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Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska

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Seth Kantner's second book, "Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Alaska," is part autobiography, part historical narrative, part environmental treatise. His successful blend of all three creates a wonderful sense of place, a wilderness adventure and above all, an understanding of the land that is Alaska above the Arctic Circle.

Born in 1965, Kantner's 43 years on this earth, most of it lived in Alaska's north country, chronicles a pace of change--technological change, environmental change and cultural change--at a dizzying speed. The changes over his 43 years eclipse the changes of centuries. The proliferation of "Snow-Gos"(snowmobiles), replacing dog-teams, dog-sleds and mushers, the arrival of satellite television, the move to a cash-based economy from subsistence hunting, gathering and fishing--these changes have occurred in Alaska's north country since the 1960's.

In Seth Kantner's life, he lives the transition from the old ways of hunting and fishing, of dog-power and of a quiet life in the bush. He interprets this for readers in a style so gentle, so subtle that it kind of creeps up on you before you realize how radical and rapid these changes are.

"Shopping for Porcupine" includes a generous helping of utterly fantastic photographs of Alaska's north county. It is also a tribute the the traditional Inupiaq subsistence culture and way of life that with the passing of the elders--all of whom in 2008 are about 60 years and older-- will exist no more.

In 2001, I flew to Kotzebue, which is North America's largest village above the Arctic Circle. Kotzebue is the jumping-off point for wildnerness trips into the northwest quadrant of Alaska. Kantner's descriptions of life in Kotzebue and in surrounding native villages is right on the money.

After taking a bush flight out into the Noatak Preserve, I spent two weeks backpacking, hiking up mountains, wading across fast-flowing streams and hopping tussocks through wet tundra. For me, reading, "Shopping for Porcupine" was like re-doing my bush trek from my kitchen table chair.

"Shopping for Porcupine" is carefully written in a concise and parsimonious style. Every word counts. If Alaska Senator Ted Stevens would read this book, I would like to think he would have a much better understanding of Alaska's north country and greater respect for the land. He might learn something about the caribou migration. It might even change his mind on oil drilling in ANWR.

When I saw that Kantner had a second book, I was skeptical. It seemed to come too hard on the paws of "Ordinary Wolves." I felt there'd be no way it was as good as "Ordinary Wolves", his first book and an instant Alaskan classic, that "Porcupine" would be just cashing in on the critical acclaim of "Wolves".

How wrong I was.

The non-fiction account of "Porcupine" gives Kantner both more and less latitude with characters and stories than "Wolves". In "Porcupine" he provides us the true backstory to the amazing story-line in "Wolves", in many ways both more satisfying and more interesting than his fiction. Here we can read the real-life version of living in a sod igloo as a youngster, the real people that inspired the cast of characters in "Wolves, real landscapes and interactions with them. After reading "Shopping for Porcupine" I had to re-read "Ordinary Wolves" and found it even better the second time.

The photos are stunning, but I like the writing more as Kanner's words convey non-visual emotions that photos miss.

I look forward to his next book, whatever it might be, as his bush upbringing offers us all a simultaneously fresh but surprisingly shared perspective on all things.

"Shopping for Porcupine" is well worth $30, if for no other reason than it will prompt this wonderfully gifted artist to write still more.

Shopping for Porcupine is a beautiful, thought-provoking book that defies genre.
It is more than an autobiography of Seth Kantner, who was born and reared in a tiny, mouse-infested sod igloo on a bluff above the Kobuk River in arctic Alaska. It is also a collection of essays and articles Kanter has published elsewhere. The result is a wonderful story of a boy growing into a man in one of the remotest places on earth, but it is also a glimpse into the lives and society of old-time Alaskans, both native and white, and how the 21st Century is warping the old ways. The book is a passionate statement about an environment in flux and in peril. It is also a love letter to an impossibly beautiful, brutal and unforgiving land.
Kantner's splendid photographs add greatly to his colorful and sensitive stories about pioneers, trappers, hunters, and the creatures he encounters in the far north. The striking images and Kantner's own gentle humor and insight seem to soften the often hard realities he writes about.
After reading Kantner's excellent novel, Ordinary Wolves, and this non-fiction work, Shopping for Porcupine, it became apparent that to call one fiction and the other real is plain silly. Kantner tells the truth in both. Sometimes his truth is hard to take, as when he describes "hunters" who fly onto the remote tundra to slaughter wolves from speeding snowmobiles. Sometimes it is honest and endearing as when Kantner flies with his wife and daughter to a gala event in New York City to receive a prestigious literary award and the best he has to wear are clean jeans and a Banana Republic T-shirt.
Kantner is modest about his own skills and toughness. He is more giving, more complimentary to others. The result is that Seth Kantner is a man you want to know better. A good beginning is to read his books, visit his website. You'll be glad you did.

--Dave Gilbert

I loved this book! I enjoyed Ordinary Wolves, so I waited very anxiously for Mr. Kantner's next book. It was well worth the wait! The first thing I did was go through all of the pictures in the book. So THIS was the Alaska Mr, Kantner writes about! Far from the tour buses and sight seeing trains. The pictures themselves told a wonderful story! The written stories were perfect - done in a way that not only entertained me, but made me feel the Alaska Mr. Kantner describes. I felt the cold, I heard the wind and could feel the hide of a bear. I laughed, I cried, I cringed, and at times even envied experiences of a life spent in Alaska's Wilderness. The Alaska Mr. Kantner writes about is a world fast slipping away - native ways, unmarred land, plentiful animals. I am so grateful that he wrote about a lifestyle - a world - that I would never have had the chance to experience, had it not been for this book. I plan to buy more copies for gifts and would recommend this book to anyone!

