Many of us who’ve worked for National Geographic magazine know the solitude that comes with this kind of life — long stretches alone in far-off places, chasing photographs to put in your bucket. But Neil @neilshea13 and I have shared a different version of that road.
From the highlands along the Omo River in Ethiopia to the edge of Lake Turkana, we’ve walked through the same villages, ridden in the same dusty cars, slept under the same hard skies. I’ve always admired his eye and his patience — how his writing carries the deliberate gaze of a documentary photographer.
Earlier I posted scans from his field notebooks so you could see how he works — every page marked with sketches and fragments of the world in front of him. He draws what he sees before he writes it, as if building the scene by hand, line by line, until it’s etched into memory.
Neil’s new book, Frostlines, has just been released — already a #1 Amazon pick in its category. It’s set in a colder, harsher landscape, but the same dedication runs through it — the same quiet observation, the same endurance that carried him through desert heat and across ice. Pick up a copy of Frostlines at the link in my bio.
More than 1,000 years ago a band of Vikings sailed into Greenland’s southern fjords. They established a colony, carved farms into the thin soil, and within a few years had built the first Christian church along what was—for them—the very edge of the known world. But their little foothold of faith would not last.
I’m excited to share my latest @natgeo story with you, from the March 2026 issue, in which the photographers @paoloverzone , @massimonicolaci and I traveled to remote Greenlandic towns and spent days at the national museum in Nuuk, trying to understand what happened to the Vikings, and what they left behind. Our story had nothing to do, at first, with the latest news of Greenland, with Donald Trump’s bullying or coveted mineral troves. We’d been working on this project long in advance of those things. And yet it’s true that even the most ancient stories thread through our modern lives—the movement of people over land and sea, the way both change to meet or rebuff us, how we struggle and die or adapt and outlast. In Greenland you can’t help noticing that the Vikings faded away even as the Inuit survived and thrived. What might this tell us today? Check out the story for Paolo’s amazing images, Massimo’s stunning video, beautiful art by @ariasafarzadegan and more on one of our most enduring historical mysteries.
More at the link in my bio.
Photos by Paolo Verzone
Video by Massimo Nicolaci
Art by Aria Safarzdegan
Graphics & Maps: @sorenwalljasper , Brandon Shypkowski & Monica Serrano
Editors: Eve Conant & @afarrar
Cameo by @michaelgeorge
Southern Greenland — The first church in the New World sat on a hillside overlooking the sea. It faced east, or roughly so, and was walled in wood and thick turf. Within was dim and tight, no windows, only the one door and this mostly shut against the cold. Think of candles inside—or, perhaps more likely—lamps of seal oil. Firelight washing over the pages of a Latin Bible. Prayers muffled under sod. The chapel shown here is a reconstruction, modeled after what the archeologists found just outside the frame. Click through and you’ll see what remains of the original: a U-shaped berm where the walls once rose. Ancient stories link the church to a Norsewoman named Thjoldhild who was, it’s believed, among Greenland’s first European settlers and also one of the New World’s first Christians. According to the sagas, she and her husband, Erik the Red, lived in southern Greenland on a farm called Brattahlið. Erik had the church built for Thjoldhild after she converted, though Erik himself refused the new religion and stuck with the old gods, Odin, Thor, Freya. For this, Thjoldhild exiled him from their bed, saying she would not sleep with a pagan. The stories do not say whether it was enough to change Erik’s mind, though Thjoldhild’s faith eventually swept through the Viking colony. Centuries after her death the Norse were still building churches in the southern fjords. A theory suggests that as their colony collapsed, as their numbers dwindled, the Norse kept on building, larger and still larger churches, pouring their resources into prayers of stone. In the end it was not enough to save them. One imagines Erik laughing, saying, All that work, for what? And in answer Thjoldhild simply shuts her door.
Southern Greenland — In September I traveled there. Before all the news. Before this moment when anything seemed possible and we wondered if black helicopters would soon descend like locusts over Nuuk. Back then my story had nothing to do with Trump, though in the way of all stories mine and his cannot really be untangled. I had gone to explore something much older. You see, one thousand years ago a different band of white men arrived in Greenland. They too had come searching, though for nothing so modern and fleeting as security, or rare earth. They’d sailed hopeful from Iceland, craving pasture, craving some kind of freedom. Today we call them Norse. You can also call them Vikings. They landed to find a country empty but not untouched, and they wandered among ruined houses left by other people long before. What I mean to say is that the Norse were not first, merely next. Anyway they moved in, settled down. Scraped farms into mean soil. They built churches, bringing Christianity to the edge of their known world. After some years they could afford to raise cathedrals, too, and a couple of these you may still visit. They’re husks now, of course. Only stone walls standing. And yet they haunt and impress, even many centuries after the Vikings who made them vanished. Like all ruins they keep stories, most forgotten. A helpful signboard mentions that the dead were once buried right here, below the floor. And a witch was burned right there, near the door. But what happened to them, the fearsome settlers, those hardened farmers? Where did they go? You can run your fingers along the stones and feel some parable within, though there is no record of how it ended, and only a whisper of how it touches you.
