Review of Larry Frolick\u27s Crow Never Dies

Shepherd, Kelly

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 15 | No. 2 Article 22-2-2017Crow Never Dies by Larry FrolickKelly ShepherdNorthern Alberta Institute of TechnologyPart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, HumanGeography Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Nature and SocietyRelations Commons, Place and Environment Commons, and the Social and Cultural AnthropologyCommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeShepherd, Kelly. "Crow Never Dies by Larry Frolick." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 , article 2, 2017,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/2.The Hunter is the Chooser   Crow Never Dies: Life on the Great Hunt by LARRY FROLICK University of Alberta Press, 2016 $29.95  Reviewed by KELLY SHEPHERD  The far North has long played a powerful role in Canadian history and myth-making. In Crow Never Dies, Larry Frolick sets out to immerse himself in the actual physical place of the North, as opposed to literary and imaginative versions of it. He suggests that when and if Canadians go to the North, we are weighed down with our own cultural and colonial baggage, including several centuries of misunderstandings when it comes to Northern Indigenous peoples and their lifeways.  Yet, he claims there is a “real North” that exists outside of our history, media, and literature. Although acknowledging this might be contentious, Frolick faces the debate head on. This book, he writes in the first chapter, assumes three basic points:  1. The subsistence relationship  between First Nations people and  the Land is meaningfully different  from that of agricultural and  industrial people and is worth  understanding on its own for such  differences. 2. The remnant features of this  subsistence technology point to the  ways that Europeans’ ancestors  might also have followed to survive  for thousands of years. 3. Northern folkways and traditions  offer valuable and universal lessons  about human  potential in our  contemporary era, since First  Nations, too, have survived the  dangerous crises of history to the  present day. (7)  He anticipates some of the more predictable counterarguments to these points, and rather than arguing, he suggests that the stalemate can “only be broken by action, by going into the bush with northern peoples and actually observing what happens out there” (8). The resulting volume is part travelogue, part philosophical inquiry, part participant-observation ethnography—and a wholehearted celebration of the North.  Crow Never Dies is laid out in four sections, documenting cultural events and subsistence activities associated with each season. These sections are comprised of smaller chapters, with titles like “Hunting is Trapping,” “Knife versus Ulu” and “Berry Picking” that detail Frolick’s first-hand observation of various aspects of Northern technology and food-gathering. Some chapters document discussions with Northern artists, or time spent on traplines; others are more wide-ranging in their research and scope. “Northern Dogs” is a study of the vital roles that dogs have played in the lives and communities of Northern peoples for millennia; “The Mystery of the Blue Beads” investigates the movements and the cultural importance of early European trade goods. While these chapters include archival and scholarly research, I think the real value of Frolick’s work lies in its first-person experience. Every chapter is built around personal conversations with Northern elders, hunters, and story-tellers. In this documentary approach, Crow Never Dies is reminiscent of Hugh Brody’s Maps and Dreams. In its questioning of the conventional (that is, southern and predominantly urban) wisdom about the 1Shepherd: Crow Never Dies by Larry FrolickPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017North and its peoples, it also resembles Tim Ingold’s The Perception of the Environment. Indeed, perception is one of the book’s recurring themes. There are significant descriptions of perspective, throughout the book, and the necessity of seeing something from more than one angle. Whether it’s a crow adjusting its flight pattern to get a better look at the author, or a trapper looking at game trails from a more-than-human point of view, or human travelers who rely on dogs’ ability to detect soft ice under the snow before a dogsled hits it, Frolick suggests there is always more than one way to look at the world. And in the unforgiving North, this is an essential skill. As the title suggests, one of the author’s main interests in this book is hunting. As an ethnographic study of Northern hunting culture and traditions, Crow Never Dies is perhaps comparable to Richard Nelson’s Make Prayers to the Raven. Hunting (and not the kind of hunting where tourists pay locals to help them bag trophies, a distinction Frolick is careful to make) requires, and indeed implies, enhanced perception. Hunting itself is a different way of looking at the world. Frolick emphasizes the importance of both memory and luck in hunting — two aspects of human life that have been largely dismissed by Western society and education.  Advances in technology have invariably changed hunting traditions—Frolick describes an increasingly individualistic approach to food, for example, that appeared in Northern communities with the advent of the refrigerator—but, in spite of the almost universal use of modern equipment such as rifles and snowmobiles, many ancient lifeways seem to remain intact. According to Frolick’s friends in the North, accumulated knowledge of the land—as part of the local oral tradition, or what Julie Cruikshank has called the “tools of the mind”—and a spiritual awareness of the boreal forest’s watchful ecology, are the hunter’s most important technologies—  The hunter is the chooser: historical  reality  is set in motion by the  unrepeatability of his  actions. There  are no second chances when  life or  death is a daily act. (261)  His admiration for the detailed knowledge and the consummate skill of Northern hunters is obvious; also interesting are Frolick’s depictions of teaching and learning in these contexts. He describes a participant-oriented model that we could not hope to duplicate in our southern classrooms.  Readers interested in Indigenous Studies, or traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), or readers looking for a refreshing and off-the-beaten-path look at Canada’s warming North, will not be disappointed by Crow Never Dies.  Larry Frolick is Communications Officer with the Government of the Northwest Territories. He has written on a variety of cultural and global subjects, including 21st-century divorce, the biblical Queen of Sheba, and contemporary nomadism in Central Asia. Crow Never Dies is his eighth book.  Works Cited Cruikshank, Julie. The Social Life of Stories: Narrative and Knowledge in the Yukon Territory, University of  Nebraska Press, 1998.  2The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 2https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/2KELLY SHEPHERD is originally from Smithers, British Columbia, and he currently lives and teaches in Edmonton. Shift, his first full-length poetry collection, was published in spring 2016 by Thistledown Press. 3Shepherd: Crow Never Dies by Larry FrolickPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017

