Flowers in the Snow

Over the course of a dozen years, Scottish plant collector Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889-1982) explored northern latitudes from the Lofoten Islands of Norway to the far reaches of the American Aleutians. To achieve her goals, she traveled by any means available, from rowboats in Greenland to trading schooners and coast-guard vessels in Alaska. When necessary, she journeyed by snowshoe or sled in pursuit of her botanical specimens, accompanied only by strangers who served as guides. In "Flowers in the Snow," Gwyneth Hoyle paints a vivid portrait of a woman gloriously out of the step with the conventions of her time.