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

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. Yet, 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.

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