Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Survivor and Aurora Borealis: Two Fantasies of the Northland
    Survivor and Aurora Borealis: Two Fantasies of the Northland
    Survivor and Aurora Borealis: Two Fantasies of the Northland
    Ebook42 pages36 minutes

    Survivor and Aurora Borealis: Two Fantasies of the Northland

    By John Walters

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A young woman in the frozen northlands rescues a centuries-old creature from a hunter's trap.  After she learns to communicate with him, he tells her his amazing tale of shipwreck and survival.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Walters
    Release dateJul 12, 2017
    ISBN9781386691938
    Survivor and Aurora Borealis: Two Fantasies of the Northland
    Author

    John Walters

    John Walters recently returned to the United States after thirty-five years abroad. He lives in Seattle, Washington. He attended the 1973 Clarion West science fiction writing workshop and is a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. He writes mainstream fiction, science fiction and fantasy, and memoirs of his wanderings around the world.

    Read more from John Walters

    Related to Survivor and Aurora Borealis

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      THE EDGE Of Ourselves

      Mar 22, 2024

      THE EDGE Of Ourselves
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Walk On The Wild Side

      Dec 3, 2018

      A Walk On The Wild Side
      6 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      Itchy Feet-itis

      Jun 2, 2021

      Itchy Feet-itis
      9 min read

    • Article

      NATURAL High

      May 25, 2020

      NATURAL High
      6 min read

    • Article

      Us Animals: Writing the Natural World Back into the Human

      Apr 25, 2018

      There are so many ways for a nest to fail. So many ways for a sentence to fail. In my years as a field biologist I watched how the natural world dealt with the inevitability of failure—in life, mating, reproduction, predation. Unaware, I began to tra

      6 min read

    • Article

      Rock-solid Boggarts In A Ring

      Feb 24, 2022

      I came to live at Foster Clough, on the edge of Midgley Moor, in September 1970. I’d visited the area a few times, and I had gained a rough idea of local topography. I’d come to join a loose semi-commune of young people aiming to co-operate in the re

      5 min read

    • Article

      Rock-solid Boggarts In A Ring

      Feb 24, 2022

      I came to live at Foster Clough, on the edge of Midgley Moor, in September 1970. I’d visited the area a few times, and I had gained a rough idea of local topography. I’d come to join a loose semi-commune of young people aiming to co-operate in the re

      5 min read

    • Article

      Stranded

      Dec 17, 2020

      Stranded
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Boatman And The Bear

      May 27, 2022

      The Boatman And The Bear
      9 min read

    • Article

      Navigating Uncharted Waters

      Jan 1, 2024

      Navigating Uncharted Waters
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Whale Who Will Come Soon

      Sep 8, 2021

      The beachfront narrows to an ocherous ribbon, belted by blue, above and below. After a while, a handful of shearwaters appear in the air above the Cat Balou. The birds flash around us; like knife-thrower tricks at a circus. Diving through the water,

      8 min read

    • Article

      First Passage

      Jun 3, 2021

      First Passage
      16 min read

    • Article

      The Year Of The Whale

      Sep 22, 2021

      Each rereading invites me into Melville’s sentences. Those sentences have become my companion, a companion not unlike my whale, sentences I’ve only yet begun to learn to read, a whale whose length I never will. The post The Year of the Whale appeared

      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘I Was In A State Of Delirium’

      Dec 9, 2021

      Have you heard the phrase ‘through hell or high water’? I’ve been through both, simultaneously. In January 2020, after the year-long restoration of our 1970 S&S Swan Elixir, my friends Max, Harry and I set off on the first stage of our circumnavigati

      5 min read

    • Article

      My Story My Friend Cath

      Mar 25, 2020

      My Story My Friend Cath
      5 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Note

      Apr 6, 2017

      Editor’s Note
      3 min read

    • Article

      Map of Echoes

      Mar 8, 2022

      Map of Echoes
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Dividual

      Aug 10, 2021

      The first dividual I saw I was six, holding my uncle’s hand in immigrations. Ahead of us was a group of seven men and women, blue masks covering their heads and shoulders. They carried between them a pale violet tree trunk, its roots bundled in a bur

      22 min read

    • Article

      Magical Realism

      Apr 21, 2020

      Magical Realism
      5 min read

    • Article

      On Watch

      Mar 9, 2022

      On Watch
      2 min read

    • Article

      There Be Treasure, Danger And Death

      Dec 3, 2019

      What if I told you there is a treasure chest filled with precious gemstones, gold nuggets and priceless artifacts hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains? That an eccentric art collector buried an antique, metal box worth over $5 million dollars some

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Survivor and Aurora Borealis

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Survivor and Aurora Borealis - John Walters

      Survivor

      The creatures looming over me were terrible to behold.  Folds of gray skin wrapped their bloated bodies.  At the end of their wing-like flippers long, slim digits like fingers fluttered.  Their yellowed eyes with enlarged black pupils were not the eyes of wild beasts; they possessed intelligence, cunning, discernment.  As they appraised me I felt something reach into my mind, like the probe of rough, filthy fingers. I wondered if the long stretches of light and darkness, the relentless freeze, the loneliness, and the indifferent silence had driven me mad.  I had no idea how long I had been staggering across the pack ice in my last burst of reserve strength, but I had fallen and had been unable to rise.  Now I craved the long sleep of death to free me from this dreadful apparition.

      *     *     *

      We sailed out of London on what we supposed was the auspicious day of May 19th, 1845.  Under the command of Sir John Franklin were 134 men and two ships: the Erebus, captained by James Fitzjames, and the Terror, with which I sailed, captained by Francis Crozier.  At the outset, expectations were high that we would be the ones finally to traverse the Northwest Passage from its beginning in the Davis Strait all the way to the Bering Sea.  Many brave men had gone before us, endured the dangers of the arctic, and mapped out a goodly portion of the route.  Now it was our destiny to be the culmination of the effort, to assay the last uncharted portions of the Canadian Archipelago, to see the heroic task through to completion.

      Our spirits soared as we sailed past towering ice mountains and entered Lancaster Sound.  Five men had abandoned the expedition before we entered the ice.  Cowards we supposed them, but perhaps they alone had premonitions of our impending doom.  Lancaster Sound teemed with the strange beasts of the north: whales, seals, walruses, white bears, and birds innumerable.  Surely, thought we, in this land of abundance we would not lack for sustenance.

      Onward through Barrow Strait to Beechey Island we forayed.  There we wintered, and there we experienced the true terror of the north: the long days and nights of silence and darkness, the flickering sorcery of the aurora borealis, the creaking of the ice crushing upon the ships, the lack of diverting pastimes, the sense of abandonment and isolation.  Three men died that first winter.  We buried them beside the harbor and erected a stone cairn to their memory.

      When the ice cleared we sailed south as far as Victoria Strait, where we found ourselves helpless wedged in heavy ice.  There we spent our second winter, much more terrible than the first.  When the first glimmer of light appeared after long months of darkness, hope rekindled in our hearts.  Through the endless illumination of summer days without night we awaited the breakup and melting of the ice, but it never came.  The days became shorter, the chill increased, and we realized with mounting dread that the ships would remain

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1