Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 52 ratings

Price: 17.71

Last update: 03-02-2025


About this item

"Damron's subtle pacing manages the tension perfectly."—AudioFile on Empire of Ice and Stone

"Listen to this if you want to hear a narrator at the top of his game recount a fascinating—and at times disturbing—true story of adventure, disaster, discovery, cannibalism, and more. Will Damron makes Levy's fascinating account of the Greely (Polar) Expedition come to life"—AudioFile on Labyrinth of Ice

National Outdoor Book Award-winning author Buddy Levy's thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship―and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.

Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship.

American explorer Dr. Frederick Cook was the first to claim he made it to the North Pole in 1908. A year later, so did American Robert Peary, but both Cook’s and Peary’s claims had been seriously questioned. There was enough doubt that Norwegian explorer extraordinaire Roald Amundsen—who’d made history and a name for himself by being first to sail through the Northwest Passage and first man to the South Pole—picked up where Walter Wellman left off, attempting to fly to the North Pole by airship. He would go in the Norge, designed by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile. The 350-foot Norge flew over the North Pole on May 12, 1926, and Amundsen was able to accurately record and verify their exact location.

However, the engineer Nobile felt slighted by Amundsen. Two years later, Nobile returned, this time in the Italia, backed by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. This was an Italian enterprise, and Nobile intended to win back the global accolades and reputation he believed Amundsen had stripped from him. The journey ended in disaster, death, and accusations of cannibalism, launching one of the great rescue operations the world had ever seen.

Realm of Ice and Sky is the riveting tale of the men who first flew the most advanced technological airships of their time to the top of the world, risking and even giving their lives for science, country, and polar immortality.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.


Top reviews from the United States

  • William de Rham
    5.0 out of 5 stars Exploring the North Pole by Dirigible.
    Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2025
    – Buddy Levy’s newest history of polar exploration, “Realm of Ice and Sky,” is excellent. Having written “Labyrinth of Ice” and “Empire of Ice and Snow” about expeditions to reach the North Pole by ship, he now turns to the various attempts during the years 1905-1930 to reach it, and to survey Arctic seas, by dirigible airship.

    His book tells the story of three men:

    1) American journalist and explorer Walter Wellman who was the first to attempt to reach the North Pole by air aboard the dirigible "America" during the years 1907-09;

    2) Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, who already had been first to reach the South Pole, and who would be first to reach the North Pole aboard the airship "Norge" in 1926; and

    3) Italian airship designer Umberto Nobile, who designed the Norge and flew with Amundsen, only to fall out with and try to outdo the Norseman by developing a larger and more advanced dirigible, "Italia," which crashed onto the arctic ice in 1929, touching off an ordeal of survival and an unprecedented world-wide, multi-national rescue effort.

    It is a tale of adventure, ambition, competition, national pride, perseverance in the face of overwhelming hardship, heroism, jealousy, inventions on the cutting edge of that era’s technology, and the many perils inherent in arctic exploration. It is also a work in which Mr. Levy examines and seeks to “set the record straight” as to who accomplished what in the field of polar exploration, and whether the reputation each explorer earned at the time was correct and fair.

    All in all, a great book for anyone who enjoys tales of adventure and survival, polar exploration, international rescue missions, and/or airships and their past and future uses.

    My thanks to NetGalley, author Buddy Levy, and publisher St. Martin's Press for providing me with a complimentary ARC. The foregoing is my independent opinion.
  • Nana
    5.0 out of 5 stars Told in a way that brought it to life.
    Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2025
    This book is about the Arctic exploration, the men who tried, what they used to try to get there, and the adventures they had trying to succeed. There is so much history, and the descriptions, I could feel what they were going through. This was a different book than I usually read, but reading what this book was about, made me want to find out the details, feel the struggles, the determination, and all that they went through. Reading the book. I learned a lot, and discovered what it was like during this time.
    I received an ARC from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley.

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