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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.