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Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape
A portrait of the landscape, animals, and people of the Arctic captures the beauty and peril of this harsh region and explains what an understanding of this unknown land means to the modern, urbanized world
417 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
1,790 people are currently reading
22.5k people want to read
About the author
Barry Lopez
105Ìýbooks894ÌýfollowersBarry Holstun Lopez is an American author, essayist, and fiction writer whose work is known for its environmental and social concerns.
Lopez has been described as "the nation's premier nature writer" by the San Francisco Chronicle. In his non-fiction, he frequently examines the relationship between human culture and physical landscape, while in his fiction he addresses issues of intimacy, ethics and identity.
Lopez has been described as "the nation's premier nature writer" by the San Francisco Chronicle. In his non-fiction, he frequently examines the relationship between human culture and physical landscape, while in his fiction he addresses issues of intimacy, ethics and identity.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 810 reviews
April 10, 2014
If I could give six-stars or a 5+ I would. That's how special this book is.
It is a difficult one to do justice because it is so many things and all of them wondrous. It is beautiful, rhapsodist and hugely sympathetic yet not sentimental. At its heart it is a celebration of the profusion of life, all manners of life, and it succeeds on every page. Crucially, it is also a meditation on the very concept of landscape and how we view it, explain it and relate to it.
Lopez does not deal in superficial so though mesmerizing, it is not an effortless read. It is fact-filled and there are many historical, cultural, scientific and philosophical excursions but what he comments on - and the beauty of his prose! - is so very interesting and informative* you want to take the time to enjoy the brilliance of it while digesting the wisdom of it all.
To conclude, here is a quote from his National Book Award acceptance speech:
"There is a word in Japanese, if I pronounce it correctly which is kotodama. It means the soul living within the word. And if, again, I understand the principle in Japanese, no distinction is made here between fiction and nonfiction. The same is true among the Eskimo I've been with. (They don't make so much a distinction between fiction and nonfiction but between the authentic and the inauthentic.) They ask of a story whether it helps. Does a story give hope? Does a story edify? Does a story make it possible for people facing the worst things in their lives to conquer those things and go on, by themselves and as a society?"
* As an example of this, there is a section that is essentially about nothing but ice; how it forms i.e. first-, second- and multi-year ice, how it breaks up, how sea ice differs from fresh water ice, the thousand different names of ice and what they mean, the beauty of ice bergs, shorefast ice, embayed ice, grease ice, pack ice vs. field ice, flaw leads, the impact of wind and current. It may not sound it but it is absolutely riveting.
It is a difficult one to do justice because it is so many things and all of them wondrous. It is beautiful, rhapsodist and hugely sympathetic yet not sentimental. At its heart it is a celebration of the profusion of life, all manners of life, and it succeeds on every page. Crucially, it is also a meditation on the very concept of landscape and how we view it, explain it and relate to it.
Lopez does not deal in superficial so though mesmerizing, it is not an effortless read. It is fact-filled and there are many historical, cultural, scientific and philosophical excursions but what he comments on - and the beauty of his prose! - is so very interesting and informative* you want to take the time to enjoy the brilliance of it while digesting the wisdom of it all.
To conclude, here is a quote from his National Book Award acceptance speech:
"There is a word in Japanese, if I pronounce it correctly which is kotodama. It means the soul living within the word. And if, again, I understand the principle in Japanese, no distinction is made here between fiction and nonfiction. The same is true among the Eskimo I've been with. (They don't make so much a distinction between fiction and nonfiction but between the authentic and the inauthentic.) They ask of a story whether it helps. Does a story give hope? Does a story edify? Does a story make it possible for people facing the worst things in their lives to conquer those things and go on, by themselves and as a society?"
* As an example of this, there is a section that is essentially about nothing but ice; how it forms i.e. first-, second- and multi-year ice, how it breaks up, how sea ice differs from fresh water ice, the thousand different names of ice and what they mean, the beauty of ice bergs, shorefast ice, embayed ice, grease ice, pack ice vs. field ice, flaw leads, the impact of wind and current. It may not sound it but it is absolutely riveting.
September 23, 2024
Extremely readable and beautifully written nonfiction covering almost every aspect of the arctic. This book contains elements of biology, zoology, botany, archeology, anthropology, ecology, ornithology, geography, oceanography, meteorology, geology, cartography, and more. It includes segments on muskoxen, polar bears, beluga and bowhead whales, narwhals, seals, walruses, migration patterns, where its people originated and how they live, hunting, ice and snow, the aurora borealis, history of its exploration, and scientific expeditions. It exudes a sense of place, and the author’s love for this land is almost palpable.
Lopez goes beyond technical explanations, offering insight on the human responses to this stark and stunning environment. He covers topics not typically found in a science-based book, such as art, culture, emotion, imagination, spirituality, philosophy, and the capacity for astonishment. He cautions that the extremes of this terrain make it exceedingly susceptible to man-induced catastrophes, and that long-term thinking is needed to ensure we do not destroy it, as it recovers from harm more slowly than a temperate ecosystem. Lopez makes a cogent argument that deep-rooted ideas about seasons, time, space, distance, and light are not applicable to the arctic, and that different ways of thinking about these concepts are needed.
I have read numerous scientific books and I am fascinated by the ability to survive in extreme conditions. This book stands out for its ability to communicate the science involved in understanding the arctic, while simultaneously clarifying the limits of scientific thinking in gaining a true sense of the region. It marries science and sentiment extremely well, though it occasionally drifts into rather esoteric realms. Recommended to those interested in the arctic, environmentalism, nature, science, or the relationship of humans to the natural world.
Memorable passage:
“But the ethereal and timeless power of the land, that union of what is beautiful with what is terrifying, is insistent. It penetrates all cultures, archaic and modern. The land gets inside us; and we must decide one way or another what this means, what we will do about it.�
Lopez goes beyond technical explanations, offering insight on the human responses to this stark and stunning environment. He covers topics not typically found in a science-based book, such as art, culture, emotion, imagination, spirituality, philosophy, and the capacity for astonishment. He cautions that the extremes of this terrain make it exceedingly susceptible to man-induced catastrophes, and that long-term thinking is needed to ensure we do not destroy it, as it recovers from harm more slowly than a temperate ecosystem. Lopez makes a cogent argument that deep-rooted ideas about seasons, time, space, distance, and light are not applicable to the arctic, and that different ways of thinking about these concepts are needed.
I have read numerous scientific books and I am fascinated by the ability to survive in extreme conditions. This book stands out for its ability to communicate the science involved in understanding the arctic, while simultaneously clarifying the limits of scientific thinking in gaining a true sense of the region. It marries science and sentiment extremely well, though it occasionally drifts into rather esoteric realms. Recommended to those interested in the arctic, environmentalism, nature, science, or the relationship of humans to the natural world.
Memorable passage:
“But the ethereal and timeless power of the land, that union of what is beautiful with what is terrifying, is insistent. It penetrates all cultures, archaic and modern. The land gets inside us; and we must decide one way or another what this means, what we will do about it.�
July 31, 2008
I stumbled on this in 2005, in a little bookstore in Heidelberg specializing in used English-language books. I was just trying to refill my reading material for my trip with something at least marginally interesting, but this turned out to be one of the most stunningly gorgeous books I've ever read--Lopez manages to not only see the hidden beauty of the seemingly barren Arctic landscape, but capture and convey its glory through his prose.
August 24, 2013
If you've never read any of Barry Lopez' work, here's a quick inaccurate description: He writes about the visible world with the mind of a scientist and the heart of a poet. His descriptions of the arctic, its geography, animals, people is so precise that it reaches beyond physical to that invisible realm that exists between the world and our emotional and spiritual prehension of it. Read his chapter on narwhals, for example, (those unicorn-like whales that seem to have come out a fairy tale) and you will learn how man has seen and treated this creatures through the ages, how and where they live, the mystery of their horn, and as you read you'll begin to feel a sense of awe for this strange creature and this awe extends to all creatures - how strange they all are, when you see them as if for the first time, how strange and mysterious we all are. There is something about the arctic that has always filled men with both fear and fascination. It's as if the arctic was a place where they would finally be able to see clearly, to sense forcefully what is only rarely and dimly felt in our temperate, distracted noisy world. Not that the bare truth you arrive at in the arctic is all that pretty or comforting. Still, books like this one are needed, and we are grateful for the men like Lopez who travel to these fearful, beautiful places and tell us about them. I close the book and walk outside and look at the hundred-year-old elm growing in my yard with new found fondness and respect.
December 27, 2021
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez is an extraordinary work that encompasses far more than just nature or the Arctic; rather, one could suggest that the book is a very lengthy consideration of finding one's humanity through nature, in this particular case via the experience of the Arctic. Throughout the long work by Lopez, the author gives ample evidence of a heightened sensitivity to the natural world that is almost matched by his fascination with & his expressive use of the English language.
Even if ones cares little for the Arctic environments Lopez has personally experienced & catalogued with painterly care, his use of words to set a particular image is eloquent, almost in the extreme. And having used the word extreme, I can readily understand that his level of expression might be well beyond the patience of many readers. As for me, I find Arctic Dreams personally stunning, meaning to convey the full measure of that adjective.
This is not however a book to be read cover to cover, as opening it at almost any point delivers rapturous but not overbearing prose, rather like opening a History of Art book on almost any page, rather than methodically moving from the first page to the last. Yes, it is a book about the Arctic but hardly a "travel book" with the Arctic as the particular point of focus. Here is but one example:
I especially enjoyed comments about Eskimo (Inuit) people & their use of language, wherein in many cases, such as when discussing the Eskimo concepts of intimacy with the land, "the key terms are not translatable."
It is said that there is a correspondence between the Inuktitut language & Eskimo carving: the emphasis in both is on what is dynamic and on observations from a variety of viewpoints. In our language says one researcher, "we lavish attention on concepts of time; Eskimos give their attention to varieties of space."
For the author, Arctic history became "a legacy of desire--the desire of individual men to achieve their goals but also the kind of desire that transcends heroics & which was privately known to many--the desire for a safe & honorable passage through the world."
*I have read this & other books by Barry Lopez and am captivated by his prose and his almost mystical view of nature. I had it with me on an Adventure Canada voyage from the extreme north of Quebec at Ungava Bay near the border with Labrador to Arctic ports in Nunavut, including the area known as Meta Igcognita & along the eastern coast of Baffin Island, then across the Davis Strait to towns & inlets along the western coast of Greenland, just the right landscapes to come to terms with a work like Arctic Dreams.
