As we remember the “Before Times” and long for the “After Times,” what better companion could we have on our journey than Royal Geographical Society Fellow Bill Arnott, whose wit, charm, and prolific talent entertain, educate, and enlighten us as we accompany him on his rollicking adventures through space and time.
Arnott is an explorer-adventurer-humorist and all-around bon vivant. Gone Viking II: Beyond Boundaries is more than a travelogue. The writing is personal, good-humoured, and completely guileless. Whether he is flipping his kayak in shark-infested waters or introducing himself on an elevator to a woman who turns out to be Nova Scotia’s Lieutenant Governor, Arnott never loses his sangfroid, sense of wonder, and whimsy. As he describes himself in one of his poems, “Man on the outside, child within / Snowy whiskers surrounding a childish grin.”
“His sense of playfulness and love of life shine through on every page.”
His sense of playfulness and love of life shine through on every page. His prodigious powers of description and observation, combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of flora and fauna, including the human animal, keep his readers informed and entertained as he careens from one adventure to the next. There is also a mystical through-line; surviving death-defying and near-death experiences, he has conversations with strangers about the meaning of life and catches The Celestine Prophecy just as it mysteriously falls from a shelf while he walks through a bookstore in Portland.
Gone Viking II is rewarding on a number of different levels for the many pleasures, fascinating people, and pulsating poetry Arnott kindly shares with his readers.
Bill Arnott is the award-winning, bestselling author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga and Gone Viking II: Beyond Boundaries. For his expeditions, Bill’s been granted a Fellowship at London’s Royal Geographical Society. When not trekking the globe with a small pack, journal, and laughably outdated camera phone, Bill can be found on Canada’s west coast, making music and friends.
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