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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Heavenly Chronicle, November 4, 2001
Greenland isn't green at all, but the world's largest island is covered by the biggest continental ice shelf in the world. Sparsely populated on the rocky outer fringes of its 840,000 square miles, it's probably as unknown to Americans as anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Gretel Ehrlich knows its ice leads and midnight sun as well as any American, and probably as well as any non-Inuit except for a handful of Danes, whose territory it is. That's because she's obsessed with the North in general and with Greenland in particular. Over the past decade, she has traveled to the frozen island at least seven times, staying for months at a stretch, traveling long distances by dogsled, making friends with hunters and villagers, and participating in seal and polar bear hunts. Erlich chronicles her trips and relationships in a new book called "This Cold Heaven." ((...) 377 pages, Pantheon Books) She does far more than record her own journeys, however. She also puts Greenland into cultural, historical, and anthropological perspective by weaving her trips with those of Knud Rasmussen, who died in 1933 after traversing the polar North from Greenland to Alaska. Even now, some of Greenlandic culture is largely unchanged from the days when Rasmussen and his close friend Peter Freuchen made "first" contact with some of the bands of isolated Inuit (Eskimos) on the island. Bears, seals, hare, fox and walrus are still hunted for food, clothing and fuel made from blubber, dogsled is still the chief method of land transport, and ancient stories and religion abound. There are modern encroachments, however - Danish bureaucracy, snowmobiles, alcohol, helicopters, and cars, to say nothing of the enormous American military base at Thule. Erlich is enticed by the old ways, which seem as pristine and "unbroken" as Greenland's vast ice. She is also enticed by the ice itself, communal life, the land, and the dramatic ways with which Inuit culture deals with a nature it cannot dominate. Her own use of language sometimes approaches the poetic, which isn't so surprising when you learn that she's a poet, too. Using the specialized language of poetry, Erlich is able to render what might seem a static and frozen environment into one that lives and breathes on the page. She's at her best when she describes the physical world, whether populated by other humans at the time or only by 25 varieties of ice, snow, and the midnight sun. She does a good job, too, of delving into the lives of both exiled Danes and Greenlanders, and when she doesn't know something, she's not afraid to say so. More often than not, she finds out and lets the reader know. Sometimes, I found certain facts repeated and wasn't sure why. Not a huge deal, but distracting. Also, I would have liked to know a little more about the personal relationships Erlich cultivated on the island, although that wasn't the purpose of the book, and is almost a compliment, rather than a criticism, because I found her such an interesting person. Her aim was to view history, cultural observation and travel through her own prism, and to create a picture of Greenland that is simultaneously unique and universal and conveys the essence of the unlikely place she has come to love. If those are, in fact, her goals, Erlich succeeds.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Warm Book for a cold winter night . . . really!, January 12, 2002
This woman truly loves the high north, with all its paradox and ambivalence . . . Erlich paints the beauty and complexity of northern Greenland (before reading this book it never occurred to me to think of Greenland as HAVING a "north" and "south"!) and the struggle a tiny minority are having to maintain their ancient -- and sustainable -- ways of life. I'd classify this first of all as a love story between woman and land, but it is a love story in which the sentient observer is aware of the problems with the beloved, and yet still remains committed. This is not a "been there, seen that, got the T-shirt" travel book -- Erlich is drawn to Greenland no fewer than seven times, in various seasons, and she lives with the people in traditional housing (including tents on the ice). She encounters the brutality of bureaucracy as well as the incredible hospitality of the Inuit -- and at the same time she does not shrink from the pervasive alcoholism and domestic violence that are a sad feature of northern life, nor does she neglect to mention the impact even in Greenland of the growing pollution in "the south" (i.e. North America). Her thesis is essentially Romantic in a philosophic sense . . . subsistence living was/is hard but authentic. The coming of modernity, with its internet connection, TV, store-bought goods, etc., has removed both the means and the incentive for a life of integrity. She leaves it to the reader to see the Greenlandic experience as paradigmatic of the wider world. Read this book - it will lift your heart and trouble your mind, and leave you wanting more.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tough Guys Eat Seal Meat, June 10, 2002
My fellow Wyo resident Gretel Ehrlich has never been a personal favorite of mine - I have found her writing a bit bloodless and strident. This Cold Heaven is no exception. Fortunately in this case, bloodless not only works, it is preferable. The native residents of Greenland are a hardcore bunch of seal-eating, dog whipping, communal living Last Best Men and their stories rival any on the planet for sheer toughness. Ehrlich packs her book with tales of ice explorers like Peter Freuschen and Knud Rasmussen, who make the cowboys, Marines and murderous I have known seem as simpering as Boy George and Anne Heche off their Wellbutrin. The author weaves their tales cleverly among her own personal accounts of more modest contemporary adventures, although we never really get to see what drives Ehrlich to this place. Maybe that doesn't matter. Ignore the Luddite whining that stains books like these and you're in for a treat.
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