Into the Ice, Mark Synnott
Into the Ice, Mark Synnott
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Into the Ice
The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery

Author: Mark Synnott

Narrator: Mark Deakins

Unabridged: 12 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 04/15/2025

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Mark Synnott has climbed with Alex Honnold. He’s scaled Mt. Everest. But in 2022, he realized there was a dream he’d never realized—to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat, a feat only four hundred or so sailors had ever accomplished—and in doing so, try to solve the mystery of what happened to legendary nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin and his ships, HMS Erebus and Terror.

Only a few hundred vessels have ever transited the Northwest Passage, stretching through Canada’s north from Maine to Alaska—and substantially fewer have completed the treacherous journey in a fiberglass-hulled boat like Polar Sun. But Mark Synnott was determined to add his name to the list, and in doing so, also investigate a 175-year-old mystery, that of what happened to the legendary captain Sir John Franklin and his crew aboard the legendary HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

In this pulse-pounding travelogue, Mark Synnott paints a vivid portrait of the modern-day Arctic like you’ve never seen before. With human-caused climate change warming the region twice as fast as any other part of our planet, Synnott offers a fresh and exciting look at the journey itself, but also of the history of the land and the people who live there today. At the same time, he searches for the tomb of Franklin, who, along with his entire 128-man crew, perished after their ships became trapped in the ice near King William Island.

In Into the Ice, Mark and his crew must race against time and horrific storms to investigate legends, and in the end, try to find the answer to why any of us would risk it all in the name of exploration.

About The Author

Mark Synnott is a twenty-eight-year member of the North Face Global Athlete Team, an internationally certified mountain guide, and a trainer for the Pararescuemen of the United States Air Force. A regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, he is the author of New York Times bestseller The Impossible Climb and The Third Pole. He lives in the Mt. Washington Valley of New Hampshire.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Curtis on February 23, 2025

When I read INTO THE ICE, I was thinking about two other books, both very disparate. The first (you will forgive me if I don't recall the title) was by my fellow Baylor Bear, Chip Gaines, and it was a kinda-sorta autobiography, the story of his career as someone who restores old houses on TV, and I......more

Goodreads review by Ula on November 17, 2024

A real page turner. I love reading about extreme adventures in cold regions, and Mark Synnott is a great storyteller. He skillfully combines the narrative of an attempt to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat with a lot of historical background - not only stories about the lost expedition of S......more

Goodreads review by kim on March 15, 2025

What a great read for anyone a fan of history, culture, arctic and adventure, like me. Mark was able to blend the details of his Northwest Passage voyage with the tale of the lost ships and sailors of HMS Erebus and Terror with ease. I enjoyed learning about Inuit culture and life in the arctic. Als......more

Goodreads review by Dan on March 02, 2025

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an advance copy of this new book that is a memoir of a life, a history of lost explorers, a documentation of a voyage of discovery and wonder of what makes people want to see what is just over the next horizon, even if they never come back. I remem......more

Goodreads review by Clare on March 03, 2025

This book features the author's perhaps foolhardy expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage in a small fibreglass boat, Polar Sun, filmed and podcasted for National Geographic. With GPS, a drone, underwater camera, e-mail and radio, it's far from the days of Franklin. But the ice is still the ice......more

Quotes

"You can fill a lot of shelves with books about Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition…and whenever I see a new one I wonder: How will this be different? But Mark Synnott’s Into the Ice really is different—as well as informative, refreshingly honest, and page-turning.” —Sail Magazine

“Synnott delivers a thrilling account of his 2022 journey through Canada’s inhospitable Arctic islands… while recapping heart-pounding encounters with blizzards, gales, polar bears, and an Arctic typhoon—all in a 47-foot fiberglass sailboat that could crack open like a walnut if caught in the ice…a page-turner.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Good history and a compelling extreme adventure.” —Kirkus

“Part historical detective story, part modern-day seafaring saga, Into the Ice paints an indelible portrait of the delicate yet perilous world of the Arctic. But Mark Synnott has also done something else. Out of gin-clear fjords, ice floes the size of Walmart Supercenters, and century-old Inuit tales of marooned British mariners, he’s crafted a moving parable on ambition, hubris, and the price of ignoring Indigenous voices in a beautiful yet haunted land.” —Scott Ellsworth, bestselling author of The Ground Breaking

“An extraordinary account of expedition sailing and painstaking historic detective work. Synnott writes with humility and grace born of deep experience in difficult situations. He's as tough as they come but this voyage, the harrowing and heroic story of piloting Polar Sun, a 47' fiberglass sailboat, through the Northwest Passage will leave you shivering and awestruck. Synnott and crew display a raw tenacity that rivals the early explorers they retrace, pressing on as the forbidding Arctic throws all it has at them. You will have to read the book to see if Synnott finds the lost tomb of Sir John Franklin, but there's no doubt he rediscovers his spirit. Into the Ice will join the ranks of classic arctic literature, it's a hell of a read.” —John Kretschmer, author of Sailing to the Edge of Time

"Weaving together maritime history, Inuit oral traditions, and modern climate science, Mark Synnott crafts a gripping tale of human ambition and folly in one of Earth's most unforgiving environments. Into the Ice is both a thrilling modern adventure and a haunting meditation on how the Arctic shapes the destinies of those drawn to its icy waters, just as it did tragically nearly two centuries ago." —Neil Shubin, author of the national bestseller Your Inner Fish and Ends of the Earth

"A reaffirmation that the spirit of exploration is thriving in the 21st Century. Into the Ice is a meeting of history, adventure and whodunnit that extends the thread of Arctic exploration from the first European expeditions to the present day, revealing how much has evolved over the centuries and how much remains unchanged." —Felicity Aston, explorer and author of Polar Exposure

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