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Book of the week: Ripping yarns from a modern-day Viking
Independent, The (London), Aug 6, 2000 by LUCY GILLMORE
A Viking Voyage: In which an Unlikely Crew of Adventurers Attempts an Epic Journey
to the New World
by W Hodding Carter
(Ebury Press, pounds 9.99)
W Hodding Carter and his motley crew are not exactly Sir Ranulph Fiennes material. They have beer bellies and dodgy sideburns, and they fart a lot, but this doesn't stop them from jumping, frostbitten- feet-first, into a voyage from Greenland to North America.
Most of them have never sailed before, but they quickly learn that icebergs, polar bears and wet woollen underwear are just some of the hazards you encounter if you want to be a Viking.
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W Hodding Carter has a compulsion to follow in the footsteps of famous explorers. "I crave to see just how brave, stoic, undaunted, or even insane our historical figures were... I put myself in their situation, get way over my head, and then attempt to survive."
This time his hero-worship extends to Viking explorer Leif Ericsson, and his route to "Vinland", the first Viking settlement in the New World. He decides to build a knarr (a Viking cargo ship), promptly finds a backer and sets off in search of a crew of would-be Vikings.
They are totally unlikely explorers and yet the voyage is most definitely epic - and herein lies the appeal. This is real Boy's Own stuff, though delivered in a chatty narrative style with much amusing attention paid to the ongoing group "soap opera". The men bicker and bond, cook whale meat and blueberry pancakes. Not only do we get right under their skins, we're practically in their poop bucket.
Their trials are in turn nail-bitingly exciting ("big berg ahead!"), scary (polar bears prowling), emotional (you'll definitely have a lump in your throat when they reach their goal) and self- deridingly funny ("I do this as a chicken - no chest-beating here").
A Viking Voyage is the best kind of travel book. It makes you want to do something truly remarkable with your life - not just sit on your butt and read about it.
"We knew what it was like to be at nature's mercy, just as the Vikings had always been. We knew what it was like to get bashed around in an open boat with only our luck, our wits ... to help us. It was exhilarating," Carter tells us.
This is not the funniest travelogue ever, nor the most lyrical, but it is definitely one of the most inspiring. Forget lame tales of people pottering in Provence: this is real adventure and, more importantly, it's about ordinary people attempting the extra- ordinary - and succeeding.
Copyright 2000 Newspaper Publishing PLC
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
