A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter

Written in 1934, A Woman in the Polar Night is Christiane Ritter’s account of a year spent in a hunting shelter on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago of northern Norway. The visit was her husband’s idea, and for years she laughed her decline. But she changes her mind on page one, and the adventure begins.

Ritter’s writing is lean, each word essential as polar kit.

The hut is located between Misery Bay and Distress Hook, and looks like “a tiny box thrown up by the sea.” It is surrounded by skeletons, skis, tubs, and a post to lure the polar bears that arrive with autumn’s pack ice. Christiane jokes that she will make pets of the bears: Hermann doesn’t laugh. He teaches her how to shoot: in the chest first, then through the brain.

Everything is about survival. Her nearest neighbour is sixty miles away, and water for that first coffee takes an hour and half to find. Mist drifts in through the window. Later, ice forms on the interior walls.

Ritter’s writing is lean, each word essential as polar kit. She is a cool-headed observer, and the absence of ego and spin gives her account an enchantment and freshness that sets it apart from the modern misery memoir.

That said, there is a moment with Mikkl - surely one of travel literature’s most endearing creatures - that is nerve-wracking and had me sniffing and blinking fast.

Five stars. I’ve read A Woman in the Polar Night twice and was just as affected by Christiane Ritter’s adventure and Mikkl’s charm the second time around.

WHAT TO READ NEXT

Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler

Antarctica by Gabrielle Walker