Charlie Walker, On Thin Ice

Award-winning explorer, author and speaker Charlie Walker discusses his latest book, On Thin Ice. In early 2022, Charlie Walker set out to hike 600 miles along the frozen rivers of Siberia. He hoped to cut through the myth of the gulag and the permafrost to understand 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 our world. But on 24 February, Russia invaded Ukraine, with devastating consequences. What had begun as an adventure swiftly descended into a paranoid nightmare, as Walker began to suspect he was being monitored by the Russian authorities. Shortly afterwards he was arrested and imprisoned. On Thin Ice is both an 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.