Author Cynthia Reeves will discuss her experiences traveling to the Arctic and the inspiration for her book The Last Whaler, while also touching on environmental concerns and whale conservation. Join us on Wednesday, October 2 at 6 PM.

Imagine this: You land by Zodiac at a remote beach on the southern shore of Van Keulenfjorden in the Svalbard archipelago, the site of an old beluga whaling station called Bamsebu, unprepared for what’s preserved there. Stretching to the horizon are piles and piles of bleached beluga bones bearing silent testimony to the slaughter that occurred there in the 1930s.

Cynthia Reeves was inspired to write The Last Whaler when she came upon this sight during her 2017 Arctic Circle Summer Solstice residency aboard the barquentine Antigua. Reeves’s presentation will trace that trip and several subsequent journeys to Svalbard. The talk will feature photographs and films of remote glaciers, fjords, and shores accessible only by boat, including a remarkable clip of a massive glacier calving. She will touch both on encounters with the sublime in Arctic landscapes as well as on concerns about the disappearance of Arctic ice, environmental damage caused by our encroachment on once-pristine landscapes, and historical and current efforts regarding whale conservation.

Praise for The Last Whaler:
“. . . a dramatic tale of survival at a frigid whaling station in 1937 Norway . . . . This emotionally rich historical will keep readers turning the pages.”—Publishers Weekly
“ . . . poignant . . . . a vibrant historical novel in which grief and triumph are set against the severe Arctic wilderness.”— Foreword Reviews, starred review
“This is a hell of a book!”—Robin Black, award-winning author of Life Drawing and Mrs. Dalloway: Bookmarked

Registration is required. Held in the Friends Program room on the lower level.

For more information, contact Ann Amaral at aamaral@newportlibraryri.org

Cynthia Reeves is the author of three books of fiction: the novel The Last Whaler (Regal House Publishing, 2024); the novel in stories Falling Through the New World (2024), winner of Gold Wake Press’s Fiction Award; and the novella Badlands (2007), winner of Miami University Press’s Novella Prize.

Her lifelong interest in the Arctic began in childhood reading tales of doomed Arctic explorers. But it was her participation in the 2017 Arctic Circle Summer Solstice Expedition, which sailed Svalbard’s western shores, as well as two subsequent residencies in Longyearbyen, a trip around Iceland’s Ring Road, and a second voyage circumnavigating Svalbard aboard the icebreaker MV Ortelius that have inspired her writing since then.
Cynthia earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College and taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr and Rosemont Colleges. She lives with her husband in Camden, Maine. Find out more at cynthiareeveswriter.com.