Review: Norman Hallendy turns six decades of experience into An Intimate Wilderness: Arctic Voices in a Land of Vast Horizons

Turgavik: "The place where one lives without ever thinking of living elsewhere." This heavily illustrated study of Inuit culture and metaphysics is the fruit of Norman Hallendy's nearly six decades of living among the Inuit of the Cape Dorset region, particularly his interviews with elders about the pre-settlement era. Ethnography has a fraught history in the Arctic, but Hallendy, the foremost non-Inuk expert on inuksuit, approaches Inuit knowledge with humility and respect, his preferred mode to quote elders in long, uninterrupted passages. Still, we might ask: What does it mean to package this knowledge for southern consumption? Many Southern Canadians still regard the Arctic with a particularly qallunaat (white) way of seeing: The Arctic is empty, barren, inhospitable and, therefore, ripe for resource extraction. An Intimate Wilderness turns this view on its head: The Arctic is vast but full, a vibrant place cultured by thousands of years of human history.