my memory days later. Myke Cole, writer and officer in the USCG reserve, saved me from a massive mistake and pointed me at a couple of websites that helped prevent more. Laurence Gonzales’ book Deep Survival, along with other books specifically on cold-weather/cold-water survival, including two on Shackleton’s incredible journey, kept me oriented to the various tasks, attitudes, and decisions that make for success. David Watson and others provided advice on the feasibility of hunting certain largish creatures (trying to avoid spoilers here) with a pistol and limited ammunition. Ellen McLean, David Watson, Karen Shull, and Richard Moon tackled (variously) alpha-reader and nitpicker duties on chunks of it. PBS kindly broadcast two shows that came at exactly the right moment for me, one of them about the re-creation of Shackleton’s voyage. Manufacturers of life rafts and useful equipment (including hand-pumped desalinators) put not only ads, but videos, up online—I did not have to travel to find them. A scientist I follow on Twitter posted a link to a video of a particular point of “freeze-up” that provided visual and audio of that phenomenon and answered my warm-climate questions about cold-climate issues.

Where you find mistakes, they are mine; the good stuff was poured into my head (and out through my fingers) by the many (known and unknown) whose words, images, and videos tried to fill the vast caverns of ignorance.