From Amazon
The tone for The Voyage of the Northern Magic is set early on, when the author attempts to pilot a dinghy. "Within seconds I was in trouble," writes Diane Stuemer. "The combination of wind on the nose, the unruly waves, and my unique style of dyslexic steering caused the dinghy to wag alarmingly from side to side." In other words, to say the five-member Stuemer family sets out on its four-year voyage around the planet without much sailing experience is an understatement. And yet, against all odds, the little expedition succeeds. The Voyage of the Northern Magic is about one Canadian clan's journey to 34 countries. Family ties are emphasized throughout as Diane Stuemer and her Berlin-born husband Herbert take their three sons (Michael, the oldest, is 10 when they start out) on a voyage that begins in Ottawa and takes them to such exotic ports of call as Cuba, Malaysia, and the Azores Islands. Along the way they encounter endless engine failures and sailing mishaps, culture shock, a cancer scare (on the part of the author), and, perhaps most fearsome of all, Egyptian bureaucracy. "When you enter a country by boat, you have to jump through a series of hoops.... Nowhere did we ever experience anything as tortuous, inefficient, or frustrating as clearing into Egypt," writes Stuemer, before describing in painstaking detail her dealings with Egyptian bureaucrats. Oh, and then there are the storms. Spurred on by these great, raging, perilous phenomenon, Stuemer, a columnist for The Ottawa Citizen, produces passages of white-knuckled suspense. "Those long-ago nightmares of storms at sea, encountered in the safety and warmth of my bed at home, did not do justice to the reality of the fury that now enveloped us.... It was as if the wave was a muscular Titan, a Goliath of the sea, lifting us onto his huge shoulders, intent upon our destruction." Even more impressive, and heartbreaking, is the Stuemers's attempt to "give something back to the rainforests of Borneo" by saving a gibbon after the family witnesses first-hand the human-engineered ruin of the creatures' habitat. By the end of the voyage, the five crew members of the Northern Magic have become not only able seamen and "circumnavigotors," as the author calls them, but also first-class citizens of the world. --Shawn Conner
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
“After reading The Voyage Of The Northern Magic, I wish they’d asked me along.”
–Toronto Star
“For anyone who has dreamed of leaving a life in the Canadian suburbs to sail around the world…this is the book that will either persuade you to do it…or bring you to your senses. Either way, it is not to be missed.…What a trip! Thirty-four countries and more than 65,000 kilometres, some of them in Force 10 storms. It’s a nicely told tale, alternating between descriptions of idyllic moments in exotic places and moments of sheer terror.”
–Montreal Gazette
From the Hardcover edition.
–Toronto Star
“For anyone who has dreamed of leaving a life in the Canadian suburbs to sail around the world…this is the book that will either persuade you to do it…or bring you to your senses. Either way, it is not to be missed.…What a trip! Thirty-four countries and more than 65,000 kilometres, some of them in Force 10 storms. It’s a nicely told tale, alternating between descriptions of idyllic moments in exotic places and moments of sheer terror.”
–Montreal Gazette
From the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
Ever dream of selling up and running away to sea? Diane Stuemer and her husband, Herbert, were once a typical suburban couple entering middle age, with a comfortable home and three boys under twelve. A year later they had sold their business, rented out their house, and were setting out to circumnavigate the globe in a 40-year-old yacht. Their entire sailing experience consisted of six afternoons on the Ottawa River.
Over the next four years, squeezed into quarters no bigger than the Stuemers’ old bedroom, the family of five would become seasoned mariners. They would battle deadly storms at sea and evade real-life pirates. Dodge waterspouts and lightning strikes and witness the bombing of the USS Cole. See the staggering beauty of Borneo’s rainforest, and its destruction from logging. Be arrested at gunpoint and entertained like visiting royalty. In all, they would visit 34 countries and cover 35,000 nautical miles.
Almost everywhere they went, the family made lasting friendships. They learned to trust each other and embrace opportunity, and in Kenya they learned the true meaning of humanity. As Northern Magic pushed onward, many thousands followed the family’s progress in Diane’s dispatches to the Ottawa Citizen, and thousands more turned out to cheer when the amazing Stuemers came home.
From the Hardcover edition.
Over the next four years, squeezed into quarters no bigger than the Stuemers’ old bedroom, the family of five would become seasoned mariners. They would battle deadly storms at sea and evade real-life pirates. Dodge waterspouts and lightning strikes and witness the bombing of the USS Cole. See the staggering beauty of Borneo’s rainforest, and its destruction from logging. Be arrested at gunpoint and entertained like visiting royalty. In all, they would visit 34 countries and cover 35,000 nautical miles.
Almost everywhere they went, the family made lasting friendships. They learned to trust each other and embrace opportunity, and in Kenya they learned the true meaning of humanity. As Northern Magic pushed onward, many thousands followed the family’s progress in Diane’s dispatches to the Ottawa Citizen, and thousands more turned out to cheer when the amazing Stuemers came home.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Back Cover
“After reading The Voyage Of The Northern Magic, I wish they’d asked me along.”
–Toronto Star
“For anyone who has dreamed of leaving a life in the Canadian suburbs to sail around the world…this is the book that will either persuade you to do it…or bring you to your senses. Either way, it is not to be missed.…What a trip! Thirty-four countries and more than 65,000 kilometres, some of them in Force 10 storms. It’s a nicely told tale, alternating between descriptions of idyllic moments in exotic places and moments of sheer terror.”
–Montreal Gazette
From the Hardcover edition.
–Toronto Star
“For anyone who has dreamed of leaving a life in the Canadian suburbs to sail around the world…this is the book that will either persuade you to do it…or bring you to your senses. Either way, it is not to be missed.…What a trip! Thirty-four countries and more than 65,000 kilometres, some of them in Force 10 storms. It’s a nicely told tale, alternating between descriptions of idyllic moments in exotic places and moments of sheer terror.”
–Montreal Gazette
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Diane Stuemer’s journal of her family’s voyage appeared weekly in the Ottawa Citizen from September 1997 to August 2001. The articles enjoyed phenomenal success and the Stuemers appeared on the newspaper’s front page on nine occasions. On March 15, 2003, five months after The Voyage of the Northern Magic was first published, Diane lost her battle with melanoma. Her husband, Herbert, and their three boys, Michael, Jonathan, and Christopher, continue their commitment to activism and humanitarian work. To learn more about the Stuemers, the voyage of the Northern Magic, and the family’s ongoing international projects, visit www.northernmagic.com.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Hardcover edition.
