The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For supplying the ideal environment in which to finish the book, thanks to Sir Alistair Horne and also to Sir Marrack Goulding and the Fellows of St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

For formal and informal briefings along the way, thanks to President Lennart Meri, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former Prime Minister Mart Laar, Minister Kristiina Ojuland, Commander Neil Rasmusson, David Hempleman-Adams, Borge Ousland, Roland Huntford, Jasper Griffin, Arne Naess, Heather O’Donoghue, Geir Wing Gabrielsen, Frederic Hauge, Liz Morris, Bragi Olafsson, Olav Orheim, Per Egil Hegge and Tiina Peil.

For logistical support, many thanks to the Norwegian Embassy in London, particularly to Ambassador Brautaset, Mrs. Elisabeth Mohr Brautaset, John Petter Opdahl and Anne Ulset. Thanks also to the International Press Centre in Oslo, the British Antarctic Survey and the US Embassy in Copenhagen, particularly to Alistair Thompson.

Thanks to Kim Witherspoon and David Forrer at InkWell Management and to my editor, Carolyn Carlson.

Various editors supplied me with the best kind of employment for the peripatetic writer—flexible commissions which allowed me to thrash out ideas and steady my bank balance when I’d spent too much money on trains and boats and ’planes. For this, many thanks to: Robert Silvers at the New York Review of Books; Mary-Kay Wilmers and Paul Laity at the London Review of Books; Claire Armitstead, Giles Foden and Andy Pietrasik at the Guardian; Robert McCrum and Stephanie Merritt at the Observer and Andrew Johnston at the International Herald Tribune.

For generous deeds, discussions, reading of drafts, thanks to Brian and Peggy-Lou Martin, Eyjólfur Emilsson, Arna Mathiesen, Beate Elvebakk, Hallvard Fossheim, Per Ariansen, Oystein Ska, Jonas Jølle, Ragnheidur Kristjansdottir, Svavar Svavarsson, Tim Garton Ash, Avi Shlaim, Felix Martin, Kristina Hemon, Rory Stewart, Sophie Breese, Arho Anttila, Katri Krone, Robert Macfarlane, Erik Rutherford, Beccy Asher, Tristan Quinn, Katherine Shave and Abigail Reynolds.

Many thanks to my parents and to my brother Daniel.

And most of all to Barnes.