Charlie Walker in conversation with Rosie Stancer

On Thin Ice

An Explorer’s Memoir of Siberia, Surveillance and Survival

Charlie Walker is an award-winning British explorer, author and international keynote speaker. Over 15 years, he’s covered 60,000+ miles by foot, horse, bicycle, ski, kayak and dugout canoe – crossing the Tibetan plateau, Mongolian steppe, Congolese jungle, Arctic tundra, New Guinean highlands and the Sahara Desert.

About the Book

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 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.

About Rosie Stancer

Rosie Stancer is a record‑breaking polar and desert explorer whose extraordinary resilience has earned her the unforgettable description “a cross between Tinkerbell and the Terminator.” Standing just 5’3”, she has defied every expectation through feats of endurance that include skiing solo to the South Pole and undertaking an 84‑day journey across the Arctic Ocean, during which she famously amputated two toes to continue her mission.

Praise for the Book

I was hooked from the very first, chilling words. On Thin Ice reads more like a Soviet-era spy thriller than travelogue, full of derring-do, panache, but also – importantly – insight. Imagine John Le Carré mixed with James Bond, add a dash of that master of travel writing, Colin Thubron, and you’ll have some idea of what’s in store

Benedict Allen, author of Explorer

The emotional heart of On Thin Ice lies in people’s reaction to the unfolding catastrophe of war… The book reads like a thriller. What a gripping film it would make

Sara Wheeler, Spectator

This almost insanely intrepid and dangerous trek in remotest Siberia is astonishing in itself. But it also brings invaluable experience of Russian reactions to the war against Ukraine. Altogether extraordinary

Colin Thubron, author of The Amur River