num_pages: 315
description: This is the collected travel essays of Elizabeth Taylor, a Victorian adventuress who specialized in traveling to, and writing about, the coldest lands on earth. Throughout her wildly exciting life she collected many 'firsts', including being one of the first recognized explorers of the American Arctic region.The challenge of rugged, cold places was her romance, and her essays include descriptions on the culture, family life, folklore and natural history of Alaska, Arctic Canada, Iceland, Norway, Scotland and the Faeroe Islands of Denmark. Included in this delicious volume are reprints of her original photos and illustrations.Taylor traveled by birchbark canoe, steamboat, Red River ox carts and horseback, and even experienced a shipwreck. As a self-taught botanist and zoologist, she wrote about the local flora, fauna and wildlife she observed in her journeys, and today two plants carry her name. She collected plant and fish specimens for the American Museum of Natural History, Cornell University, Catholic University of Washington, the Smithsonian Institution and Pitt Rivers Museum of Oxford University."There is a pleasing squishiness about a big puddle, and a little excitement in seeing how deep one is going to go"."It is unreasonable, I confess. One is scorched by the hot sun, drenched in storms, bitten by mosquitoes, gnats and deer flies, lives on bacon and camp bread, sleeps on the ground, and is perfectly happy withal"."Another time I should take as many prunes as possible".
language: English
title: The Far Islands and Other Cold Places: Travel Essays of a Victorian Lady
titlecomplete: The Far Islands and Other Cold Places: Travel Essays of a Victorian Lady
genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Canada
ratings_count: 18
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Minnesota Book Award
category: Personal Papers
publisher: Pogo Press