num_pages: 320
description: In this gripping circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle Gretel Ehrlich paints a vivid portrait of the indigenous cultures that inhabit the starkly beautiful boreal landscape surrounding the Arctic Ocean an ice-bound wilderness that includes northern Siberia northwestern Greenland Canadas vast Nunavut and northern Alaska. Ehrlichs expedition supported by the National Geographic Society documents what remains of these cultures specifically the similarities and differences among them including hunting traditions shamanic and ceremonial practices languages and legendsthe ways in which they have survived or have been assimilated and how they are adapting to the impact of climate change on their ice-age cultures.Ehrlich is fascinated by what she calls the ecology of culturethe ways in which the human presence of indigenous Arctic people is intricately interwoven with land rock river sea and ice. Depicting human-caused climate change as only the latest and most destructive of the ills and abuses first peoples have been suffering for 250 years Ehrlichs haunting and lovely prose portrays ancient tribes and traditions on the edge of extinction and captures the austere beauty of their various lifeways in the frozen dreamscape of the world they have always known.
language: English
title: In the Empire of Ice: Encounters in a Changing Landscape
publisher: National Geographic