Frostlines review: An unexpectedly moving book is the case of the Arctic

Frostlines
Neil Shea, Picador (UK, February 12) Ecco Publishing (US, available now)

IF those of us farther south consider the Arctic at all, we tend to think of it as a monolith: an expanse of whites, with walruses and a few polar bears. Some may even imagine penguins actually being at the other pole, illustrating the remoteness of these extreme landscapes and their otherworldly alienness.

But a new book argues that we are neglecting the Arctic at our peril – not least because of its importance to our rapidly warming planet. In his first book Frostlines: A Journey Through Entangled Lives and Landscapes in a Warming Arcticjournalist neil shea gathers his insights from two decades of reporting, mostly for National Geographic.

In this lyrical, unexpectedly poignant work of narrative nonfiction, Shea brings the wonders of the Arctic to life for readers who will never go there, while convincing why we must at least cast our minds north.

He starts Frostlines with a surprising image from his first trip to the Arctic in 2005, when he was camping on sea ice in Canada’s Admiralty Inlet. Looking out over the open water from the ice floe, Shea was treated to a mass gathering of narwhals, the males rubbing their tusks against each other, believed to be a sign of sexual dominance, as they feasted on fish, birds and other wildlife.

The spectacle of “all these lives converging, colliding … stories that never made it into any magazine” instilled Shea’s fascination with the Arctic. For all his misgivings about the limits of the written word, Shea quickly and effectively extends his passion to readers through vivid images and enviable wildlife encounters.

On Ellesmere Island, Shea befriends a population of white wolves who have never learned to fear humans – one even steals an inflatable pillow from his tent. Deep in Alaska’s Kobuk Valley National Park, he camps among huge herds of caribou and becomes a brown bear’s “neighbor.”

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Melting ice makes the Arctic attractive, as evidenced by President Trump’s threats against Greenland
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It would be possible to focus this book only on arctic wilderness and wildlife; Shea writes beautifully about both. But to do so would be to sell this complex, unique region short and play to our generally vague preconceptions about it. Instead, Shea strives for a more detailed picture, even if it’s more inconvenient.

This region between the North Pole and the Arctic Circle is far from a homogeneous expansion of snow, which includes eight modern states with a population of 4 million. About 400,000 are indigenous people who belong to dozens of distinct tribes and speak many different languages ​​and dialects.

In her vivid portraits of the people she spends time with, Shea vividly conveys the reality of everyday life in the area, as well as the increasingly existential challenges of the Arctic warming three or four times faster than anywhere else on Earth.

Some of the Inuit Shea interviewed are eager to share the changes they’ve witnessed in just decades and their efforts to protect their communities and traditional way of life. Others are reluctant and even angry, having seen so many Westerners over the years come, ask questions, take notes, and leave.

Shea discovers that “nobody wants to talk about climate change” while camping on a frozen lake and otherwise at the mercy of nature to survive. But the consequences are already at hand, disrupting the balance of the Arctic’s fragile ecosystems and opening them up to further threats.

Melting ice is allowing more ships to access the Arctic, making it an attractive territory, as evidenced by US President Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian war has closed other areas. Frostlines concludes Shea on the Norwegian-Russian border, where migrants are making life-threatening attempts to find refuge and even reindeer are not allowed to cross freely.

As remote and distant as the Arctic may seem, Shea reveals that it is part of our modern known world and a region increasingly threatened by our activities. We are more connected to the ice than we think, and the people and animals that live in the Arctic do not have the luxury of ignoring the worsening cracks.

Ella Hunt is a writer based in Norwich, UK

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