**The book won the National Book award in 1986. By way of a small caveat, Arctic Dreams is 30+ years old at this point & there have been some changes in terminology & place names, as well as a sometimes frustrating specificity of descriptive detail by the author that can be cumbersome. Still, this book was cited with great frequency by the staff & guest lecturers on the Ocean Endeavor, the ship on which I sailed about a small portion of the Canadian Arctic.
***Barry Lopez died in January 2021.
Even if ones cares little for the Arctic environments Lopez has personally experienced & catalogued with painterly care, his use of words to set a particular image is eloquent, almost in the extreme. And having used the word extreme, I can readily understand that his level of expression might be well beyond the patience of many readers. As for me, I find Arctic Dreams personally stunning, meaning to convey the full measure of that adjective.
This is not however a book to be read cover to cover, as opening it at almost any point delivers rapturous but not overbearing prose, rather like opening a History of Art book on almost any page, rather than methodically moving from the first page to the last. Yes, it is a book about the Arctic but hardly a "travel book" with the Arctic as the particular point of focus. Here is but one example:
We all apprehend the land imperfectly, even when we take the trouble to wander in it. Our perceptions are colored by preconceptions & desire. The physical landscape is an unstructured abode of space & time and not entirely fathomable; but this does not necessarily put us at a disadvantage in seeking to know it. Believing landscapes to be mysterious aggregations of form & color, it becomes easier to approach them.At another point, it is said that what lies at the heart of the religion of Native American & other hunting peoples is the notion that "a spiritual landscape exists within the physical landscape." Later, there is mention that "occasionally one sees something fleeting in the land, a moment when light, color & movement intensify and something sacred is revealed, leading one to believe that there is another realm of reality corresponding to the physical one but different." For, "the land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in it meaning & has the power to elevate."
As an example, a man in Anaktuvuk Pass, in response to a question about what he did when he visited a new place, said to Lopez, "I listen". That's all, "I listen" & he meant to what the land is saying. "I walk around in it & strain my senses in appreciation of it for a long time before I ever speak a word". Entered in such a respectful manner, he believed, the land would open to him.
This is as with American painters who sought an identity apart from their European counterparts in the 19th century came to conceive of the land as intrinsically powerful: beguiling & frightening, endlessly arresting & incomprehensibly rich, unknowable & wild. "The face of God," they said.
I especially enjoyed comments about Eskimo (Inuit) people & their use of language, wherein in many cases, such as when discussing the Eskimo concepts of intimacy with the land, "the key terms are not translatable."
It is said that there is a correspondence between the Inuktitut language & Eskimo carving: the emphasis in both is on what is dynamic and on observations from a variety of viewpoints. In our language says one researcher, "we lavish attention on concepts of time; Eskimos give their attention to varieties of space."
For the Eskimo's different but still sophisticated mind is largely inaccessible without recourse to his language. And of course, it works the other way around. Each for the other is a kind of primitive. The Eskimo language reaches its apogee in describing the land & man's activity in it.Always, Barry Lopez demonstrates great sensitivity to & intimacy with the landscapes he describes. However, much of the book is akin to ethnology, such as with the comment that "a culture's most cherished places are not necessarily visible to the eye. They are made visible in drama--in narrative, song & performance. It is precisely what is invisible in the land, however that makes what is merely empty space to one person a place to another".
It is out on the land, in the hunting camps & traveling over the ice that the language comes alive. But with that, there is a worry about lost fluency, with whole areas of language starting to disappear. Language evolves through conversation with the land and a long-lived inquiry produces a discriminating language. The very order of the language, the ecology of its sounds & thoughts derives from the mind's intercourse with the landscape.
For some people, what they are is not finished at the skin but continues with the reach of the senses into the land. If the land is disfigured, it causes them psychological pain. Such people are attached to the land as if by luminous fibers; and they live in a kind of time that is not of the moment but in concert with memory & measured by a lifetime. To cut these fibers causes not only pain but a sense of dislocation.I have chosen to focus on the prose within Arctic Dreams, language that stresses the use of imagination, because I think it is much of what serves to make the book so very memorable, even dreamlike, as the title suggests. There are however tales of many failed attempts at Arctic exploration & the search for a Northwest Passage, Arctic cultures that died out, including the Dorset Culture that flourished between 500 BC & 1000 AD, migration patterns, a chapter on the Narwahl, bear encounters and what is termed the "iron indifference of winter with its terrible weight but which explains the ecstasy of summer".
For the author, Arctic history became "a legacy of desire--the desire of individual men to achieve their goals but also the kind of desire that transcends heroics & which was privately known to many--the desire for a safe & honorable passage through the world."
One of the oldest dreams of mankind is to find a dignity that might include all living things. And one of the greatest of human longings must be to bring such dignity to one's own dreams, for each to find his or her own life exemplary in some way.This is close to being a credo for Barry Lopez & I think it serves as both a prologue and a coda for Arctic Dreams.
This involves a struggle because an adult sensibility must find some way to include all the dark threads of life. A way to do this is to pay attention to what occurs in a land not touched by human schemes, where an original order prevails.
*I have read this & other books by Barry Lopez and am captivated by his prose and his almost mystical view of nature. I had it with me on an Adventure Canada voyage from the extreme north of Quebec at Ungava Bay near the border with Labrador to Arctic ports in Nunavut, including the area known as Meta Igcognita & along the eastern coast of Baffin Island, then across the Davis Strait to towns & inlets along the western coast of Greenland, just the right landscapes to come to terms with a work like Arctic Dreams.
**The book won the National Book award in 1986. By way of a small caveat, Arctic Dreams is 30+ years old at this point & there have been some changes in terminology & place names, as well as a sometimes frustrating specificity of descriptive detail by the author that can be cumbersome. Still, this book was cited with great frequency by the staff & guest lecturers on the Ocean Endeavor, the ship on which I sailed about a small portion of the Canadian Arctic.
***Barry Lopez died in January 2021.
April 21, 2024
There are multiple efforts here, all trapped in the ice, viced by pressure both vain and humble: attempting to contain or adequately reflect the mass staggers the reader. There’s too much and at times a stanza would both suffice and subvert. I would particularly excise the chapter on musk oxen and create that as a separate endeavor. Still, this abounds in poetic observation and beguiling facts. Meditations on the vast space and relative silence are intriguing but not sustained.
The historical flourishes are interesting and a mark of the work’s success is it has inspired me to seek out a number of the cited texts.
I want to thank HR friend Josh for mailing a replacement copy.
The historical flourishes are interesting and a mark of the work’s success is it has inspired me to seek out a number of the cited texts.
I want to thank HR friend Josh for mailing a replacement copy.
March 22, 2016
Stunning a real 5 for me! The writing is lyrical- a meditation on the Arctic- its animals, its ways and the humans who have interacted with it since the early explorers and also the Eskimos. The chapter on the polar bear and the musk oxen were fantastic. I learned a lot about these animals I did not know. This book captures how the Arctic "captures" the imagination, dreams, and desires of humans.
Shows the Arctic is so much more than a frigid desert- in fact its not barren in any way- its filled with all sorts of mysteries and wonders. This is also part adventure book - so many sections the author retells his experiences in the Arctic while interspersing the narrative with natural history. A fantastic book!
Shows the Arctic is so much more than a frigid desert- in fact its not barren in any way- its filled with all sorts of mysteries and wonders. This is also part adventure book - so many sections the author retells his experiences in the Arctic while interspersing the narrative with natural history. A fantastic book!
June 23, 2022
° ARCTIC DREAMS °
by Barry Lopez, 1986.
This National Book Award winning title follows Lopez's field work in the Far North of Alaska, Nunavut, and Greenland. Other Far North locations (Siberia, Svalbard) are frequently mentioned, but Lopez's own observations were in North America.
Lopez writes alongside wildlife biologists (individual chapters are dedicated to Arctic mammals like narwhal, musk oxen, and the polar bear with frequent mentions of lemmings, Arctic foxes, and various bird species), and linguistic, archaeological, and ethnological studies on the Inuit. Written in 1986, Lopez uses the outdated and now derogatory 'Eskimo' term throughout the book, for descriptions of the people, language, and culture. He includes a lengthy note as to his decision to do so... Again, 1986.
Scene setting / painting is a Lopez specialty, and in this book he relies on visuals for his descriptions of light, textures, and structure. He regularly likens scenes to visual artists and architecture in European and American art history.
The first 3/4 of the book have this natural progression of landscape, animals, and people; while the last quarter focuses on Arctic exploration, settler colonization, and resource extractions of the Far North. The historical notes were interesting, but I felt that the last chapter was a departure from the earlier sensory lyrical descriptions; while it was thematically related, the tone shift made it feel like a different book.
A classic of 20th-century nature books, and on my TBR for 20+ years (my goodness...) 📚 so, after too many years of saying it was going to happen 'this year', it finally did happen in 2022.
🌅 Related readings:
� An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie, tr. James Kirkup - unforgettable Greenland adventures by a man from Togo
� Crossing Open Ground by Barry Lopez - Lopez, but this time in the desert of US Southwest
� Last Places: A Journey in the North by Lawrence Millman - more Iceland + Scandinavian Arctic travel/nature
by Barry Lopez, 1986.
This National Book Award winning title follows Lopez's field work in the Far North of Alaska, Nunavut, and Greenland. Other Far North locations (Siberia, Svalbard) are frequently mentioned, but Lopez's own observations were in North America.
Lopez writes alongside wildlife biologists (individual chapters are dedicated to Arctic mammals like narwhal, musk oxen, and the polar bear with frequent mentions of lemmings, Arctic foxes, and various bird species), and linguistic, archaeological, and ethnological studies on the Inuit. Written in 1986, Lopez uses the outdated and now derogatory 'Eskimo' term throughout the book, for descriptions of the people, language, and culture. He includes a lengthy note as to his decision to do so... Again, 1986.
Scene setting / painting is a Lopez specialty, and in this book he relies on visuals for his descriptions of light, textures, and structure. He regularly likens scenes to visual artists and architecture in European and American art history.
The first 3/4 of the book have this natural progression of landscape, animals, and people; while the last quarter focuses on Arctic exploration, settler colonization, and resource extractions of the Far North. The historical notes were interesting, but I felt that the last chapter was a departure from the earlier sensory lyrical descriptions; while it was thematically related, the tone shift made it feel like a different book.
