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Nanook of the North and The Wedding of Palo , and other Films of Arctic Life Flicker Alley, $44.95 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter Some years ago, I was at a conference on Arctic films at Nipissing University when I heard an intriguing paper by the Greeenlandic scholar Erik Gant . His talk took aim at the curious bifurcation in filmed portrayals of Eskimo peoples, using Robert Flaherty's 1922 Nanook of the North and Friedrich Dalsheim's 1934 The Wedding of Palo as its bookends.  The title of his talk was " Good and Bad Eskimos " -- and as I listened I realized I'd only seen half, or rather less than half of the important films depicting Inuit life, since I'd never seen, or even heard of Palo . My ignorance was remedied, in part at least, later in the conference, when we watched almost all of a 16mm print of Palo that Dr. Gant had brought with him from Denmark (the conference organizers, unforgivably, shut down the film over time concerns before it had concl

Isuma: The Art and Imagination of Ruben Komangapik  Igloolik: Inhabit Media, $29.95 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter William Butler Yeats once said of the Greek sculptor Callimachus that he "handled marble as though it were bronze." The Inuit sculptor Ruben Komangapik handles no marble, but in his hands, wood, bone, and narhwal horns grow as smooth and fluid as polished metal, or even glass; it is almost as if some spirit hidden within the materials has animated them and brought them to vivid, viscid life. His sculptures play with surfaces, using and altering their texture to create singular effects. Eyes of polished stone gaze out from spongy bone in Taqanaqruluk ;  walrus heads with polished tusks peep out of a bony snowbank in Hard Times ; an osseous Sedna with an onyx face offers a  qulliq with a row of tiny stone flames in Sedna, the Oil Giver ; a hooded hunter is poised on a shelf of horn as an unsuspecting seal swims up toward its aglu from below in The Seal Hunter .  T

Lost! The Franklin Expedition and the Fate of the Crews of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror By Richard Galaburri NY: Black Raven Reviewed by Russell A. Potter Into the icy mists surrounding the final fate of Sir John Franklin's lost Arctic expedition there comes a new figure: Richard Galaburri. An Arctic book dealer, collector, and traveller, his short essays on various aspects of northern history have appeared the The Musk-Ox , Arctic , and other specialist journals, but those seeking a copy of Lost! at their local library or bookstore may be forgiven if they begin to wonder whether the book and its author are themselves phantasms of the frozen zone; even the vast WorldCat archives contain no record of the volume.  Happily, I can report that both the book and Mr. Galaburri do in fact exist; both may be found on eBay , where he's been quietly selling this modest volume for the past year, and I hope that this review will bring them to the attention of a wider audience. And it will be a

Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure by Arthur Conan Doyle; Edited by Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower University of Chicago Press, $35 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter That Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "came of age in the Arctic," celebrating his 21st birthday at nearly 80 degrees north, is one of those little diamonds of fact in whose facets all kinds of unexpected light is prismed. For, although the editors don't mention it, Doyle was born in May of 1859, the very month that Sir Leopold McClintock came upon the last note left by Sir John Franklin's men on King William Island, and although Doyle describes his shipboard service as a bit of a "lark," the future creator of Sherlock Holmes was surely drawn to the Arctic partly for its air of unsolved mysteries,  implacable ice, and uncharted hazards. It featured in two of his stories -- "The Captain of the Pole Star" (based on the same experiences this diary recounts) and, somewhat less directly, i

The Arctic Journals of John Rae Selected and Edited by Ken McGoogan Victoria, BC: TouchWood Editions, 2012 312 pp. , $19.95 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter The welcome publication of the journals of Dr. John Rae, the man who filled in the last crucial blanks in the northern coastline of North America, now fills a notable blank on the shelves of history; his is the last personal narrative of a major explorer during the search for Sir John Franklin to be published, one hundred and fifty-eight years after the latest events it recounts. There is considerable irony in the chief reason for this delay, which is doubtless that Rae searched too well , uncovering things that the British Admiralty, and large segments of the British public, would have preferred remained covered up. His accounts of Inuit testimony as to Franklin's men resorting to cannibalism shocked the sensibilities of the day, and were vociferously denied not only by Charles Dickens, but by many others in more recent times, de

Cairns: Messengers in Stone by David B. Williams Seattle: The Mountaineers Books. $15.95 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter On first seeing this book, some may ask, how much can you really say about cairns?  After all, for most who know the term, it calls to mind the trail-marking heaps of rocks that guide hikers above the treeline, or where landmarks are scarce; such modest, utilitarian markers hardly seem to call for an entire volume, even this modest one of 192 pages.  And yet on actually opening the book, one finds that -- in a manner rather like cairns themselves -- it contains a remarkable variety and amount of information within its various nooks and crannies, so much so that one marvels not at its extent, but its compactness. The feeling grows as one reads through the chapters, each a neat conglomeration of historical, cultural, and scientific facts. The most expected topic -- "Cairns on the Trail" is followed quickly by chapters on the geology and ecology of cairns, both

Having heard about the publications of Inhabit Media a few months ago via an article in Quill & Quire , I eagerly awaited review copies of their new series of children's books based on Inuit tales and legends. When the package finally arrived, I was frankly dazzled by the array of beautifully illustrated books that spilled forth, particularly by Rachel Qitsualik's The Shadows that Rush Past , grippingly illustrated by Emily Fiegenschuh and Larry MacDougall; as a longtime fan of Ms. Qitsualik's "Nunani" column in the Nunatsiaq News , I knew this would be a good one -- but the wealth of other, unexpected treasures was equally impressive. Here at the Arctic Book Review we don't usually review many children's books, but these -- among the first Inuit-penned books of their kind -- seemed worthy of special mention. I've since read them, and sent several out to others of our reviewers, but wanted to give an overview of the series here, just to alert read