Snowy Owl Books
"A story of an incredible wanderer and adventurer written with beautifully descriptive prose that draws the reader in immediately. . . . Rozell does an admirable job relating the odyssey of a man who has seen more of this planet than most."
—Anchorage Press
Finding Mars is an interwoven tale of science, travel, and adventure, as science writer Ned Rozell accompanies permafrost researcher and inveterate wanderer Kenji Yoshikawa on a 750-mile trek by snowmachine through the Alaska wilderness. Along the way, Rozell learns about Yoshikawa’s fascinating life, from his boyhood in Tokyo to the youthful wanderlust that led him to push a wheeled cart across the Sahara, ski to the South Pole, and take a sailboat into the frozen reaches of the Arctic Ocean, spending a winter frozen into the ice near Barrow. It’s an always-on-the-move account of a man driven not just by the desire to fill in the blank spots on a map, but also to learn everything he can about them—and a ringing testament to the power of science, enthusiasm, and individual inspiration.