@neilshea13 book Frostlines just came out and is already a #1 Amazon pick in its category. Neil is a writer many of us worked with at National Geographic magazine, and this book shows why.
What made Neil special for me is that he works like a photographer—he watches the world first, then writes visually. We marched through northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia simply observing together. Sometimes we spun off for different tasks, but mostly we moved in lockstep.
I’ve never worked with another writer in quite this way. His notebooks are the best evidence of that visual mind: careful drawings appearing as each new piece of the puzzle comes into view.
Check the link in my bio for more on “Frostlines” and Neil’s work.
“Profound and moving. In prose that shines with insight and astute observation, the intersecting stories of people, animals, and the land come to vivid life in these pages. Shea’s brilliant writing offers clear-eyed and respectful meditations on the meanings of community and belonging in times of upheaval, in the past, present, and future. In these stories, we see the life of the Arctic not only as central to the environment and geopolitics but, most important, for what it means to be in living, reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human world.”—@davidgeorgehaskell , biologist and two-time Pulitzer finalist author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen
Frostlines by @neilshea13 is available now wherever books are sold! Have you picked up your copy yet?
Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska — On the wall of the Chapel in the Mountains, the only church in town, there is a painting of Jesus unlike any I have ever seen. In it, the Lord rides through what must be the Brooks Range on the back of a caribou. He is depicted as a white guy, but dressed in traditional Nunamiut clothing. His pants and parka are made of caribou skin, and he holds a traditional skin drum, a qilaun, probably also made of caribou. His face is remarkable because he’s not merely smiling but beaming, as though he’s just hit the chorus in a truly joyful song. Even if you are like me, a haunter of churches, curious to see inside them all, you have never seen him look so happy. I regret now not getting the name of the painter, or the reason for this work. Perhaps there was no reason, or perhaps the reason is obvious. Perhaps it is meant to evoke the Palm Sunday story in which Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on the back of a donkey. In any case I took this photo one Easter, and now it is Christmas. All I mean to tell you is that this is how I see Jesus now whenever I think of him, which is often. Not on the cross or in the manger but in mountains, among caribou. Smiling.
“An enlightening, inspiring read, with Shea as readers’ heartfelt guide to the Arctic.” — @readbookpage (starred review)
In FROSTLINES, @neilshea13 blends natural history, anthropology, and travel writing to explore how the beauty, chaos, and power of change in the far north are reflected in the lives of people and animals. Listen to the author read an excerpt from this sweeping exploration – available now wherever books are sold!
Enjoyed hosting my friend @neilshea13 at @harvardclubnyc last week for a talk on his new book 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴: 𝘈 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘌𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘓𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤.
From 20 years of research and expeditions, Neil painted a picture of a steadily shrinking Arctic and the implications of this transformation on the people and wildlife of the region. Topics included disappearing caribou, the collapse of an ancient Viking society in Greenland, and running with wolves on Ellesmere Island. Atypical stuff.
Icing on the cake? Date night with @racquelgates and @tator_hmmm ! #multitasking
Last pic: typical Brooklyn Dad activities earlier that morning. #multivalence
Writing a book is a family affair—in one way or another. And so here my sons piled in to help me talk about Frostlines, which is out now from Ecco. The book is about Arctic people, animals, and landscapes and the enormous transformations underway at the top of the world. And in smaller ways my kids are in it, too. When I started on this journey I had one son; two more came along while I was researching and writing. They were my constant companions in heart and mind, and I carried them with me wherever I went. Sometimes they influenced the places I visited, or the questions I asked. Sometimes my heart broke thinking of them, far away from whatever cold place I was traveling through. Anyway they’re in the book, and Frostlines would be very different without them. They got to watch me leave and return and struggle with the words. They got to hear the stories before anyone else and even wonder why it all took so long. My oldest son—who loves to make his own comics—once said, “Daddy, you know I’ve written like 50 books, and you’re still on your first, right?” Yeah, kid. I know.
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You can order Frostlines now at the link in my bio, or visit your local shop for a copy.
Huge thanks to @shalea_are_you_smart for making this, and for wrangling the animals. And thanks most of all to @tator_hmmm , for making it all possible.
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#epicreads #arctic #nonfictionbooks #igbooks #wolfbooks #emergence #greenland #nunavut #norse #caribou #climatefuture #narwhal #biblio #bookreels
Titcomb’s Bookshop and the Sandwich Public Library are thrilled to present National Geographic writer Neil Shea to speak about his new nonfiction book FROSTLINES: A Journey Through Entangled Lives and Landscapes in a Warming Arctic.
Neil Shea blends natural history, anthropology, and travel writing to explore how the beauty, chaos, and power of change in the far north are reflected in the lives of people and animals. Written with masterful prose and a spark of adventure, FROSTLINES is an expansive yet intimate revelation of the Arctic during a time of transformation.
This event will be held on Thursday, January 15th at 6:00 PM at the Sandwich Public Library. Free RSVP is requested and can be completed at titcombsbookshop.com/events or by calling the bookshop at 508-888-2331.