Crow Never Dies by Larry Frolick

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 15 | No. 2 Article 2
2-2-2017
Crow Never Dies by Larry Frolick
Kelly Shepherd
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Human
Geography Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Nature and Society
Relations Commons, Place and Environment Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology
Commons
Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose
This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrante
de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez
scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Shepherd, Kelly. "Crow Never Dies by Larry Frolick." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 , article 2, 2017,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/2.
The Hunter is the Chooser  
 
Crow Never Dies: Life on the Great Hunt by 
LARRY FROLICK 
University of Alberta Press, 2016 $29.95 
 
Reviewed by KELLY SHEPHERD 
 
The far North has long played a powerful 
role in Canadian history and myth-making. 
In Crow Never Dies, Larry Frolick sets out to 
immerse himself in the actual physical place 
of the North, as opposed to literary and 
imaginative versions of it. He suggests that 
when and if Canadians go to the North, we 
are weighed down with our own cultural 
and colonial baggage, including several 
centuries of misunderstandings when it 
comes to Northern Indigenous peoples and 
their lifeways.  
Yet, he claims there is a “real North” 
that exists outside of our history, media, 
and literature. Although acknowledging this 
might be contentious, Frolick faces the 
debate head on. This book, he writes in the 
first chapter, assumes three basic points: 
 
1. The subsistence relationship 
 between First Nations people and 
 the Land is meaningfully different 
 from that of agricultural and 
 industrial people and is worth 
 understanding on its own for such 
 differences. 
2. The remnant features of this 
 subsistence technology point to the 
 ways that Europeans’ ancestors 
 might also have followed to survive 
 for thousands of years. 
3. Northern folkways and traditions 
 offer valuable and universal lessons 
 about human  potential in our 
 contemporary era, since First 
 Nations, too, have survived the 
 dangerous crises of history to the 
 present day. (7) 
 
