No Place Like Nome - Michael Engelhard
Looking for a book for my reading challenge that was "set in the Arctic or Antarctic", I noticed this book on the LibraryThing giveaway list for July. Nome seems Arctic-y, right?
Well, author Engelhard points on out, on page 259, that: "You may think of Nome as "the North," but its as far south of the pole as Mexico City from Kansas, one hundred miles shy of the Arctic Circle, at the same latitude as Fairbanks (Yet it decidedly looks and feels like the Arctic)." That last bracketed part is my salvation for this challenge. And anyway, the challenge says "set in the Arctic," not "set in the Arctic circle," so I'm calling this close enough.
Early on in No Place Like Nome, the author mentions an online review that accuses his books of being "embellished ramblings" (page 40). He embraces this term, insisting that he will not be telling all the well-known stories of the area, but instead focussing on lesser known stories, or describing interesting people or events that he has become aware of. This is very much the style of the book: at times it reads as history, at times as bited sized biographies, and at other times Engelhard himself features for a few paragraphs, giving his own personal observations and anecdotes about life in Nome and the surrounds.
Taken as intended, No Place Like Nome works well. I learned a lot about the area, and enjoyed the 'quirkier' stories that Engelhard included, such as looking at bicycles in the region, reindeer being shipped in, and Amundsen racing to the pole in a zeppelin.
At other times, his own familiarity with the area means that an outsider like myself might need to pause and think about things. As an example, he mentions Lynne Cox swimming the Bering Sea, and includes within that story the note that she was worried about the rips between the Diomedes islands possibly doubling the distance of her swim. An interesting story, but it wasn't until after I had fallen down some wikipedia rabbit-holes that I realised the significance of those particular islands to Russia and the USA respectively. Maybe I should have picked it up from the context, but just a little more explanation would have been helpful. Similarly, other phrases or titles, such as "Manifest Destiny", occasionally turn up without explanation, only to be more fully explained later on in the piece.
These are only minor things, though. Overall, this is an interesting book, full of fascinating examples of life near the top of the world, as well as some of the bizarre things that can happen in more remote areas, or in earlier times. One standout moment for me is learning that: "In 1958 ...the Atomic Energy Commission ...proposed the excavation of a coal-shipping harbor at Cape Thompson, 250 miles to the north [of Nome], with a near-surface chain of six hydrogen bombs." Engelhard adds, with a touch of sly humour, that "Ecological and technical concerns ultimately doomed the...program" (page 109).
What a story!
A decent read.
Just don't expect it to be a thorough history of Nome, though. That's not what the author has in mind.
Completed 15 August 2025.
(2025 Reading Challenge - "Arctic/Antarctic")
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