As a teenager, I started reading about people who lived in marginal places, such as the Eskimos of the far north and the Kung San of South Africa. Living a middle-class American life it was difficult for me to understand how people could not only live in those places but also love them. After I raised my children, my husband encouraged me to return to college, and I did, majoring in anthropology. I learned about the deep connections that bind all people—love of home and family. By learning about other people’s lives, much of what confused me about my own fell away.
Never in Anger was a life-changing book for me. It led me to my deep interest in anthropology and, ultimately, to me writing.
Jean Briggs was dropped off in Northern Canada to do her fieldwork for her PhD by studying an Eskimo (now Inuit) family. The bush pilot would be back to pick her up in a year! She wanted to study shamanism, but they refused to talk about what they considered their primitive past, so she studied the children instead.
Some of the book is about language acquisition, I skipped over that part when I reread it. What interests me is how she learned to understand and live in a culture so totally foreign to hers—an amazing journey for her and for me.
In the summer of 1963, anthropologist Jean Briggs journeyed to the Canadian Northwest Territories (now Nunavut) to begin a seventeen-month field study of the Utku, a small group of Inuit First Nations people who live at the mouth of the Back River, northwest of Hudson Bay. Living with a family as their "adopted" daughter-sharing their iglu during the winter and pitching her tent next to theirs in the summer-Briggs observed the emotional patterns of the Utku in the context of their daily life.
In this perceptive and highly enjoyable volume the author presents a behavioral description of the Utku through…
If there’s one name that thrills anyone interested in Antarctic exploration,
Shackleton is it.
In 1914, he led a crew of 28 men to Antarctica aboard the
sailing ship Endurance, with the goal of crossing the continent by dog sled. The
weather was bad, and Endurance was frozen into the icepack. The following
summer was cold, and the ice did not melt. It was almost two years on the ice
and traversing the sea in small boats before Shackleton was able to bring his
crew home. He lost not a single man.
What I found fascinating, besides the
physical dangers they survived, was the camaraderie among the men and—hard
to believe—some of them even went back on later expeditions.
This book is considered one of the great books of exploration, about what Shackleton himself called "the last great journey on earth". The book tells of the author's Antarctic expedition in which the Endurance was crushed by the ice, and he and his men made a 600-mile trek across ice and ocean to solid land, and then a 700-mile journey in an open boat to South Georgia, followed by an epic crossing of the uncharted mountains of that island. In this edition the text is illustrated with reproductions of the photographs of Frank Hurley - who accompanied the expedition -…
Four years old and homeless, William Walters boarded one of the last American Orphan Trains in 1930 and embarked on an astonishing quest through nine decades of U.S. and world history.
For 75 years, the Orphan Trains had transported 250,000 children from the streets and orphanages of the East Coast…
Peter Freuchen, a Danish explorer, first came to Greenland in 1906 and immediately fell in love with the land and its people. He spent the better part of the next 50 years there. He was a partner in adventure with the famous explorer of the north, Knud Rasmussen. Freuchen wrote many books, some of which have been translated into English, including novels.
I chose this one to recommend because it seemed a good place to start, but I love them all. Peter Freuchen’s Book of the Eskimos, a summation of much of what he learned over the years,was edited by his second wife, Dagmar, and published three years after he died in 1957.
Inuit and Danish in heritage, Knud Rasmussen is one of the major stars of Arctic research. He led one of the most famous explorations of northern Canada, The Fifth Thule Expedition, and documented the lives and culture of the people who lived there.
This modern biography doesn’t have the drama and excitement of firsthand accounts, but it’s comprehensive and well-written. It has many interesting details of the lives of both Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen. Additionally, it gives readers a look at the larger context of politics and exploration in the first half of the 20th century.
Among the explorers made famous for revealing hitherto impenetrable cultures,T. E. Lawrence and Wilfred Thesiger in the Middle East, Richard Burton in Africa,Knud Rasmussen stands out not only for his physical bravery but also for the beauty of his writing. Part Danish, part Inuit, Rasmussen made a courageous three-year journey by dog sled from Greenland to Alaska to reveal the common origins of all circumpolar peoples. Lovers of Arctic adventure, exotic cultures, and timeless legend will relish this gripping tale by Stephen R. Bown, known as "Canada's Simon Winchester."
After Dr. Shawn Jennings, a busy family physician, suffered a brainstem stroke on May 13, 1999, he woke from a coma locked inside his body, aware and alert but unable to communicate or move. Once he regained limited movement in his left…
An inuksuk (plural: inuksuit) is a cairn of stones, sometimes small, sometimes huge, sometimes shaped like a human, built by the Inuit (and by you if you want to; the book includes instructions). They have many functions: to mark a meat cache, a good place to haul out your kayak, or a useful pass through mountains; to scare caribou into a hunting area; and even to act as a silent companion for a lonely person.
An inuksuk is the symbol on the flag of Nunavut, the relatively new Inuit territory, established in 1999 in northern Canada. This book, including many photos and drawings, gives the reader a good introduction to the historical and contemporary Inuit.
An introduction to the many forms of the inuksuk structure
The image of a traditional Inuit stone structure, or inuksuk, silouetted against an arctic sky, has become a familiar symbol. Yet, for many, their purpose remains a mystery. In a stunning new book, artist and children's author Mary Wallace, in consultation with Inuit elders and other noted experts, gives a fascinating introduction in words, pictures, and paintings to the many forms of the inuksuk structure and its unique place in Inuit life and culture.
Quest for the Ivory Caribou, the first of a series of six books, features sixty-year-old Anne O’Malley, who is recently widowed, lonely, and deeply depressed. Her best friend convinces her to travel from San Diego to Ottawa, Canada, to complete genealogical research about a family mystery.
There, she learns she’s related to a family of Inuit in Northern Quebec. She travels north to learn more, and her life takes a sharp turn as she finds a welcoming family and Jack, an Inuit man she comes to love. Together they solve the mystery of her late husband’s father.
Brother. Do. You. Love. Me. is a true story of brotherly love overcoming all. Reuben, who has Down's syndrome, was trapped in a care home during the pandemic, spiralling deeper into a non-verbal depression. From isolation and in desperation, he sent his older brother Manni a text, "brother. do. you.…
What were America's first prisons like? How did penal reformers, prison administrators, and politicians deal with the challenges of confining human beings in long-term captivity as punishment--what they saw as a humane intervention?
The Deviant Prison centers on one early prison: Eastern State Penitentiary. Built in Philadelphia, one of the…
