Individual Consciousness, Lengthy Biographies and Other Letters to the Editor Mount Chamberlin in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, left, and Trisul Peak in the Himalaya.Credit...Photographs, from left: Christopher Miller for The New York Times’ Michael Benanav for The New York Times Jan. 22, 2021 To the Editor: In her review of Andrea Pitzer’s “Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the Word” (Jan. 10), Rachel Slade concludes by writing: “‘Icebound’ is a reminder that there was once a time when things were unknown. And when their ships bumped up against the edge of the Arctic, the Europeans gazed with horror and awe at the sparkling ice and wondered what Edens lay beyond, waiting to be discovered.”