Seth Kantner's book, Shopping For Porcupine, is a viscerally real collection of portraits and recollections of life on northwestern Alaska's Kobuk River, from the late 1950's through to the present day. Kantner's folks were 'outsiders' when they settled on the Kobuk, to be followed by many more. Most have moved on, but Seth - who was born in his family's sod iglu - has remained for over 40 years. His dad's connection to the land, the Inuit culture and unfettered subsistance lifestyle rubbed off on Seth, and he has carried on those traditions while coping with the inescapable intrusions of modern Western life.

I especially appreciated the honest and literally wrenching descriptions of the changes in the land, the people, the culture and the climate, that over time serve to remind us of the impermanence of anything in this world. Yet Kantner shows us that not all change is beyond our power to control or at least influence -- although simply living by example is not always enough, and speaking up can be a little like banging a pot to scare a bear away: now he knows where you are.

I have a snapshot in my mind of the upper Kobuk during the years I lived there - many of the same people and the same lifestyle that Seth describes here so accurately. Coupled with the stories and lore from before my time, that's how I see the place and that's how I wish, in a perfect world, it could remain. The changes I hear and read about are confounding and upsetting even to me, who spent a relatively short time there. The more so for Seth Kantner, whose whole life is invested in the place. Clearly the conundrum is to decide what change to accept gracefully and what to challenge, vocally and adamantly.

Wilderness living is not for everyone, and can be almost unfathomable if you haven't done it. Hudson Stuck once said, of wilderness travel by dog team, that the greatest gift one man could give another was a trail. With his writing, Seth Kanter breaks trail through the heart of the last half-century of life in northwestern Alaska as only someone who lives the life could do. Those who find it and follow will be infinitely richer for the journey.

I'll be honest; I tried to talk Seth out of writing this book; told him he should get on to the next novel and can this essay business. But Seth was stubborn, and, like a porcupine that had its mind made up, kept shuffling down the trail. Well, I hate being wrong, but I'm used to it by now. This is a fine, fine book in several respects. First, it's a series of sharply focused, vivid, evocative snapshots of of life in arctic bush Alaska--some from the rapidly fading past, some from the present, and some toward the southern horizon, where the sun keeps reminding us that the future, for better or worse, keeps coming. By the way, I wasn't talking about the photos when I said 'snapshots', but the essays themselves. The color images round out and anchor the text, and are a beautiful, understated addition to a book that isn't quite a memoir, not quite a collection of essays, and not quite a nonfiction narrative--but manages to blend and shift between these three forms in unique, original fashion. What I like best about Shopping For Porcupine is its wry, totally original voice--like the book itself, a blend of colloquial simplicity, wry insight, sharply etched imagery, and elevated, poetic elegance. Seth spent a bunch of time sanding and polishing these words down, and while the blisters don't show, the sheen, elegant and rich as the patina of fossil mastadon ivory, does. Just the writing is enough for me, and would be enough for anyone who believes that the story is merely a convenience to the words themselves, where all meaning, art, and emotion lie. If you're a fan of Alaska writing, or writing at all, you owe it to yourself to read this book. And though you don't owe it to Seth to buy it, do it anyhow, and spring for the hard cover. This is the kind of book you'll keep. Nick Jans

Seth Kantner's writing has a way of awakening something inside me that I don't even have words or ways to reach on my own. His storytelling prose is thoughtful, true -- it's more than words -- it's like an unnamed emotion all its own.

"Flower of the Fringe," is one of several chapters in the book that highlights characters in the writer's life...Kantner connects you with these people, beautifully captured and introduced to you in ways rarely reached in writing.

This book will not disappoint...it's creative nonfiction at its best: entertaining, intimate, eye-opening, introspective, refreshing...and true.

Ordinary Wolves is an outstanding first novel, and Shopping for Porcupine is an excellent nonfiction follow-up by Seth Kantner. If you're like me while reading Ordinary Wolves, you were wondering how much of it was fiction, and how much of it was drawn from Kantner's experiences. Shopping for Porcupine gives a great deal of insight into Kantner's personal life and upbringing. It's humorous, it's moving, it's lyrical, and I highly recommend it.

An unexpected bonus of this book is the beautiful matte photography that accompanies the text. Kantner is a talented photographer as well as a gifted writer, and his shots are sprinkled liberally throughout. In addition to these, there are many family snapshots taken by Kantner's parents and their friends.

All in all, a fascinating and well-written book that portrays parts of one man's life in Alaska without the lens of romanticism that often colors Alaskan literature.

If you are looking for a beautifully written book with wonderful photographs of Alaska, I highly recommend: Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Artic Alaska, by Seth Kantner.

This book is part autobiography and part a historical portrait of Alaska and its people. Seth Kantner was born in 1964 and spent most of his life in Northern Alaska. His story begins with the arrival of his father, Howard Kantner, to the remote Arctic of the 1950s and ends with him as a grown man settled in the same landscape. The story is told through a series of moving essays and vivid photographs. The subjects range from family histories to hunting stories and celebrations of people and places.

This book is # 2 for the author. His first book Ordinary Wolves received great reviews, and I look forward to reading this book as well in the near future.

Life in the frigid tundra of Alaska is much unlike life anywhere else in the United States. "Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska" is author and novelist Seth Kanter's memories of growing up in Alaska. Filled with essays and full color photographs regarding nature and its importance to Kanter and his Inuit roots, "Shopping for Porcupine" is a strong choice for any community library memoir collection and for anyone with a healthy interest in Alaska.