Chasing Winter: A Journey to the Pole of Cold

What does it sound like when breath freezes? How do you start a car when it is so cold that fuel turns to wax? How do people live without the sun for half of the year? What is it like to use river ice as a road and what happens when it melts? Curiosity about the day-to-day reality of life at the extremes of climate inspired a 36,000 kilometre journey that set off from the gates of the Royal Geographical Society in London to chase the onset of winter across Scandinavia and Siberia, to the Pole of Cold - the coldest permanently inhabited place in the world. Led by British Poler Explorer, Felicity Aston, the expedition of three travelled for nearly four months in a custom-built Land Rover Defender and experienced temperatures as low as -58.7C. This collection of stunning photographs and evocative stories gathered during the journey provides insight into the social, cultural and physical implications of winter as perceived by communities that live in some of the harshest environments on the planet. From the Skolt Sámi of northern Finland to the Eveni nomads of the Russian far east, and from a fisherman in Norway to a shaman in Tuva, this anthology of voices is an affectionate tribute to the cold.