A classic of 20th-century nature books, and on my TBR for 20+ years (my goodness...) 📚 so, after too many years of saying it was going to happen 'this year', it finally did happen in 2022.
🌅 Related readings:
� An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie, tr. James Kirkup - unforgettable Greenland adventures by a man from Togo
� Crossing Open Ground by Barry Lopez - Lopez, but this time in the desert of US Southwest
� Last Places: A Journey in the North by Lawrence Millman - more Iceland + Scandinavian Arctic travel/nature
October 7, 2016
The Arctic has captivated people for centuries, it has held the promise of wealth, is a place of unspoilt beauty whilst being one of the toughest places to survive in. It has drawn explorers and writers, adventurers and artists who use the landscape for inspiration. But it is an incredibly harsh environment; it takes no prisoners.
The celestial light on an arctic cusp
This hostile landscape is a place that Lopez has returned to time and time again to discover the people and animals that navigate and migrate across this land of ice. The ecosystem there is finely balanced and part of his story tells us how these closely interlocked systems are so susceptible to external influences, in particular with regards to climate. As well as writing about his journeys, we learn about the discoveries that were made by sailors and explorers over the past four hundred years, many of whom lost their lives as sailed into the freezing oceans. He describes his scientific observations, packing in details about the millions of birds and animals in the region.
Jet-black guillemots streaking over the white ice
I loved the landscape parts of the book, his eye for details on the landscape and the people are really good, and the writing comes across so well you could be there watching the aurora borealis with him. His writing is clear and concise, without being too showy. Whilst I understand it is important to set the context of how we came to know this place, there was a little too much history for a travel and nature book really, and I would have preferred much more on the landscape. It was worth reading, but I have read better though.
The celestial light on an arctic cusp
This hostile landscape is a place that Lopez has returned to time and time again to discover the people and animals that navigate and migrate across this land of ice. The ecosystem there is finely balanced and part of his story tells us how these closely interlocked systems are so susceptible to external influences, in particular with regards to climate. As well as writing about his journeys, we learn about the discoveries that were made by sailors and explorers over the past four hundred years, many of whom lost their lives as sailed into the freezing oceans. He describes his scientific observations, packing in details about the millions of birds and animals in the region.
Jet-black guillemots streaking over the white ice
I loved the landscape parts of the book, his eye for details on the landscape and the people are really good, and the writing comes across so well you could be there watching the aurora borealis with him. His writing is clear and concise, without being too showy. Whilst I understand it is important to set the context of how we came to know this place, there was a little too much history for a travel and nature book really, and I would have preferred much more on the landscape. It was worth reading, but I have read better though.
August 6, 2022
´¡²ú³Ü°ù°ù¾±»åòõ¾±³¾´Ç.
June 20, 2014
The Arctic.... We think of it as a location. It's an inconsequential cap perched on the crown of the familiar Mercator projection of the world. It's a glacial mass anchored in a frigid sea. It's a circular expanse with the magnetic north pole at it's center. It's the area above 66°33' N (the Arctic Circle). As Lopez points out, the magnetic pole is slowly drifting; and there are areas in Scandinavia lying north of the Arctic Circle inhabited by at least one species of lizard and of snake, thanks to the ameliorating effect of the Gulf Stream. Instead, he proposes that we consider the Arctic as an idea to be explored in all of its varied historical and ecological meanings.
Elevation, variations in salinity, wind direction, and ocean currents define sections of the Arctic. Commonplace phenomena like soil formation, rainfall, and even the movement of the stars are either missing or transformed resulting in a distorted sense of reality. Extreme cold, scarcity of organic material, and lack of organisms that feed on decaying matter result in thin, impoverished soil. Fox dens and owl perches are a significant counterbalance, their “organic dumps� marked by grass and wildflowers. Rainfall in some areas is no greater than in the Sahara Desert. Twilight is so lengthy a period, its phases are categorized by astronomers. Atmospheric refractions produce mirages so realistic they have confounded Arctic explorers of the past, and caused phantom land masses to be mapped.
The animal and plant life are notable not so much for their reduced diversity as their unique adaptations. Plant heights are stunted because the air is significantly warmer closer to the ground. Fish and beetles produce glycoproteins which act as a biological antifreeze. The eggs of Arctic cod have enlarged yolks to provide enhanced nourishment for the embryos in compensation for the brief period of plankton bloom between spring and fall. Many birds retain heat by an adaptive circulatory system that channels cooling veinous blood through a coil of warm arterial blood before circulating it to the body core. The Narwhal's circulatory system enables it to withstand the pressure from its dives and to store carbon dioxide until the animal resurfaces. Its acoustic system enables it to detect the direction of sound waves under water, unlike humans.
Such different ways of perceiving their environment lead Lopez to consider the concept of Umwelt � a term also mentioned in John Vaillant's THE TIGER. How does a fox find its way in a white expanse of seemingly identical hummocks? “One can only speculate about how animals organize land into meaningful expanses for themselves. The worlds they perceive,their Umwelten, are all different. The discovery of an animal's Umwelt and its elucidation require great patience and experimental ingenuity, a free exchange of information among different observers, hours of direct observation, and a reluctance to summarize the animal. This, in my experience, is the Eskimo hunter's methodology. Under ideal circumstances it can also be the methodology of Western science.� (p.268)
Lopez's travels take him to a number of specific ecosystems, areas where both the animals and their connections to the land can be studied. Banks Island lies at 120° W. It is north of Canada's Northwest Territory and bound on the north by the M'Clure Strait, to the south by the Amundsen Gulf, and to the west by the open waters of the Beaufort Sea. The landscape is barren and brown for the most part, but dotted by meadow grass. Lopez chooses this locale to describe the region's scattered herds of musk oxen, an animal whose ancestors came from northern China. He wonders how one might identify areas that would be perfect for musk oxen even if the animals are absent.
The next site he examines is Barrow on the north coast of Alaska. To the northwest is the open Chukchi Sea. This is where Lopez introduces the polar bear, “a creature of Arctic edges.â€� (p.79) It is a creature designed for frigid waters, but who lives on land. Hollow guard hairs keep the fur from matting and permit the bear to shake off water before it freezes. The hairs also appear to capture short-wave light to help warm its skin (which is black). A layer of blubber insulates it from aquatic heat loss. To counter overheating, its circulatory system channels excess heat to its foot pads. The polar bear has many names: Nanuq (“master of bearsâ€�), Pisugtooq (“The Great Wandererâ€�), °Õô°ù²Ôâ°ù²õ²õ³Ü°ì (“helperâ€� or “companionâ€�), and Kokogiaq (â€�10-legged bearâ€� who lured and ate men according to myth). In the ancient Dorset culture, the polar bear is depicted as a so-called “flying bear.â€� The polar bear is at once both an iconic symbol of the Arctic and a wanderer who is known to frequent the south end of Hudson Bay at 53° N â€� far from the Arctic Circle. These bears ride the ice floes south, and then make the famed trek north through the town of Churchill, Canada. Polar bears are emblematic of a human connection to the Arctic. There is an Eskimo anecdote about a polar bear that pushed a block of ice ahead of himself to sneak up on a seal. In a world where chimps use sticks and ravens use stones as tools, the listener might be inclined to say: “Why not?â€� Somehow, it's comforting to dream that polar bears and humans have that much in common, even if we cannot share each other's Umwelt.
Dividing up the Arctic into these separate areas helps to offset the visual distortion of the region created by the Mercator projection. Lancaster Sound is a passage with Baffin Island and tiny Bylot Island to the south, Devon Island to the north, and Greenland far to the east on the other side of Baffin Bay. Ice floes four feet thick are slowly moved by the current and then suddenly blown in the opposite direction on a collision course with other floes, propelled by sudden gusts of wind. They freeze together or crack apart, or even slip over each other. The northern end of Baffin Island is cut by Admiralty Inlet which in turn sprouts finger-like inlets where water meets towering walls of rock. The area is one of the most densely populated of the Arctic. Glacial runoff from Devon Island and up-swelling nutrient rich currents are the basis for a unique ecosystem which hosts some 3 million seabirds, 30% of the North American population of the belukha whale, ¾ of the world's Narwhal population, and dens of polar bears and Arctic fox. Above the ice, sea birds roost in cliff wall rookeries; below the ice, fish, algae and zooplankton thrive.
Migration paths define yet another large swathe of areas connecting the Arctic to temperate regions. Snow geese travel between Tule Lake in northern California and the western Arctic: Wrangel Island north of Siberia, and Banks Island. At sea, animals congregate, poised for the unpredictable Arctic spring to open leads in the ice. Finally, there are the vast caribou migrations.
This is a sprawling book which straddles poetic description and scientific observation. As a reference book, it is indispensable. Not only is there an index and numerous maps, but there is an appendix of locations giving degrees of latitude and longitude. However, its lack of coherent theme make it difficult for casual reading. It could just as easily fit into a structure of loosely related essays, so wide-ranging is the content. While the sections on geography, biology and anthropology were interesting, the later chapters on exploration felt superfluous. An overabundance of events is condensed into a litany of explorers, routes, dates, and disastrous events. A reader interested in Arctic exploration would, I think, find Anthony Brandt's THE MAN WHO ATE HIS BOOTS, and THE TERROR, a fictional book by Dan Simmons, more interesting. The book's copyright date is 1986 � 2 years before the Exxon-Valdez disaster and before media coverage of global warming had ascended to headline status. These events tend to cast a pall of pessimism over the author's hopes for a lasting “dignified relationship� with the land. Yet, without hope, what remains?
NOTES:
Some images of the “flying polar bear sculptures�:
.
A recent article looking back at the book:
An excellent review of the book in the New York Times:
An excellent source for maps:
Elevation, variations in salinity, wind direction, and ocean currents define sections of the Arctic. Commonplace phenomena like soil formation, rainfall, and even the movement of the stars are either missing or transformed resulting in a distorted sense of reality. Extreme cold, scarcity of organic material, and lack of organisms that feed on decaying matter result in thin, impoverished soil. Fox dens and owl perches are a significant counterbalance, their “organic dumps� marked by grass and wildflowers. Rainfall in some areas is no greater than in the Sahara Desert. Twilight is so lengthy a period, its phases are categorized by astronomers. Atmospheric refractions produce mirages so realistic they have confounded Arctic explorers of the past, and caused phantom land masses to be mapped.
