Upside Down: Seasons among the Nunamiut [Hardcover]

Margaret B. Blackman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004

In the roadless Brooks Range Mountains of northern Alaska sits Anaktuvuk Pass, a small, tightly knit Nunamiut Eskimo village. Formerly nomadic hunters of caribou, the Nunamiut of Anaktuvuk now find their destiny tied to that of Alaska’s oil-rich North Slope, their lives suddenly subject to a century’s worth of innovations, from electricity and bush planes to snow machines and the Internet. Anthropologist Margaret B. Blackman has been doing summer fieldwork among the Nunamiut over a span of almost twenty years, an experience richly and movingly recounted in this book.

A vivid description of the people and the life of Anaktuvuk Pass, the essays in Upside Down are also an absorbing meditation on the changes that Blackman herself underwent during her time there, most wrenchingly the illness of her husband, a fellow anthropologist, and the breakup of their marriage. Throughout, Blackman reflects in unexpected and enlightening ways on the work of anthropology and the perspective of an anthropologist evermore invested in the lives of her subjects. Whether commenting on the effect of this place and its people on her personal life or describing the impact of “progress” on the Nunamiut—the CB radio, weekend nomadism, tourism, the Information Superhighway—her essays offer a unique and deeply evocative picture of an at once disappearing and evolving world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Evocative and introspective, the essays in this remarkable collection recall an anthropologist’s visits to northern Alaska’s Anaktuvuk Pass: a small Native American settlement "cradled by the gray shale mountains that rise around it, verdant in the moment of summer, pristinely white in the deep freeze of winter." Over the past two decades, Blackman traveled to the Pass about a dozen times to conduct oral history and research projects among the Nunamiut Eskimos. In this book, however, she leaves the "impersonal, omniscient voice" of academics behind in order to give a more intimate view of her experiences with Anaktuvuk and its residents. Her prose is correspondingly more fluid and, on occasion, even refreshingly poetic. Some essays, like "Picking Berries" and "Masks," discuss Nunamiut customs; others, like "Remembering Susie Paneak," pay tribute to particular individuals. Throughout the volume, Blackman draws comparisons between the lives of the Nunamiut and her own life in New York. For example, Nunamiut diets are affected by "fluctuations in the size of the western arctic caribou herd"—even their dogs are trained to withstand hunger, Blackman remarks—while her own diet in New York is so steady that her daughter, Meryn, can toss her home-packed school lunch in the wastebasket in a gesture of teenage rebellion. Judiciously placed observations like these help establish a context for Blackman’s fieldwork, and allow readers to sympathize not only with the Nunamiut Eskimos, but also with the diligent anthropologist who wanted to learn more about them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In a series of essays more personal than field notes, more analytical than a journal, anthropologist Blackman recounts the summers she spent among the Nunamiut, an Eskimo group living in Alaska north of the Arctic Circle. The Nunamiut were once nomads, following the seasonal movements of the caribou and other food-providing prey. The changing world after World War II, including the advent of air service, influenced the decision to form a permanent village. There is a tourist presence of sorts, and a "cottage" mask industry to support the village. Blackman's visits span her life from a graduate student to wife and mother to divorced scholar whose career flourishes as she becomes "the" authority on Nunamiut masks, offering an interesting parallel to the tribe's response to advancing society. Readers interested in Native Alaskans and anthropology will enjoy Blackman's unvarnished look at both. Danise Hoover
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press; First Edition edition (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803213352
• ISBN-13: 978-0803213357
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,420,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rewarding Insight to Anaktuvuk Pass - Past & Present., July 6, 2008

By 

Rodney J. Rutledge (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Upside Down: Seasons among the Nunamiut (Hardcover)

I was very interested to read Margarets account of her time spent in Anaktuvuk Pass. I found that her book delivered an effective account of the history of the settling of the Nunamiut at this location; told not by some cold,scientific text but rather through accounts by the generation who were there. It is this ability to convey the human perspective of the Nunamiut community that I found most warming.
Margarets account of her learning; be it about mask making, camping or caribou hunting provided an insight to village life that is fast disappearing.
As an Australian bushwalker who has visited Anaktuvuk Pass on several occasions I appreciated the reading & picturing again those I had met over the years; be it either as a raised hand as we passed on the tundra, laughing with the children at the local school or having a sauna at the washateria.

4.0 out of 5 stars good source of information, November 14, 2010

By 

mzeina (south sinai, nuweiba) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Upside Down: Seasons among the Nunamiut (Hardcover)

... but written not so well. maybe it's my problem. most books i read are written by antropologists, historians or other scientist. they are probably good scientists, but not so good writers. some other books are extremely easy to read, but content does not really interest me. Upside down wasn't easy to chew thru, but what was inside this book was extremely interesting for me, except few pages where the author describes what goes on inside her own head.
thanks to this book i got the answer to my guestion - where are the anaktuvuk masks coming from. happened to buy one accidently from fairbanks go north jeep rental before my trip to prudhoe bay.