High Latitudes: An Arctic JourneyInHigh LatitudesFarley Mowat chronicles for the first time a sometimes hazardous journey he took across northern Canada in 1966. He hoped to write a book that would let northern people speak for themselves and that would expose the speciousness of the political idea that the North was “a bloody great wasteland” with no people in it, and therefore resource developers could exploit it however they chose. For reasons Mowat describes that book did not get written then. But here it is now, with the original conversations recorded by Mowat during that epic journey. In vintage Mowat fashion the legendary writer delivers a sweeping narrative brimming with breathtaking nature writing, suspenseful storytelling, larger-than-life characters, ferocious humor, pitiless rage, iconoclastic insights, and compassionate concern. In her foreword Margaret Atwood writes: “High Latitudesgives us, with passion and insight, a vertical section of time past — the time that preceded our present. The choices that were made then affect our now, just as the choices we make now will determine the future. . . . It’s both depressing and cheering to note the changes that have taken place since 1966. On the one hand, more damage and devastation, both natural and social, with global warming as a contributing factor. On the other hand, an increased optimism. . . But as Farley Mowat has always known, and as more and more people have come to agree, it’s a race against time, and time — not just for the North, but for the planet — is running out.” |
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aboard Aklavik Arctic Bay ashore Baffin Island beach began boat Boothia built cabin called camp Canadian Cape Dorset caribou co-op coast Coppermine Cove Creswell Bay Dawson DEW Line dogs Doug Eames east Eskimo feet fiord fish flying Fort Ross Gjoa Gjoa Haven Greenland Hudson Strait Hudson's Bay Company hundred miles hunting Igloolik Indian Inuit Inuvik Johnson kids killed Killinek Lake land Levesque Harbour live look Lyall Mackenzie meat Nascopie native never northern Old Crow Paulatuk Payne Payne Bay Pelly Bay Pete Pond Inlet pretty RCMP reindeer River Ross seals settlement ship shore skins Soosie Spence Bay stay stuff summer tell tent there's thing Thorgisl thousand told took trade trapping tundra Ungava Bay whales Whitehorse winter young Yukon