The animal and plant life are notable not so much for their reduced diversity as their unique adaptations. Plant heights are stunted because the air is significantly warmer closer to the ground. Fish and beetles produce glycoproteins which act as a biological antifreeze. The eggs of Arctic cod have enlarged yolks to provide enhanced nourishment for the embryos in compensation for the brief period of plankton bloom between spring and fall. Many birds retain heat by an adaptive circulatory system that channels cooling veinous blood through a coil of warm arterial blood before circulating it to the body core. The Narwhal's circulatory system enables it to withstand the pressure from its dives and to store carbon dioxide until the animal resurfaces. Its acoustic system enables it to detect the direction of sound waves under water, unlike humans.
Such different ways of perceiving their environment lead Lopez to consider the concept of Umwelt � a term also mentioned in John Vaillant's THE TIGER. How does a fox find its way in a white expanse of seemingly identical hummocks? “One can only speculate about how animals organize land into meaningful expanses for themselves. The worlds they perceive,their Umwelten, are all different. The discovery of an animal's Umwelt and its elucidation require great patience and experimental ingenuity, a free exchange of information among different observers, hours of direct observation, and a reluctance to summarize the animal. This, in my experience, is the Eskimo hunter's methodology. Under ideal circumstances it can also be the methodology of Western science.� (p.268)
Lopez's travels take him to a number of specific ecosystems, areas where both the animals and their connections to the land can be studied. Banks Island lies at 120° W. It is north of Canada's Northwest Territory and bound on the north by the M'Clure Strait, to the south by the Amundsen Gulf, and to the west by the open waters of the Beaufort Sea. The landscape is barren and brown for the most part, but dotted by meadow grass. Lopez chooses this locale to describe the region's scattered herds of musk oxen, an animal whose ancestors came from northern China. He wonders how one might identify areas that would be perfect for musk oxen even if the animals are absent.
The next site he examines is Barrow on the north coast of Alaska. To the northwest is the open Chukchi Sea. This is where Lopez introduces the polar bear, “a creature of Arctic edges.â€� (p.79) It is a creature designed for frigid waters, but who lives on land. Hollow guard hairs keep the fur from matting and permit the bear to shake off water before it freezes. The hairs also appear to capture short-wave light to help warm its skin (which is black). A layer of blubber insulates it from aquatic heat loss. To counter overheating, its circulatory system channels excess heat to its foot pads. The polar bear has many names: Nanuq (“master of bearsâ€�), Pisugtooq (“The Great Wandererâ€�), °Õô°ù²Ôâ°ù²õ²õ³Ü°ì (“helperâ€� or “companionâ€�), and Kokogiaq (â€�10-legged bearâ€� who lured and ate men according to myth). In the ancient Dorset culture, the polar bear is depicted as a so-called “flying bear.â€� The polar bear is at once both an iconic symbol of the Arctic and a wanderer who is known to frequent the south end of Hudson Bay at 53° N â€� far from the Arctic Circle. These bears ride the ice floes south, and then make the famed trek north through the town of Churchill, Canada. Polar bears are emblematic of a human connection to the Arctic. There is an Eskimo anecdote about a polar bear that pushed a block of ice ahead of himself to sneak up on a seal. In a world where chimps use sticks and ravens use stones as tools, the listener might be inclined to say: “Why not?â€� Somehow, it's comforting to dream that polar bears and humans have that much in common, even if we cannot share each other's Umwelt.
Dividing up the Arctic into these separate areas helps to offset the visual distortion of the region created by the Mercator projection. Lancaster Sound is a passage with Baffin Island and tiny Bylot Island to the south, Devon Island to the north, and Greenland far to the east on the other side of Baffin Bay. Ice floes four feet thick are slowly moved by the current and then suddenly blown in the opposite direction on a collision course with other floes, propelled by sudden gusts of wind. They freeze together or crack apart, or even slip over each other. The northern end of Baffin Island is cut by Admiralty Inlet which in turn sprouts finger-like inlets where water meets towering walls of rock. The area is one of the most densely populated of the Arctic. Glacial runoff from Devon Island and up-swelling nutrient rich currents are the basis for a unique ecosystem which hosts some 3 million seabirds, 30% of the North American population of the belukha whale, ¾ of the world's Narwhal population, and dens of polar bears and Arctic fox. Above the ice, sea birds roost in cliff wall rookeries; below the ice, fish, algae and zooplankton thrive.
Migration paths define yet another large swathe of areas connecting the Arctic to temperate regions. Snow geese travel between Tule Lake in northern California and the western Arctic: Wrangel Island north of Siberia, and Banks Island. At sea, animals congregate, poised for the unpredictable Arctic spring to open leads in the ice. Finally, there are the vast caribou migrations.
This is a sprawling book which straddles poetic description and scientific observation. As a reference book, it is indispensable. Not only is there an index and numerous maps, but there is an appendix of locations giving degrees of latitude and longitude. However, its lack of coherent theme make it difficult for casual reading. It could just as easily fit into a structure of loosely related essays, so wide-ranging is the content. While the sections on geography, biology and anthropology were interesting, the later chapters on exploration felt superfluous. An overabundance of events is condensed into a litany of explorers, routes, dates, and disastrous events. A reader interested in Arctic exploration would, I think, find Anthony Brandt's THE MAN WHO ATE HIS BOOTS, and THE TERROR, a fictional book by Dan Simmons, more interesting. The book's copyright date is 1986 � 2 years before the Exxon-Valdez disaster and before media coverage of global warming had ascended to headline status. These events tend to cast a pall of pessimism over the author's hopes for a lasting “dignified relationship� with the land. Yet, without hope, what remains?
NOTES:
Some images of the “flying polar bear sculptures�:
.
A recent article looking back at the book:
An excellent review of the book in the New York Times:
An excellent source for maps:
July 20, 2023
Arctic Dreams
by Barry Lopez
Trees in the Arctic have an aura of implacable endurance about them. A cross-section of the bole of a Richardson willow no thicker than your finger may reveal 200 annual growth rings beneath the magnifying glass. Much of the tundra, of course, appears to be treeless when, in many places, it is actually covered with trees—a thick matting of short, ancient willows and birches. You realize suddenly that you are wandering around on top of a forest.
Arctic Dreams is re-read #2 from my 5 star bookshelf. A project that I began in June 2023. This notable book won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 1986.
There is no more popular science book that has ever been written about the Arctic. It is Lopez's magnum opus in this narrow genre. The book is not a story but a long series of first hand experiences,insights and histories related to the arctic. The writing is meandering at times but never dry in the manner that is true of most science books.
Barry Lopez spent several years in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic doing research while writing Arctic Dreams and consulted many resident scientists. Lopez has gone on to write many other revered books on nature. I have read five of his books and enjoyed them all but this is my favorite.
Some of the topics addressed in Arctic Dreams are how the summer light and winter darknesses plays in the Arctic landscape including the aurora borealis. There are discussion of the early landscape artists from the 19th century who tried to capture the alien landscape. Lopez discusses all the land mammal species found in the Arctic and many of the migratory birds like the snow geese and marine mammals like walruses that are only found there. We learn about narwhals, bowhead whales, polar bears and muskoxen in more depth. Life in the Arctic found on land and in the sea represent much less than 0.1% of the world's species but the Arctic covers over 4% of the earth's surface area.
Of the roughly 3200 species of mammal we could possibly have encountered on the way north, we would find only 23 or so living beyond the tree line in this cold, light-poor desert. Of some 8600 species of birds, only six or seven—common raven, snowy owl, rock ptarmigan, hoary redpoll, gyrfalcon, Ross’s gull, and ivory gull—overwinter in the high Arctic, and only about 70 come north to breed. Of the boundless species of insect, only about 600 are to be found in the Arctic. Of perhaps 30,000 species of fish, fewer than 50 have found a way to live here.
Ice floes, icebergs and ice sheets are discussed in depth in context with the explorers and whaling ships that became trapped in the ice while hunting and searching for the Northwest Passage. We learn how Dorset, Thule and Inuit historical cultures lived and live in harmony in this inhospitable terrain and amidst the tundra and strange landscape features like tussocks and pingos.
The aurora borealis, pale gossamer curtains of light that seem to undulate across arctic skies, are transfixing in part because of their diffidence.
5 stars easy.
by Barry Lopez
Trees in the Arctic have an aura of implacable endurance about them. A cross-section of the bole of a Richardson willow no thicker than your finger may reveal 200 annual growth rings beneath the magnifying glass. Much of the tundra, of course, appears to be treeless when, in many places, it is actually covered with trees—a thick matting of short, ancient willows and birches. You realize suddenly that you are wandering around on top of a forest.
Arctic Dreams is re-read #2 from my 5 star bookshelf. A project that I began in June 2023. This notable book won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 1986.
There is no more popular science book that has ever been written about the Arctic. It is Lopez's magnum opus in this narrow genre. The book is not a story but a long series of first hand experiences,insights and histories related to the arctic. The writing is meandering at times but never dry in the manner that is true of most science books.
Barry Lopez spent several years in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic doing research while writing Arctic Dreams and consulted many resident scientists. Lopez has gone on to write many other revered books on nature. I have read five of his books and enjoyed them all but this is my favorite.
Some of the topics addressed in Arctic Dreams are how the summer light and winter darknesses plays in the Arctic landscape including the aurora borealis. There are discussion of the early landscape artists from the 19th century who tried to capture the alien landscape. Lopez discusses all the land mammal species found in the Arctic and many of the migratory birds like the snow geese and marine mammals like walruses that are only found there. We learn about narwhals, bowhead whales, polar bears and muskoxen in more depth. Life in the Arctic found on land and in the sea represent much less than 0.1% of the world's species but the Arctic covers over 4% of the earth's surface area.
Of the roughly 3200 species of mammal we could possibly have encountered on the way north, we would find only 23 or so living beyond the tree line in this cold, light-poor desert. Of some 8600 species of birds, only six or seven—common raven, snowy owl, rock ptarmigan, hoary redpoll, gyrfalcon, Ross’s gull, and ivory gull—overwinter in the high Arctic, and only about 70 come north to breed. Of the boundless species of insect, only about 600 are to be found in the Arctic. Of perhaps 30,000 species of fish, fewer than 50 have found a way to live here.
Ice floes, icebergs and ice sheets are discussed in depth in context with the explorers and whaling ships that became trapped in the ice while hunting and searching for the Northwest Passage. We learn how Dorset, Thule and Inuit historical cultures lived and live in harmony in this inhospitable terrain and amidst the tundra and strange landscape features like tussocks and pingos.
The aurora borealis, pale gossamer curtains of light that seem to undulate across arctic skies, are transfixing in part because of their diffidence.
