North to the Future - by Ben Weissenbach Hardcover

About the Book

"At the age of twenty-one, college student Ben Weissenbach set out into the Alaskan wilderness armed with little more than inspiration from his literary heroes and a growing interest in climate change. What meets him there is a landscape both stark and awe-inspiring-a part of the world seen by few outside a small contingent of scientists with big personalities. There's Roman Dial, the larger-than-life field scientist who leads him on a five week journey into the Alaskan backcountry. There's Kenji Yoshikawa, the isolated researcher who leaves Ben alone for eleven days to care for his remote cabin, where temperatures at night drop to -49 degrees Fahrenheit. And there's Matt Nolan, the independent glaciologist who flies planes onto glaciers. As Ben's mental and physical resilience is tested, he discovers far more than his own limits; struck by the landscape's staggering beauty and sheer indifference to humanity, Ben emerges from each experience with a new perspective on our modern relationships to technology-and a deep sense of wonder for our natural world"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2025 National Outdoor Book Award (NOBA)
One of Smithsonian Magazine's Top Ten Books of 2025

Hailed as a "worthy successor" to John McPhee (Kirkus Reviews), Ben Weissenbach --a digital native with little prior wilderness experience--embarks on a series of scientific adventures across the wilds of Alaska with some of the state's most distinguished and audacious researchers.

At the age of twenty, college student Ben Weissenbach went north to Arctic Alaska armed with little more than inspiration from his literary heroes and a growing interest in climate change. What met him there was a world utterly unlike the 21st century Los Angeles in which he grew up--a land of ice, rock, and grizzlies seen by few outside a small contingent of scientists with big personalities.

There's Roman Dial, the larger-than-life ecologist with whom Ben walks and rafts a thousand miles across Alaska's Brooks Range. There's Kenji Yoshikawa, the reindeer-herding permafrost expert who leaves Ben alone for eleven days to care for his off-grid homestead, where temperatures drop to -49 degrees Fahrenheit. And there's Matt Nolan, the independent glaciologist who flies him to the largest glaciers in the American Arctic.

As these scientists teach Ben to read Alaska's warming landscape, he confronts the limits of digital life and the complexity of the world beyond his screens. He emerges from each adventure with a new perspective on our modern relationship to technology and a growing wonder for our fast-changing--ever-changing--natural world.

Review Quotes

"Weissenbach's writing is fluid and entertaining....Many of his adventures...[offer] a lesson anyone can apply to how they choose to move through the world--that by unplugging and heading out into nature, there are rewards to be reaped."
--Smithsonian

"An illuminating work of natural history and journalism. Alaska may be changing, but this is a timeless, memorable travelogue."--BookWag

"North to the Future is a kind of bildungsroman of perception--a story of learning to see and hear and feel by venturing out in the wild. It is a beautiful and necessary book."
--Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction

"A clear-eyed and occasionally memoiristic treatise on the importance of observation and immersion. For readers of a naturalistic or environmentalist bent, but also those who think themselves opposed to such perspectives."
--Library Journal

"A highly entertaining and insightful debut."
--Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of Slow Productivity and Digital Minimalism

"A rollicking adventure through the Alaskan wilds where the art of humility meets the necessity of paying attention."
--Caroline Van Hemert, award-winning author of The Sun is a Compass

"Apart from the adventuring...and the science, the delight in North to the Future is to be found in the portraits Weissenbach constructs ....into artful and informative storytelling. John McPhee, to whom the book is dedicated, is surely proud of his former student."
--Anchorage Daily News

"Ben Weissenbach's absorbing North to the Future is packed with hair-raising wildlife encounters and haunting landscapes--all in the tradition of his teacher, John McPhee. But Weissenbach offers a contrasting dimension: how all this reality feels to a 20-something raised on the airless virtual world of the 4"x2" screen."
--John Colapinto, New York Times bestselling author of This is the Voice

"Weissenbach is pulled out of the two-dimensional world mediated by phone and computer screens into the awesome, terrifying, and beautiful existence changing rapidly and inexorably before his eyes. John McPhee has a worthy successor."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Weissenbach spins the immersive travel writing into a soulful meditation on the value of getting back to nature...[North to the Future] will transport readers."
--Publishers Weekly

"Far and away the best outdoor adventure book I've read in years. It takes a dire but somewhat distant topic, climate change, and brings it to within inches of your face, so you can hear the snuffle of grizzlies and the glassy crackling as the glaciers recede. In the process, it gently nudges us to relearn the raw art of being human: to walk softly, to see sharply, to be--vitally--present."
--Robert Moor, New York Times best-selling author of On Trails: An Exploration

About the Author

Ben Weissenbach is a writer from Los Angeles. He studied under John McPhee at Princeton University and was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue a PhD in Polar Studies. His work has appeared in the L.A. Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, and Smithsonian, among other publications.