He anticipates some of the more 
predictable counterarguments to these 
points, and rather than arguing, he suggests 
that the stalemate can “only be broken by 
action, by going into the bush with northern 
peoples and actually observing what 
happens out there” (8). The resulting 
volume is part travelogue, part 
philosophical inquiry, part participant-
observation ethnography—and a 
wholehearted celebration of the North.  
Crow Never Dies is laid out in four 
sections, documenting cultural events and 
subsistence activities associated with each 
season. These sections are comprised of 
smaller chapters, with titles like “Hunting is 
Trapping,” “Knife versus Ulu” and “Berry 
Picking” that detail Frolick’s first-hand 
observation of various aspects of Northern 
technology and food-gathering. Some 
chapters document discussions with 
Northern artists, or time spent on traplines; 
others are more wide-ranging in their 
research and scope. “Northern Dogs” is a 
study of the vital roles that dogs have 
played in the lives and communities of 
Northern peoples for millennia; “The 
Mystery of the Blue Beads” investigates the 
movements and the cultural importance of 
early European trade goods. 
While these chapters include 
archival and scholarly research, I think the 
real value of Frolick’s work lies in its first-
person experience. Every chapter is built 
around personal conversations with 
Northern elders, hunters, and story-tellers. 
In this documentary approach, Crow Never 
Dies is reminiscent of Hugh Brody’s Maps 
and Dreams. In its questioning of the 
conventional (that is, southern and 
predominantly urban) wisdom about the 
1
Shepherd: Crow Never Dies by Larry Frolick
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017
North and its peoples, it also resembles Tim 
Ingold’s The Perception of the Environment. 
Indeed, perception is one of the 
book’s recurring themes. There are 
significant descriptions of perspective, 
throughout the book, and the necessity of 
seeing something from more than one 
angle. Whether it’s a crow adjusting its 
flight pattern to get a better look at the 
author, or a trapper looking at game trails 
from a more-than-human point of view, or 
human travelers who rely on dogs’ ability to 
detect soft ice under the snow before a 
dogsled hits it, Frolick suggests there is 
always more than one way to look at the 
world. And in the unforgiving North, this is 
an essential skill. 
As the title suggests, one of the 
author’s main interests in this book is 
hunting. As an ethnographic study of 
Northern hunting culture and traditions, 
Crow Never Dies is perhaps comparable to 
Richard Nelson’s Make Prayers to the 
Raven. Hunting (and not the kind of hunting 
where tourists pay locals to help them bag 
trophies, a distinction Frolick is careful to 
make) requires, and indeed implies, 
enhanced perception. Hunting itself is a 
different way of looking at the world. 
Frolick emphasizes the importance of both 
memory and luck in hunting — two aspects 
of human life that have been largely 
dismissed by Western society and 
education.  
Advances in technology have 
invariably changed hunting traditions—
Frolick describes an increasingly 
individualistic approach to food, for 
example, that appeared in Northern 
communities with the advent of the 
refrigerator—but, in spite of the almost 
universal use of modern equipment such as 
rifles and snowmobiles, many ancient 
lifeways seem to remain intact. According 
to Frolick’s friends in the North, 
accumulated knowledge of the land—as 
part of the local oral tradition, or what Julie 
Cruikshank has called the “tools of the 
mind”—and a spiritual awareness of the 
boreal forest’s watchful ecology, are the 
hunter’s most important technologies— 
 
The hunter is the chooser: historical 
 reality  is set in motion by the 
 unrepeatability of his  actions. There 
 are no second chances when  life or 
 death is a daily act. (261) 
 
His admiration for the detailed knowledge 
and the consummate skill of Northern 
hunters is obvious; also interesting are 
Frolick’s depictions of teaching and learning 
in these contexts. He describes a 
participant-oriented model that we could 
not hope to duplicate in our southern 
classrooms. 
 Readers interested in Indigenous 
Studies, or traditional ecological knowledge 
(TEK), or readers looking for a refreshing 
and off-the-beaten-path look at Canada’s 
warming North, will not be disappointed by 
Crow Never Dies. 
 Larry Frolick is Communications 
Officer with the Government of the 
Northwest Territories. He has written on a 
variety of cultural and global subjects, 
including 21st-century divorce, the biblical 
Queen of Sheba, and contemporary 
nomadism in Central Asia. Crow Never Dies 
is his eighth book. 
 
Works Cited 
Cruikshank, Julie. The Social Life of Stories:
 Narrative and Knowledge in the
 Yukon Territory, University of 
 Nebraska Press, 1998. 
 
2
The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 2
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/2
KELLY SHEPHERD is originally from 
Smithers, British Columbia, and he currently 
lives and teaches in Edmonton. Shift, his 
first full-length poetry collection, was 
published in spring 2016 by Thistledown 
Press. 
3
Shepherd: Crow Never Dies by Larry Frolick
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017


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Crow Never Dies by Larry Frolick

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