5 stars easy.
February 3, 2014
Arctic Dreams was originally published in 1986 and won the US National Book Award for non-fiction. It is a compilation of around 10 essays, which can be read separately, each one focusing on a different subject, as Lopez focuses on the inhabitants, visitors and four-legged, two-winged migrants of a frozen territory in the North.
Reading his work is a little like being mesmerised by a compelling narrator in a nature documentary, for it is not just the images of the animals and the landscape that are interesting, but his recounting philosophical thoughts of our interaction with nature and local populations, whether they are polar bears, seals or Arctic peoples.
I don't think I have ever highlighted so many passages in one book, as I have in Lopez's Arctic Dreams, it is a privilege to walk in his footsteps, to figuratively look over his shoulder and see inside a compassionate mind as he whispers words onto the page of this incredible collection of observations of natural life.
I recognise that change that can come over us, when we spend long enough in an environment completely foreign to our norm, long enough that our behaviour starts to change, something primal occurs and so it is no surprise to me when Lopez mentions that on his evening walks, he starts bowing to the birds he encounters. This ritual will inspire his own questions into how humanity imagines the landscapes they are in and how in turn the land shapes the imaginations of the people who dwell within it. And so he journeys into the unknown to find out.
And so I find myself immersed in chapters that expound on characteristics and behaviour of musk-oxen, polar bears, the narwhal, the influence and importance of ice and light, the great migrations and more.
Barry Lopez has a unique voice, on the page and in person. Even you never read his words in a book, listen to him here speaking for less than two minutes about the gift of story in our lives.
My full review here at .
Reading his work is a little like being mesmerised by a compelling narrator in a nature documentary, for it is not just the images of the animals and the landscape that are interesting, but his recounting philosophical thoughts of our interaction with nature and local populations, whether they are polar bears, seals or Arctic peoples.
I don't think I have ever highlighted so many passages in one book, as I have in Lopez's Arctic Dreams, it is a privilege to walk in his footsteps, to figuratively look over his shoulder and see inside a compassionate mind as he whispers words onto the page of this incredible collection of observations of natural life.
I recognise that change that can come over us, when we spend long enough in an environment completely foreign to our norm, long enough that our behaviour starts to change, something primal occurs and so it is no surprise to me when Lopez mentions that on his evening walks, he starts bowing to the birds he encounters. This ritual will inspire his own questions into how humanity imagines the landscapes they are in and how in turn the land shapes the imaginations of the people who dwell within it. And so he journeys into the unknown to find out.
"I took to bowing on these evening walks. I would bow slightly with my hands in my pockets, towards the birds and the evidence of life in their nests � because of their fecundity, unexpected in this remote region, and because of the serene arctic light that came down over the land like breath, like breathing."
And so I find myself immersed in chapters that expound on characteristics and behaviour of musk-oxen, polar bears, the narwhal, the influence and importance of ice and light, the great migrations and more.
Barry Lopez has a unique voice, on the page and in person. Even you never read his words in a book, listen to him here speaking for less than two minutes about the gift of story in our lives.
My full review here at .
January 26, 2021
I have always felt drawn northward. There's just something about the north —Ìýbe it the relative isolation, the cold, the light/darkness —Ìýthat has always lent it a sense of mystery in my mind.
The title "Arctic Dreams" encapsulates this attraction perfectly. There is something dreamlike about this fascination with the north, and everything set in it (Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy comes to mind).
Even today, if I find out that a particular story is set in some northern location —ÌýSvalbard, say —ÌýI'm much more likely to pick it up.
But "Arctic Dreams" might have been a little bit too grounded in reality for my liking. Now don't get me wrong, this book has everything a naturalist might want, but it truly is designed with naturalists in mind. There are looooong digressions here about Arctic birds, Arctic sea life, Arctic tundra, Arctic peoples, Arctic air, Arctic light, Arctic darkness, Arctic ... you get the idea.
That's all well and good, it's just long and, I must admit, incredibly tedious. I listened to this on audiobook, which likely only exacerbated the tedium. Barry Lopez would be going on about narwhals when I suddenly realized I'd been thinking about something else for the last ten minutes, but it's ok, because Barry is still talking about narwhals.
Would I have enjoyed this more if I had actually read it? Maybe. But I am sure I would have still found it tedious.
This essentially reads as a nature journal, and it's about as interesting as that. Yes, there are some lovely turns of phrase and some cool facts about the native peoples that inhabit whatever ice-covered terrain Barry is sauntering across that particularly month, but I'm not sure I really wanted this much info on Arctic terns, though they do sound lovely.
I'm sorry, Barry.
It's not you, it's me.
I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into here. Maybe I'll come back to the print version of this at some point in the � let's be honest —�very distant future, but for now, this sort of meditative exercise disguised as a book just didn't really do it for me.
The title "Arctic Dreams" encapsulates this attraction perfectly. There is something dreamlike about this fascination with the north, and everything set in it (Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy comes to mind).
Even today, if I find out that a particular story is set in some northern location —ÌýSvalbard, say —ÌýI'm much more likely to pick it up.
But "Arctic Dreams" might have been a little bit too grounded in reality for my liking. Now don't get me wrong, this book has everything a naturalist might want, but it truly is designed with naturalists in mind. There are looooong digressions here about Arctic birds, Arctic sea life, Arctic tundra, Arctic peoples, Arctic air, Arctic light, Arctic darkness, Arctic ... you get the idea.
That's all well and good, it's just long and, I must admit, incredibly tedious. I listened to this on audiobook, which likely only exacerbated the tedium. Barry Lopez would be going on about narwhals when I suddenly realized I'd been thinking about something else for the last ten minutes, but it's ok, because Barry is still talking about narwhals.
Would I have enjoyed this more if I had actually read it? Maybe. But I am sure I would have still found it tedious.
This essentially reads as a nature journal, and it's about as interesting as that. Yes, there are some lovely turns of phrase and some cool facts about the native peoples that inhabit whatever ice-covered terrain Barry is sauntering across that particularly month, but I'm not sure I really wanted this much info on Arctic terns, though they do sound lovely.
I'm sorry, Barry.
It's not you, it's me.
I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into here. Maybe I'll come back to the print version of this at some point in the � let's be honest —�very distant future, but for now, this sort of meditative exercise disguised as a book just didn't really do it for me.
December 5, 2013
I read this book about 15 years ago and did not like it. Luckily, Mr. Lopez was leading a session at a conference I was attending, so I picked it up again. This time I loved the book � what changed? It must be me since the book is the same edition.
I was impressed by many things. I especially liked his discussions of the land and how different peoples describe and view the land differently. He discusses maps as “an organization of the land according to a certain sense of space and an evaluation of what is important,� but in the end only “neatly folded simulacra.�
He also talks about the western foundations of ecology, time, space etc. as based in studies of temperate zones, so that we do not have the vocabulary, philosophical or scientific basis for studying the Arctic, and that we need more than science to understand a region or a place.
This is not an easy book to read and it took me a long time to finish. It was worth the effort and the time. And, Mr. Lopez gave the most meaningful key note address I have ever listened to (with 40 years of conference going behind me) and a working sessions that left many of us so dazed that we skipped the conference for the the rest of the afternoon .
I was impressed by many things. I especially liked his discussions of the land and how different peoples describe and view the land differently. He discusses maps as “an organization of the land according to a certain sense of space and an evaluation of what is important,� but in the end only “neatly folded simulacra.�
He also talks about the western foundations of ecology, time, space etc. as based in studies of temperate zones, so that we do not have the vocabulary, philosophical or scientific basis for studying the Arctic, and that we need more than science to understand a region or a place.
This is not an easy book to read and it took me a long time to finish. It was worth the effort and the time. And, Mr. Lopez gave the most meaningful key note address I have ever listened to (with 40 years of conference going behind me) and a working sessions that left many of us so dazed that we skipped the conference for the the rest of the afternoon .
August 6, 2019
I've known about Arctic Dreams since its publication. My reading it now, 33 years later, stems from my becoming convinced Barry Lopez's newest book, Horizon, is one I want to read. Because he was untasted, I thought it wise to get a feel for the man's writing and ideas before committing to the bigger read and, also important, the bigger purchase. I'm pleased with the result.
Arctic Dreams is impressive. Even understanding it's his masterpiece, I'm still astonished at the perceptive, lyrical prose and at the comprehension and sensitivity he brings to his subject, the High Arctic, made evident on every page. I have no particular curiosity about the Arctic but was nevertheless fascinated by everything he told me about it, and by the powerful music by which he tells it. He centers some chapters around individual animals, including the narwhal and the animal most associated with the landscape, the polar bear. There's a chapter on the 2 things which most define that landscape: ice and light. He has much to say about birds of the region. Another chapter's on the unique people who inhabit it. That they're called Eskimo throughout may say something about how old the book is. A long chapter details the centuries of Arctic exploration. But the best things in Lopez's book are his meditations on the topography. His enthusiasm for the varieties of the land, the conditions of weather, ice and tundra, his gratitude at being allowed to be a part of it with the other life forms, becomes ecstatic as he writes how the Arctic both takes over and feeds the imagination of those who live, work , and travel there. It's what he means by dreams.
His book is a report of natural wonders. Sadly, there are genuine fears that many of those wonders have been or are being immeasurably and irrevocably altered by climate change. I wish I had read it in 1986.
Arctic Dreams is impressive. Even understanding it's his masterpiece, I'm still astonished at the perceptive, lyrical prose and at the comprehension and sensitivity he brings to his subject, the High Arctic, made evident on every page. I have no particular curiosity about the Arctic but was nevertheless fascinated by everything he told me about it, and by the powerful music by which he tells it. He centers some chapters around individual animals, including the narwhal and the animal most associated with the landscape, the polar bear. There's a chapter on the 2 things which most define that landscape: ice and light. He has much to say about birds of the region. Another chapter's on the unique people who inhabit it. That they're called Eskimo throughout may say something about how old the book is. A long chapter details the centuries of Arctic exploration. But the best things in Lopez's book are his meditations on the topography. His enthusiasm for the varieties of the land, the conditions of weather, ice and tundra, his gratitude at being allowed to be a part of it with the other life forms, becomes ecstatic as he writes how the Arctic both takes over and feeds the imagination of those who live, work , and travel there. It's what he means by dreams.
His book is a report of natural wonders. Sadly, there are genuine fears that many of those wonders have been or are being immeasurably and irrevocably altered by climate change. I wish I had read it in 1986.
