Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape [Paperback]

Barry Lopez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1999

Winner of the National Book Award and a best-seller upon publication in 1986, Arctic Dreams is now acknowledged as a classic, a book that re-defined the genre of nature writing. In prose of transparent beauty, Lopez celebrates the Arctic landscape and the animals and people that live there. He recounts massive migrations by land, sea and air, the epic voyages of explorers, distant mountain that is actually a looming mirage. But he also looks deep into our dreams and the strange fascination that the Arctic exerts over our imaginations. Why do we find such a hostile, elemental environment so beautiful, so full of magic, so rich in ideas about how we should live our lives?

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Based on 15 extended trips to the Canadian far north over a five-year period, Arctic Dreams celebrates the mysteries of what documentarians fondly call "last frontiers." Such places are everywhere in danger of destruction in the interest of ever-elusive economic progress, but Lopez writes no jeremiads. Instead, he aims to foster a kind of learned understanding of wild places, in this case the vast, scarcely knowable northern landscape. Writing of the natural history of the Arctic and its inhabitants--narwhals, polar bears, beluga whales, musk oxen, and caribou among them--Lopez draws powerful lessons from the land and imparts them assuredly and gracefully. Arctic Dreams deservedly won a National Book Award in 1986 when it was first published. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This is one of the finest books ever written about the Far North, warmly appreciative and understanding of the natural forces that shape life in an austere landscape. The prize-winning author (Of Wolves and Men spent four years in Arctic regions: traveling between Davis Strait in the east and Bering Strait in the west, hunting with Eskimos and accompanying archeologists, biologists and geologists in the field. Lopez became enthralled by the power of the Arctic, a power he observes derives from "the tension between its beauty and its capacity to take life." This is a story of light, darkness and ice; of animal migrations and Eskimos; of the specter of development and the cultural perception of a region. Examining the literature of 19th century exploration, Lopez finds a disassociation from the actual landscape; explorers have tended to see the Arctic as an adversary. Peary and Stefansson left as a troubling legacy the attitude that the landscape could be labeled, then manipulated. Today, he contends, an imaginative, emotional approach to the Arctic is as important as a rational, scientific one. Lopez has written a wonderful, compelling defense of the Arctic wilderness. Illustrations. BOMC main selection.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 130 pages
• Publisher: Harvill Pr (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860465838
• ISBN-13: 978-1860465833
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.3 x 7.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,704,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Desert Island book, April 27, 2004

By 

Ryan McNabb (Ooltewah, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arctic Dreams (Paperback)

Funny that a book about the Arctic would be on my "Desert Island" list, but this is one of the most effecting things I've read in my life. It's one thing to write a book about a region that explains it to the reader. It's quite another thing to write a book about a region that truly makes you feel as if you are there, that you understand it, that you "get it". The Eskimos have something like 25 words for snow. They can draw incredibly detailed maps of coastlines, from memory. On and on, the people and places are introduced to you, like visitors to your home, and you really begin to understand what it is to live in such a cold, beautiful place. The story of one Eskimo hunter will never leave me: he was hunting, and somehow became stranded on a broken off piece of ice. It floated away, with him on it, into the mist. All he had was his knife, made of bone. His friends searched for him, to no avail, and he was given up for dead. But he came back, years later, in a kayak he'd made, fully outfitted with warm clothes he'd also made, fat and happy and completely in tune with his environment, absolutely as at home there as the polar bear. He could make everything he needed, just from what this supposedly "barren" wasteland provided. That may not sound like much, but put yourself in his shoes (or mukluks) and you'll begin to feel the cold and the quiet close in around you.

That's what this book does for you. It puts you there.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The finest 'nature book' written, May 28, 1998

By 

George Durkee (Twain Harte, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arctic Dreams: Imagination And Desire In A Northern Landscape (Paperback)

I've read a lot of nature writing--from Thoreau, Muir, Dillard etc. Lopez is the keenest observer and the most lyrical writer. (not to slight Muir, incidentally, but 19th century lyricism is hard for some to get used to...).

I've been a backcountry ranger for 28 years and, I like to think, have an appreciation for wilderness and observation of the natural world. Lopez is able to describe what I see.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Celebration Of The Arctic Landscape & Man's Dreams!, September 27, 2003

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arctic Dreams (Paperback)

"Arctic Dreams" was recommended to me by a friend before I went on an Alaskan adventure a few years ago. This book expanded my vision of nature, and turned me on to the exquisite writing of Barry Lopez, who won the 1986 National Book Award for this classic work on the wild regions of the far north. "Arctic Dreams" is an extraordinary celebration of Arctic life and landscape which takes the reader on a journey to places rarely visited by man. Lopez' narrative does have a dreamlike quality, not only in its descriptions of nature at its most surreal, but in the absolute beauty of the writing itself. He does indeed capture the foreign reality of Arctic life, and death, with the loving care of an artist who places each brushstroke carefully on a canvas, bent on bringing the vision before him to others.

Mr. Lopez made a number of extended trips to Siberia, Greenland, and northern Canada, including Baffin Island, to observe the flora and fauna of the region - polar bears, killer whales, caribou, narwhals - as well as the spectacular Arctic landscape. He experienced eerie encounters with the aurora borealis, massive migrating icebergs, solar and lunar light, halos and coronas. And he experienced both the potential for catastrophic danger and the remarkable beauty that the Arctic land and sea offers. "Spring storms can sweep hundreds of thousands of helpless infant harp seals into the sea" - juxtaposed with, "A tiny flower blooms in a field of snow touched by the sun's benevolent light." Through Mr. Lopez' eyes the breathtaking experience of the Arctic landscape and the people who inhabit it become palpably real. I was particularly moved by his intimate and compassionate descriptions of the indigenous people of this region, who so aptly illustrate how mankind is capable of living in harmony with his surroundings. Lopez' prose and his conclusions make the strongest argument possible to work for the ecological health of our planet, for the sake of life itself, and for the health of our imagination and sense of wonder at the magnificent.

As mankind grows closer to conquering the earth's last frontiers, the issue of exploitation and encroachment becomes greater. For anyone who advocates preserving the few remaining wild areas on our planet, "Arctic Dreams" is a welcome gift and a source of motivation. It also provides an extraordinary read, and, perhaps, an awakening to those who have shown little interest in earth's most mysterious places.

This is a magical book that will enchant and awe the reader. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Bravo, Barry Lopez!
JANA