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Return to the North Pole

Well, not literally. I have not been back to the top of the world since my journey last year. But I have written a cover story for the Washington Post Magazine, part of a special issue that examines world travel in a time of climate change. In my piece, I describe the sights, sounds, and emotions of traveling to such a remote and inhospitable location, but note also the disturbing thinness of the sea ice en route. As I argue: "To travel to the North Pole is to be acutely aware of not only the isolation of the present, but also the weight of the past, of those who sought to be where we now stood, to meet, in the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the "challenge of human daring." It is also, increasingly, to consider the future — to wonder whether, just as the window of accessibility is cracking open, the opportunity to see the North Pole as we know and imagine it is already starting to close."

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