September 21, 2021
Barry Lopez was a biologist and a revered American nature writer. He worked as a field biologist for four years in the Arctic Circle, from Baffin Island to the Bering Sea, and this sublime book is the result: ARCTIC DREAMS (1986).
His meandering, erudite prose muses about ecological and ethical concerns as well as the history of the Arctic. But, for me, the best parts are the dazzling descriptions of the lives of animals such as polar bears, arctic foxes, musk-oxen, whales, narwhals, sea-birds, as well as the landscape, the Northern Lights and the many, many kinds of ice.
While the landscape might seem unchanging, Lopez sees many signs of decline and loss in the Arctic. He points out that anthropologists have estimated that 90% of the Eskimo population has died out since its first contact with European explorers. He also notes the results of human expansion and its effects on the fauna. I was appalled when I read that around 30 bears were shot yearly in Canada (at the time he was writing this book) because they were considered "nuisances"; that on one occasion one bear died from trying to eat an automobile battery left lying about and that photographers and filmmakers-both professional and amateur- frequently bait the bears with jars of mayonnaise in order to "stage scenes". Lopez regrets our toxic relationship with animals (and nature in general) with sorrow.
This book does not address the issue of climate change but it is imbued with ecological consciousness and with a deep love for this dignified, unforgiving landscape and every living thing on it.
His meandering, erudite prose muses about ecological and ethical concerns as well as the history of the Arctic. But, for me, the best parts are the dazzling descriptions of the lives of animals such as polar bears, arctic foxes, musk-oxen, whales, narwhals, sea-birds, as well as the landscape, the Northern Lights and the many, many kinds of ice.
While the landscape might seem unchanging, Lopez sees many signs of decline and loss in the Arctic. He points out that anthropologists have estimated that 90% of the Eskimo population has died out since its first contact with European explorers. He also notes the results of human expansion and its effects on the fauna. I was appalled when I read that around 30 bears were shot yearly in Canada (at the time he was writing this book) because they were considered "nuisances"; that on one occasion one bear died from trying to eat an automobile battery left lying about and that photographers and filmmakers-both professional and amateur- frequently bait the bears with jars of mayonnaise in order to "stage scenes". Lopez regrets our toxic relationship with animals (and nature in general) with sorrow.
This book does not address the issue of climate change but it is imbued with ecological consciousness and with a deep love for this dignified, unforgiving landscape and every living thing on it.
March 30, 2015
I read this book a long time ago. Halfway my military service training camp I broke my foot. I spent endless days waiting in the military hospital for treatment and check-ups. Lopez' Arctic Dreams pulled me through that nasty period. It was balm for my soul. A lifelong fascination for boreal territories was the result. Soon after my military service I traveled to Greenland where I trekked to the Inlandsis with a friend. Truly unforgettable memories ...
July 2, 2021
What a delicious, sublime read this is. Barry Lopez mastered the language most of us lack to describe the unfathomable beauty and awe of these surreal landscapes. It’s a beautiful book, and one I’ll come back to again in the future.
July 17, 2012
A reader could be prone to chills on a sunny March day as spring breaks through, and still be mesmerized by the love Lopez clearly has for a land that routinely has temperatures double digits below zero centigrade. His love of the landscape’s mysterious, often impenetrable serenity, is filled with mirages and challenges for daily survival that suspend a reader’s usual perceptions like a good science fiction.
Slyly, he invites the reader to imagine the polar solstices, learn about the elegant polar bear, muskox and the mythical narwhal. He’s a scientist who can write poetry: “In the reprieve at the end of the day, in the stillness of a summer evening, the world sheds its categories, the insistence of its future, and is suspended solely in the lilt of its desire.�
In cascading sentences he explains the seasons, animal migrations, a surprising variety of plants and we get a peek at the elusive Eskimo. I would like to incorporate some of their language into English. Quviannikumut means to feel at peace with the world and deeply happy. Long and patient waiting is quinuituq. An isumataq is a person who can create an atmosphere of deep wisdom.
Language appears to be endless. I have a reasonable vocabulary, but I often learn new words in well written and deeply crafted books. Lopez presented me with more than the usual with tenebrous (dark, away from the light), polynya (an area of open water in sea ice), and disquisitions (a formal inquiry).
Definitely not a vacation book, Arctic Dreams was enjoyable to read in deep winter when I easily drift into his atmosphere and was willing to read patiently during long dark nights. Deftly, he led me along to enjoy the Arctic’s unknowable beauty, and then woke me up by describing early explorers intrepidly sailing toward doom in ill-equipped ships that are trapped by ice for three or four years, leaving them reduced to eating rat soup. Their endless attempts to map the land suggests dozens of stories still to be researched and written.
But as the book went on, I found it more information, science and history than, in the end, I was able to absorb. It ends with the presence of today’s oil companies as he describes them as pleasure adventurers that are littering the landscape as they are in Nepal. The comparative ease of today’s visitor describes oil company housing with carpet, snack bars and work-out machines. Barry may be a last recorder of the Arctic’s original landscape.
Slyly, he invites the reader to imagine the polar solstices, learn about the elegant polar bear, muskox and the mythical narwhal. He’s a scientist who can write poetry: “In the reprieve at the end of the day, in the stillness of a summer evening, the world sheds its categories, the insistence of its future, and is suspended solely in the lilt of its desire.�
In cascading sentences he explains the seasons, animal migrations, a surprising variety of plants and we get a peek at the elusive Eskimo. I would like to incorporate some of their language into English. Quviannikumut means to feel at peace with the world and deeply happy. Long and patient waiting is quinuituq. An isumataq is a person who can create an atmosphere of deep wisdom.
Language appears to be endless. I have a reasonable vocabulary, but I often learn new words in well written and deeply crafted books. Lopez presented me with more than the usual with tenebrous (dark, away from the light), polynya (an area of open water in sea ice), and disquisitions (a formal inquiry).
Definitely not a vacation book, Arctic Dreams was enjoyable to read in deep winter when I easily drift into his atmosphere and was willing to read patiently during long dark nights. Deftly, he led me along to enjoy the Arctic’s unknowable beauty, and then woke me up by describing early explorers intrepidly sailing toward doom in ill-equipped ships that are trapped by ice for three or four years, leaving them reduced to eating rat soup. Their endless attempts to map the land suggests dozens of stories still to be researched and written.
But as the book went on, I found it more information, science and history than, in the end, I was able to absorb. It ends with the presence of today’s oil companies as he describes them as pleasure adventurers that are littering the landscape as they are in Nepal. The comparative ease of today’s visitor describes oil company housing with carpet, snack bars and work-out machines. Barry may be a last recorder of the Arctic’s original landscape.
Shelved as 'skimmed'
March 1, 2021I limped along just a few pages at a time before admitting defeat and skimming to the end (it was the 20 pages on musk oxen that really did me in). For me, the reading experience was most akin to The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen in that both are about a literal journey in an extreme environment, yet what stands out are the philosophical musings. Where Matthiessen was animated by Buddhist ideas about selfhood and loss, Lopez takes the secular long view of human life and responsibility in light of potential extinction. The epilogue, in particular, is endlessly quotable. It’s depressing to encounter books like this now, though: 30+ years ago, literary nature writers were issuing clarion calls about climate disaster, and we didn’t listen.
Some favorite passages:
“Whenever I met a collared lemming on a summer day and took its stare I would think: Here is a tough animal. Here is a valuable life. � If it could tell me of its will to survive, would I think of biochemistry, or would I think of the analogous human desire? If it could speak of the time since the retreat of the ice, would I have the patience to listen?�
“The cold view to take of our future is that we are therefore headed for extinction in a universe of impersonal chemical, physical, and biological laws. A more productive, certainly more engaging view, is that we have the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure not to be intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bear no fruit in our lifetimes.�
“One of the oldest dreams of mankind is to find a dignity that might include all living things. And one of the greatest of human longings must be to bring such dignity to one’s own dreams, for each to find his or her own life exemplary in some way. The struggle to do this is a struggle because an adult sensibility must find some way to include all the dark threads of life. A way to do this is to pay attention to what occurs in a land not touched by human schemes, where an original order prevails.�
Originally published on my blog, .
Some favorite passages:
“Whenever I met a collared lemming on a summer day and took its stare I would think: Here is a tough animal. Here is a valuable life. � If it could tell me of its will to survive, would I think of biochemistry, or would I think of the analogous human desire? If it could speak of the time since the retreat of the ice, would I have the patience to listen?�
“The cold view to take of our future is that we are therefore headed for extinction in a universe of impersonal chemical, physical, and biological laws. A more productive, certainly more engaging view, is that we have the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure not to be intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bear no fruit in our lifetimes.�
“One of the oldest dreams of mankind is to find a dignity that might include all living things. And one of the greatest of human longings must be to bring such dignity to one’s own dreams, for each to find his or her own life exemplary in some way. The struggle to do this is a struggle because an adult sensibility must find some way to include all the dark threads of life. A way to do this is to pay attention to what occurs in a land not touched by human schemes, where an original order prevails.�
Originally published on my blog, .
April 2, 2025
Barry Lopez has to be one of the premier writers in his field, if not overall. His writing is gripping and poetic, at the same time you learn both in the temporal an spiritual nature of things. I like that he tried very hard not to be biased against Big Corporate excavation of the Arctic, but you could feel his heart breaking at certain points.
He writes not from a distance but from actual travels over the years in the Arctic, interactions with Eskimos, miners and other scientific explorers. He describes the wildlife as living beings deserving respect while admitting their place in providing food where none else is available. He visits Prudhoe Bay and, I believe, other pipeline encampments.
The book is well researched with a sizable Bibliography, Notes and Index. He tells the tales not only of human explorers in our known history, but bows to the Ages before history was recorded.
This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.
He writes not from a distance but from actual travels over the years in the Arctic, interactions with Eskimos, miners and other scientific explorers. He describes the wildlife as living beings deserving respect while admitting their place in providing food where none else is available. He visits Prudhoe Bay and, I believe, other pipeline encampments.
The book is well researched with a sizable Bibliography, Notes and Index. He tells the tales not only of human explorers in our known history, but bows to the Ages before history was recorded.
This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.
August 15, 2020
This book gets four-stars from me for the quality of its prose and the scope and depth of the research. No one can write exhaustively about a continent, but Lopez writes in great depth about the Arctic and the Northern Polar regions, and this is a book of great ambition and thought. At times, I found my attention wandered, but this was because, due to the scope of the book, Lopez tackles subject that do not interest me, as well as ones that do, and so I can't criticize him too harshly for the times when he failed to engage me.
