Obviously a great way to get to know a place is to read about the lives of people who live there. Strange how difficult this still is.
The life and times of Antoine Mountain, Dene residential school survivor
From the Tundra to the Trenches by Eddy Weetaltuk
This seriously good book had me in its grasp from start to finish, until I learned some troublesome facts that made me question part of its power.
Second Nature: The 1985 book that took on the anti-sealing activists
God help the animal rights activist who steps into an elevator with Alan Herscovici.
The Man who Lived with a Giant, stories from Johnny Neyelle
These stories, told in cinematic detail (almost all of them would make amazing graphic novels) feature battles, war, shape-shifters, heroes and heroines and voyages to the spirit world.
Al Purdy’s 1965 trip “North of Summer,” to Baffin Island
Clear and honest poetry from the irreverent, truth telling Al Purdy. Who knew?
The Greenlandic phenomenon of Last Night in Nuuk
I bow to anyone who lives in a city the size of Nuuk (17,000) and writes a book that is this honest and sex-fuelled.
A short review of an extremely good novel set in Kamchatka
It’s not the North I had in mind when I started this blog, but I have to recommend this amazing work of fiction set in Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula.
Whatever you do, do not read Arctic: A Novel, by Finn Schultz-Lorentzen
Let the public rest assured: when a forty-plus-year-old novel is totally forgotten and remains obscure and hard to find, there’s a reason for that.
As Long as This Land Shall Last: René Fumoleau’s history of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11
Here’s a rare thing: a history book written expressly for the Indigenous people of the N.W.T.
Jordin Tootoo’s All the Way: A hockey redemption story
“What? Really? I made it? I’m in the NHL? Holy fuck,” writes Jordin Tootoo in this 2014 autobiography. “The next thing you know, I was a household name in Nashville.”
Northreads 