Charlie Walker – On Thin Ice
19th October @ 16:00 – 17:00
In early 2022, Charlie Walker set out to hike 600 miles along Siberia’s frozen rivers. He hoped to learn who its people are and how they reckon with their haunted past, as well as what the future might hold for this remote corner of the world. Camping in temperatures down to -50 degrees, exploring semi-deserted villages, meeting indigenous Arctic reindeer herders and those whose parents survived the Gulag camps, Walker’s solo trek provides a fascinating insight into the coldest inhabited place on earth. But then, on February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, with dire consequences for the author. What had begun as an adventure descended into a paranoid nightmare towards the end of the journey as Walker began to suspect he was being monitored by the Russian authorities. Upon finishing the hike he was arrested and imprisoned.
On Thin Ice juxtaposes the harsh beauty of a Siberian winter with a thriller-like series of events that exposes the dark heart of Putin’s propaganda machine. It is both the extraordinary record of one man’s walk through the most inhospitable place on earth and a powerful insight into a deeply troubled – and troubling – nation.
CHARLIE WALKER is an award-winning explorer, author and international keynote speaker. He has travelled over 60,000 miles by foot, horse, raft, bicycle, ski and dugout canoe, in places as varied as the Tibetan plateau, the Mongolian steppe, the Congolese jungle, the Arctic tundra, the highlands of New Guinea and the Sahara Desert. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Scientific
Exploration Society Explorer Award winner, and the author of Through Sand & Snow and On Roads That Echo.
Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)