Though it's over 400 pages in length, this book is only divided into nine chapters. Each chapter delves into a different aspect of the Arctic: its ecology, the science of light and ice, the history of Polar exploration, the history of peoples indigenous to the Arctic, the stories and myths surrounding different animals. At the time of writing, 1986, Lopez was still optimistic about the future of the Arctic, and did not conceive of the scale of the current destruction of landscape and climate. Reading it now, the book at times feels elegiac in tone, as it captures the scale of what we have lost, and what we continue to lose.
My edition includes an introduction by Robert MacFarlane, as well as Lopez's maps and extensive glossary. The first three chapters discuss totemic animals of the North: the musk ox, the polar bear, and narwhal, going deep into their biology, the history of their movements, our understanding of them in myth, how they fit into the landscape, and the relationship the indigenous people of the area have with them. (Lopez uses the word "Eskimo" throughout this book, as he says that only Canadian Indigenous people wish to be called Inuits. I've read this in various sources, but nowhere have I found it said that anyone is happy to be called an "Eskimo".) I really enjoyed these chapters, and found them informative and moving, as well as containing beautiful observations of nature. Pinning the information to specific animals worked to keep the chapters focused and informative. I also enjoyed later chapters on the history of the Indigenous people in the Arctic, which includes the history of the rise of the Thule culture and their vibrant art works, and its loss during the Little Ice Age, as well as the earlier Devonian culture. Lopez also discusses the ways in which Europeans destroyed and wiped out native cultures. Lopez writes with sympathy and respect about the Indigenous people, and he travelled on the ice with various Indigenous explorers.
Some of the later chapters I found less interesting: Lopez devotes two long chapters to the history of Arctic exploration and the hunt for the Northwest passage, and while his prose style keeps these stories vivid and informative, I am a lot more interested in the ecology of the Arctic and the relationship of Indigenous people to it, rather than the history of many ill-conceived Polar voyages. Some of Lopez's writing about sunlight, ocean currents and the relationship of the Arctic to daylight confused me, but I think that's because I personally need a lot more diagrams to fully understand a scientific concept.
Overall, this is an impressive work. It's described as the classic of Arctic writing, with good reason. It is worth having as a reference book for many different aspects of the Arctic, and well-worth reading as a nature writing, travel writing, and history.
Though it's over 400 pages in length, this book is only divided into nine chapters. Each chapter delves into a different aspect of the Arctic: its ecology, the science of light and ice, the history of Polar exploration, the history of peoples indigenous to the Arctic, the stories and myths surrounding different animals. At the time of writing, 1986, Lopez was still optimistic about the future of the Arctic, and did not conceive of the scale of the current destruction of landscape and climate. Reading it now, the book at times feels elegiac in tone, as it captures the scale of what we have lost, and what we continue to lose.
My edition includes an introduction by Robert MacFarlane, as well as Lopez's maps and extensive glossary. The first three chapters discuss totemic animals of the North: the musk ox, the polar bear, and narwhal, going deep into their biology, the history of their movements, our understanding of them in myth, how they fit into the landscape, and the relationship the indigenous people of the area have with them. (Lopez uses the word "Eskimo" throughout this book, as he says that only Canadian Indigenous people wish to be called Inuits. I've read this in various sources, but nowhere have I found it said that anyone is happy to be called an "Eskimo".) I really enjoyed these chapters, and found them informative and moving, as well as containing beautiful observations of nature. Pinning the information to specific animals worked to keep the chapters focused and informative. I also enjoyed later chapters on the history of the Indigenous people in the Arctic, which includes the history of the rise of the Thule culture and their vibrant art works, and its loss during the Little Ice Age, as well as the earlier Devonian culture. Lopez also discusses the ways in which Europeans destroyed and wiped out native cultures. Lopez writes with sympathy and respect about the Indigenous people, and he travelled on the ice with various Indigenous explorers.
Some of the later chapters I found less interesting: Lopez devotes two long chapters to the history of Arctic exploration and the hunt for the Northwest passage, and while his prose style keeps these stories vivid and informative, I am a lot more interested in the ecology of the Arctic and the relationship of Indigenous people to it, rather than the history of many ill-conceived Polar voyages. Some of Lopez's writing about sunlight, ocean currents and the relationship of the Arctic to daylight confused me, but I think that's because I personally need a lot more diagrams to fully understand a scientific concept.
Overall, this is an impressive work. It's described as the classic of Arctic writing, with good reason. It is worth having as a reference book for many different aspects of the Arctic, and well-worth reading as a nature writing, travel writing, and history.
March 24, 2019
I connected to about half of the chapters, mostly the chapters about arctic wildlife. I never thought I would get emotional reading about a muskox but the chapter was so beautifully written! I really appreciated the imagery of the arctic but some chapters were so overloaded with information that it was difficult to get through.
April 25, 2019
Interessantissimo finché parla di fauna artica, dopo devo ammettere di aver perso interesse, fra il capitolo sulle migrazioni e quello sui ghiacci, anche se poi si è ripreso parlando di fenomeni meteorologici, aurore boreali e quadri che ritraggono l'Artide. Insomma, penso vada molto a gusti: data la precisione con cui Lopez ha elencato e descritto gli animali che popolano la zona artica, io mi sarei aspettata - e avrei molto gradito - qua e là qualche accenno alla flora o qualche curiosità extra invece che ritrovarmi a leggere percentuali e numeri che non stanno a significare niente se non si conosce già qualcosa di glaciologia o di storia dell'evoluzione umana. L'ultimo capitolo in particolare mi è sembrato davvero di troppo. Comunque, la maniera ordinata di condurre l'esposizione e la precisione scientifica dell'autore mi hanno convinta.
Il problema del libro è che ormai è un po' datato (ha più di trent'anni, il narvalo sembra ancora una figura mitologica!), e di conseguenza non affronta molte questioni moderne che avrebbero secondo me costituito il quid di un'opera del genere, però ho amato il lavoro di ricerca, la semplicità espositiva e le descrizioni faunistiche che occupano una buona parte del libro. Amo le foche, i trichechi e gli altri simpatici animaletti che vivono al Polo Nord, perciò mi è piaciuto davvero scoprirne di più, e, in generale, dopo questa lettura mi sento meno ignorante.
Il problema del libro è che ormai è un po' datato (ha più di trent'anni, il narvalo sembra ancora una figura mitologica!), e di conseguenza non affronta molte questioni moderne che avrebbero secondo me costituito il quid di un'opera del genere, però ho amato il lavoro di ricerca, la semplicità espositiva e le descrizioni faunistiche che occupano una buona parte del libro. Amo le foche, i trichechi e gli altri simpatici animaletti che vivono al Polo Nord, perciò mi è piaciuto davvero scoprirne di più, e, in generale, dopo questa lettura mi sento meno ignorante.
October 10, 2021
"I was full of appreciation for all that I had seen." -- This sentiment, that Lopez closes the book with, captures the overriding sense I had throughout this book. Whether Lopez is talking about the natural beauty of the Arctic, the culture and traditions of the Native people, the bravery and hardship faced by early explorers, or the animals found in the region - his deep respect and abiding appreciation comes through. Arctic Dreams is an interdisciplinary exploration of the Arctic. I love books where science, history, and culture mingle together, and to find it in a book where the author is such an exceptional writer that you feel like you are seeing it through his eyes is a treat. While it isn't a travel memoir, the beauty that is described gives you the sense of having visited this remote area with Lopez.
January 29, 2025
I love Barry Lopez. Such beautiful and thoughtful writing.
September 29, 2015
Interesting, but unsatisfying. Part of which is me; part the book.
I've known about this book for years and years, but never got around to it. If I had read it when I was 12 or 13, I think I would have considered it one of the best books ever and really sunk into it. I would have been captivated by how smart López seems and tried to memorize so many of the facts he presents, and the stories. Now, not so much.
For all that the book is about connecting to the land, and its intimacies, López has a very Olympian aspect. He is above it all, judges it all, and knows it all--including what is not is known. But--as Jonathan Raban pointed out a long time ago--he has no sense of humor. He talks about joking with his comrades, but I cannot really imagine him making jokes. Everything is too serious: which is part of what would have world for me when I was younger. I think I'm a little more attuned to the absurd now. There may be ironies and paradoxes in López's world--though not really--but certainly no absurdities. Everything is explicable--if not now, then later--and important.
The recounts the almost-decade that López spent working as and with field biologists in the Arctic, after time he spent studying and writing about the desert. Field biologists are one of the two heroic types that populate the book: they have an intimate connection to the land, respect its intricacies, and are willing to admit their own ignorance. And ignorance is an important them in the book: for part of what López argues is that the arctic is such a weird place, so hard for Western humans--products of the temperate zone--to understand and so resistant to the many ideas and plans we have projected on to it.
Already there is the tension that makes the book unsatisfying, and López so aloof. He can see everybody else's faults. He argues for the importance of deep connection to the land--but he is also the person who knows everything, going on extended riffs that pad the book without adding much light (the chapter on the narwhal follows a long tangent on unicorns). He knows what he knows and what he doesn't and what mistakes others have made. He can skip from region to region and become an intimate of any landscape, but others are not so privileged.
That's not to say parts of this argument are not enlightening. I especially liked his explanation for how ideas about season and time and space and light so ingrained in people raised outside of the arctic just do not work there, and life is thus organized along other axes.
The second hero of the book are the native peoples, whom he calls Eskimos. They are also intimately connected to the land and have knowledge repeatedly ignored by the West. López makes some noises about not wanting to romanticize the Eskimos, but then he goes ahead and romanticizes the eskimos. At the same time, some of his stories about eskimo activities belie this argument, showing that eskimos can be as rapacious and ignorant of the arctic as outsiders--or, perhaps said better, that they do not necessarily see the landscape in the same kind of sacred way that López does, one that demonizes anything above subsistence living.
The villains are the usual--Western explorers who corrupted eskimo culture and now the people who work for oil companies. I especially do not want to defend oil companies, but the problem with them is not that they are inattentive to the delicate interrelationships that so fascinate field biologists: the problem is capitalism itself. And the arctic is no different than other parts of the world. López doesn't really develop this very far--it is mentioned at the beginning, but then left hanging.
Along these lines, the book is also a time capsule. Written in 1986, it barely mentions climate change, and certainly not in the sense that global climate change is understood now--among, other things, the worse threat to the arctic ever. Indeed, there's not much in the book that helps us to understood prepare or gain insight into this problem.
