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READING LIST

Looking for more books about the North?  Here, in no particular order, are some of the best.

Northwest Territories
Barren Lands
An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic 
 by Kevin Krajick

 Compulsively readable account of the characters and events involved in the North's diamond play.  (Times, 2001, 442 pages.)

 
Rogue Diamonds 
Northern Riches on Dene Land 
by Ellen Bielawski

 

 Bielawski was part of a Dene negotiation team that put together a deal to allow the mining of diamonds on Dene land. Lyrical and respectful, it provides a necessary counterpoint to the hijinx described by Krajick.  (Douglas & McIntyre, 2003, 256 pages)
Snow Man
 John Hornby in the Barren Lands
by Malcolm Waldron

Hornby and Critchell-Bullock spent the winter of 1924-25 in the Barrens, living in a hole in the ground. This book, based on Critchell-Bullock's journal, is still in print after it first appeared in 1931.  (McGill-Queen's, 1997, 292 pages)
When the World Was New
 Stories of the Sahtu Dene
by George Blondin

 Legends and oral history of the Bear Lake Dene by a respected elder.  (Outcrop, 1990, 246 pages)
Nahecho Keh
Our Elders
by Margaret M. Thom & Ethel Blondin-Townsend

 		A beautifully designed book celebrating the lives of Dene elders, in English and Slavey.  (Slavey Research Project, 1987, 118 pages)
Great Bear
 A Journey Remembered 
by Frederick B. Watt

 Superbly written account of claimstaking in the Great Bear Lake area during the rush of 1932. The author has a life-changing experience.  (Outcrop, 1980, 231 pages)
Denison's Ice Road 
by Edith Iglauer

 

 John Denison's men and vehicles brave minus 60-degree temperatures to build a winter road from Yellowknife to Port Radium in the early 1970s. (Dutton, 1975, 237 pages)
Shield Country
Life and Times of the Oldest Piece 
of the Planet
by Jamie Bastedo

 Engaging investigation of the history, geology, and biology of the Great Slave Lake area, enlivened by the author's own experiences.  (Arctic Institute, 1994, 271 pages)
Skookum's North
 The "Paws" Collection
by Doug Urquhart		 "Paws," the creation of a former NWT Game Officer, is a comic strip carried by many northern newspapers.  Though set in the Yukon, the encounters with tourists and bureaucrats are common all across the North.  (Lost Moose, 1994, 167 pages)

John Franklin

Northerners are a little weary of the attention paid to a dead white colonialist, but the rest of the world cannot get enough of him. Though branded as an ineffectual bungler by modern writers, Franklin was a hero in his time.  A new book about him or those in his circle appears every year. Here are some of the best.
The Arctic Grail
The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole 
1818-1909 
by Pierre Berton

This is the place to start if you know nothing of Franklin and the quest for the Northwest Passage. It also includes the parallel quest to reach the North Pole.  (McClelland & Stewart, 1988, 672 pages)

 
Frozen in Time
 Unlocking the Secrets of 
the Franklin Expedition
by Owen Beattie & John Geiger

Exhuming the graves on Beechey Island provided the authors with forensic evidence that lead poisoning was an important contributor to the expedition's demise.  (Greystone, 1992, 180 pages)

 
Unravelling the Franklin Mystery
 Inuit Testimony
by David C. Woodman		 Oral history adds tantalizing clues to the fate of the lost expedition, including the possibility that a few men survived long after the rest died. The author has also been active in the search for the missing ships.  (McGill-Queen's, 1991, 390 pages)


Ice Blink
 The Tragic Fate of  Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition
by Scott Cookman

Adds a new culprit to the cause of the expedition's misfortune--botulism caused by imperfectly tinned food.  (Wiley, 2000, 244 pages) 

 
Lady Franklin's Revenge
A True Story of Ambition, Obsession and the Remaking of Arctic History
by Ken McGoogan

 This book provides a modern appraisal of Jane Franklin, an intelligent, formidable, and contradictory figure, and as much a world traveller as her husband.  (Harper Collins, 2005, 468 pages)

 
Franklin's Passage
by David Solway

 A slim volume of poems by one of Canada's most respected poets.  Winner of the 2004 Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal.  (McGill-Queen's, 2003, 75 pages)
The Terror
A Novel
by Dan Simmons		 Simmons is a popular genre writer who draws on horror and Inuit legend to account for the expedition's demise.  Not for all tastes, but Ken McGoogan gave it a positive review on The Globe and Mail.  (Little Brown, 2007, 769 pages)


Siberia

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, travel to many formerly restricted areas was permitted.  Siberia in particular beckoned, a vast area known for its fur, gold, diamonds, harsh winters, secret cities, and brutal gulags.   

Sibir
My Discovery of Siberia
by Farley Mowat 		A favourable view of Arctic socialism during the Cold War as well as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.  The book also played a role in getting the author banned from the USA in 1985 (which he parlayed into another book, the slyly titled My Discovery of America).  (McClelland & Stewart, 1970, 313 pages)
Imperium
by Ryszard Kapuscinski 		The bulk of this book by the great Polish journalist comprises travels made through the former USSR during 1989-91, that is, during the final stages of its collapse.  (Vintage, 1994, 331 pages)  
A Great Current Running
The US-Russian Lena River Expedition
by C.W. Gusewelle 

 		After 10 years of bureaucratic hassles, a 12-member team travels the length of the Lena River in 1991 on a 66-foot Zaria-class vessel.  (Lowell, 1994, 429 pages)
Siberian Dawn
A Journey Across the New Russia
by Jeffrey Tayler

 		In 1993 an American journalist heads west from Magadan, hitching rides on transport trucks following a route passable only in winter.  (Ruminator, 1999, 301 pages)
Reeling in Russia 
by Fen Montaigne 		In 1996 another American journalist crosses Siberia, but in the opposite direction and time of year, fly-fishing for grayling, lenok, taimen and Kamchatka steelhead.  (St. Martin's,1998, 275 pages)
In Siberia
by Colin Thubron

 		A sombre portrait of Siberia in the late 1990s by a British travel writer who may be the equal of Chatwin.  (HarperCollins, 2001, 285 pages)
River of No Reprieve
Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny
by Jeffrey Tayler

 		Another journey down the Lena, this time a two-man effort.  Though the subtitle indicates the tenor of the voyage, Tayler, who lives in Moscow and is married to a Russian, has a great affection for Russia and Siberia.  (Houghton Mifflin, 2007, 231 pages)
Kolyma Tales
by Varlam Shalamov 		The socialist equivalent of Jack London's Klondyke tales, where men grub for Arctic gold.  The setting is the dreaded Kolyma region of the Russian Far East.  (Penguin,1994, 508 pages)

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