The tension is there throughout the book, that humans do not know as much as they think they do about the arctic. Except for López. If he had paid more attention to that insight, really let it seep through, then the book might have been a better prologue. But López doesn't like change--all change is bad--but his closed-system understanding doesn't permit us to understand the change that has happened (even if it is a really bad change).
I've known about this book for years and years, but never got around to it. If I had read it when I was 12 or 13, I think I would have considered it one of the best books ever and really sunk into it. I would have been captivated by how smart López seems and tried to memorize so many of the facts he presents, and the stories. Now, not so much.
For all that the book is about connecting to the land, and its intimacies, López has a very Olympian aspect. He is above it all, judges it all, and knows it all--including what is not is known. But--as Jonathan Raban pointed out a long time ago--he has no sense of humor. He talks about joking with his comrades, but I cannot really imagine him making jokes. Everything is too serious: which is part of what would have world for me when I was younger. I think I'm a little more attuned to the absurd now. There may be ironies and paradoxes in López's world--though not really--but certainly no absurdities. Everything is explicable--if not now, then later--and important.
The recounts the almost-decade that López spent working as and with field biologists in the Arctic, after time he spent studying and writing about the desert. Field biologists are one of the two heroic types that populate the book: they have an intimate connection to the land, respect its intricacies, and are willing to admit their own ignorance. And ignorance is an important them in the book: for part of what López argues is that the arctic is such a weird place, so hard for Western humans--products of the temperate zone--to understand and so resistant to the many ideas and plans we have projected on to it.
Already there is the tension that makes the book unsatisfying, and López so aloof. He can see everybody else's faults. He argues for the importance of deep connection to the land--but he is also the person who knows everything, going on extended riffs that pad the book without adding much light (the chapter on the narwhal follows a long tangent on unicorns). He knows what he knows and what he doesn't and what mistakes others have made. He can skip from region to region and become an intimate of any landscape, but others are not so privileged.
That's not to say parts of this argument are not enlightening. I especially liked his explanation for how ideas about season and time and space and light so ingrained in people raised outside of the arctic just do not work there, and life is thus organized along other axes.
The second hero of the book are the native peoples, whom he calls Eskimos. They are also intimately connected to the land and have knowledge repeatedly ignored by the West. López makes some noises about not wanting to romanticize the Eskimos, but then he goes ahead and romanticizes the eskimos. At the same time, some of his stories about eskimo activities belie this argument, showing that eskimos can be as rapacious and ignorant of the arctic as outsiders--or, perhaps said better, that they do not necessarily see the landscape in the same kind of sacred way that López does, one that demonizes anything above subsistence living.
The villains are the usual--Western explorers who corrupted eskimo culture and now the people who work for oil companies. I especially do not want to defend oil companies, but the problem with them is not that they are inattentive to the delicate interrelationships that so fascinate field biologists: the problem is capitalism itself. And the arctic is no different than other parts of the world. López doesn't really develop this very far--it is mentioned at the beginning, but then left hanging.
Along these lines, the book is also a time capsule. Written in 1986, it barely mentions climate change, and certainly not in the sense that global climate change is understood now--among, other things, the worse threat to the arctic ever. Indeed, there's not much in the book that helps us to understood prepare or gain insight into this problem.
The tension is there throughout the book, that humans do not know as much as they think they do about the arctic. Except for López. If he had paid more attention to that insight, really let it seep through, then the book might have been a better prologue. But López doesn't like change--all change is bad--but his closed-system understanding doesn't permit us to understand the change that has happened (even if it is a really bad change).
January 31, 2015
"It is easy to underestimate the power of a long-term association with the land, not just with a specific spot but with the span of it in memory and imagination, how it fills, for example, one's dreams" (279).
Reading Arctic Dreams, I was filled with longing, hope, no small measure of despair at the technological entanglements of modern life. While one might come to this book underestimating or failing to consider the "power of a long-term association with the land," it is impossible to finish reading without an immense regard for the power of Lopez's intense observation, knowledge, and lived experience in the Arctic.
The narrative covers vast ground, elegantly navigating between "scientific," specific examinations of anthropology, history, and biology of a world unknown and undreamed by most, and Lopez's first person dream-haunted travelogue-memoir.
We join a graduate student minutely observing a subspecies of tundra grass, share the view of a polar bear waiting hours for a seal to surface, experience the gruesome sublimities of a modern Eskimo hunt. These facts, experiences, perspectives are dazzling and beautifully written, buoyed by eloquent descriptions and incisive curiosity. Who could fail to love muskoxen described with such lavish praise? "They were so intensely good at being precisely what they were. The longer you watched, the more intricately they seemed a part of where they were living, of what they were doing. Their color, their proportions against the contours of the land, were exquisite" (75). (I should note, I would have better navigated the middle chapters of the book if equipped with a better map!).
Yet scientific fact, observed reality, yield to the mystery that pervades Lopez's account. In matters of biology ("The phenomenal recovery of muskoxen on Banks Island is something biologists cannot adequately explain" (49) � and still more the enigmatic narwhal), history, and anthropology, much remains unknown. This very not-knowing creates space; while facts are strewn generously, Lopez does not consume the landscape with our narrative of scientific assurance.
Unknowing becomes space for silence, philosophy, contemplation. The stillness of this vast landscape, at least as evoked by Lopez, create a different kind of time, the acceptance necessary for a different kind of life:
He writes, "Long unpunctuated hours pass for all creatures in the Arctic... Without the holler of contemporary life, that constant disturbance, it is possible to feel the slope of time... You can sit for a long time with the history of man like a stone in your hand. The stillness, the pure light, encourage it" (173).
In the thirty years since Arctic Dreams was published, we haven't ceased to assault the Arctic with drills or melt its ice. Modern life is no less entangled. Yet, in the midst of the hopelessness that might overwhelm the book's conclusion, Lopez leaves us with this, in the Epilogue:
"No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself... There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of a leaning into the light" (413).
Our hands are all bloodied, yet we yearn for integrity. The least we can do for ourselves is create the space to listen for answers.
Reading Arctic Dreams, I was filled with longing, hope, no small measure of despair at the technological entanglements of modern life. While one might come to this book underestimating or failing to consider the "power of a long-term association with the land," it is impossible to finish reading without an immense regard for the power of Lopez's intense observation, knowledge, and lived experience in the Arctic.
The narrative covers vast ground, elegantly navigating between "scientific," specific examinations of anthropology, history, and biology of a world unknown and undreamed by most, and Lopez's first person dream-haunted travelogue-memoir.
We join a graduate student minutely observing a subspecies of tundra grass, share the view of a polar bear waiting hours for a seal to surface, experience the gruesome sublimities of a modern Eskimo hunt. These facts, experiences, perspectives are dazzling and beautifully written, buoyed by eloquent descriptions and incisive curiosity. Who could fail to love muskoxen described with such lavish praise? "They were so intensely good at being precisely what they were. The longer you watched, the more intricately they seemed a part of where they were living, of what they were doing. Their color, their proportions against the contours of the land, were exquisite" (75). (I should note, I would have better navigated the middle chapters of the book if equipped with a better map!).
Yet scientific fact, observed reality, yield to the mystery that pervades Lopez's account. In matters of biology ("The phenomenal recovery of muskoxen on Banks Island is something biologists cannot adequately explain" (49) � and still more the enigmatic narwhal), history, and anthropology, much remains unknown. This very not-knowing creates space; while facts are strewn generously, Lopez does not consume the landscape with our narrative of scientific assurance.
Unknowing becomes space for silence, philosophy, contemplation. The stillness of this vast landscape, at least as evoked by Lopez, create a different kind of time, the acceptance necessary for a different kind of life:
He writes, "Long unpunctuated hours pass for all creatures in the Arctic... Without the holler of contemporary life, that constant disturbance, it is possible to feel the slope of time... You can sit for a long time with the history of man like a stone in your hand. The stillness, the pure light, encourage it" (173).
In the thirty years since Arctic Dreams was published, we haven't ceased to assault the Arctic with drills or melt its ice. Modern life is no less entangled. Yet, in the midst of the hopelessness that might overwhelm the book's conclusion, Lopez leaves us with this, in the Epilogue:
"No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself... There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of a leaning into the light" (413).
Our hands are all bloodied, yet we yearn for integrity. The least we can do for ourselves is create the space to listen for answers.
September 16, 2016
A thorough examination of the Canadian arctic's wildlife, people, landscape and history. Probably a must-read for the arctic-obsessed. Lopez's writing is outstanding and thoughtful. The arctic is mesmerizing, amazing, and beautiful, but a thoroughly brutal place. The landscape is hospitable only to the supremely well-adapted, but even then will turn on animal or human populations in a way that better climates won't. A stretch of bad days in temperate climates will inconvenience you--in the arctic they could kill you. Populations live on the margins, which can easily be squeezed by natural or human factors for years or decades at a time, only to rebound fantastically when conditions improve.
Near the end of the book, after 400 pages of struggle narrative, and after learning about some of the crummier attitudes held by oil drillers, there's a brief story I really liked. Lopez is traveling with some native hunters, enduring some particularly lousy weather, when a helicopter unexpectedly appears and lands nearby. The passenger turns out to be the president of a shipping company. He's concerned about a ship in the area that had broken up some ice and might have caused some difficulty for the travelers. He offers to take them up in the helicopter to survey the area. The whole experience is unprecedented. Normally native people only ever get to talk to emissaries several degrees removed from the actual bosses, if they get to talk to anyone at all. Solutions and help would never be offered. The man even stuck around afterwards and shared a meal, showed proper manners and made everyone comfortable and left a great impression. Lopez refers to the day as "one incident in the vastness."
Near the end of the book, after 400 pages of struggle narrative, and after learning about some of the crummier attitudes held by oil drillers, there's a brief story I really liked. Lopez is traveling with some native hunters, enduring some particularly lousy weather, when a helicopter unexpectedly appears and lands nearby. The passenger turns out to be the president of a shipping company. He's concerned about a ship in the area that had broken up some ice and might have caused some difficulty for the travelers. He offers to take them up in the helicopter to survey the area. The whole experience is unprecedented. Normally native people only ever get to talk to emissaries several degrees removed from the actual bosses, if they get to talk to anyone at all. Solutions and help would never be offered. The man even stuck around afterwards and shared a meal, showed proper manners and made everyone comfortable and left a great impression. Lopez refers to the day as "one incident in the vastness."
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