Blackman, Margaret B.

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REVIEWS • 461IMAGING THE ARCTIC. Edited by J.C.H. KING andHENRIETTA LIDCHI. Vancouver and Seattle: UBC Pressand University of Washington Press, 1998. ISBN 0-7748-0672-9. 256 p., maps, b&w illus., bib., index.Softbound. Cdn$49.95.Imaging the Arctic, a collection of 25 articles, tackles theimmense topic of historical photographs of the Arctic andits inhabitants. It is, its editors assert, the first book-lengthpublication to do so. The bulk of the volume’s contents arepapers from a 1996 conference, Imagining the Arctic: TheNative Photograph in Alaska, Canada and Greenland,held at the British Museum in London. Conference partici-pants included individuals from a wide range of profes-sions with a common interest in the photographic imageand the Arctic. Several of the conference participants wereNatives, and three of their papers are included in thisvolume.Imaging the Arctic sweeps from Greenland to Alaska(the Russian Arctic is not included). The photographicimages range in time from the 1845 daguerreotype of SirJohn Franklin, taken before his departure to the Arctic, toBill Hess’s joyful image of the 1991 Junior Prom at PointHope, Alaska, and they come from private as well as publiccollections. Each paper is illustrated by several well-reproduced black-and-white images ranging in size fromone-sixth of a page to a full page. The captions informabout subject and date, though unfortunately not about thephotographer or source; sources are given at the end of thevolume, in the Photographic Acknowledgments section.Introductions to edited volumes labour to give structureand purpose to the potpourri of contents, and anthropolo-gist J.C.H. King’s introduction to this collection is noexception. One can make only the most general statementsin introducing this diverse collection of photo essays, suchas: they address “many of the more recent ways in whicha region and its inhabitants have been visually con-structed…,” and they consider how the visual image “hasutilised and contributed to the way in which the Arctic asa social, cultural, and geographical space has been collec-tively and subjectively imagined” (p.11). The links be-tween image and imagination, photography and memory,King asserts, are themes running through many of theessays.The essays themselves are grouped into four untitledsections, mirroring the original conference sessions inwhich they were placed. Perhaps because the conferencecast a wide net and included participants with eclecticinterests in Arctic photography, the underlying organiza-tion of the four parts is difficult to discern. Photography by19th-century exploring expeditions seems to be concen-trated in Part 1, and papers on the photographic collectionsof individual explorers or ethnographers in Part 2, butbeyond these the rationale for the groupings of articleseluded me, and it is not explained in the volume.The conference keynote address by George Quviq Qulautprefaces the four sections of papers. Qulaut focuses onNative community use of photography and generationaldifferences in how the Inuit use photography. Anthropolo-gist Hugh Brody’s “The Power of the Image” provides, ifnot a conclusion to the collection of papers themselves, athoughtful and reflective ending to the volume. Brody’sessay is followed by an edited version of the discussionsthat accompanied each session of the original conference,a bibliography, a list of photographic acknowledgments,and an index.The contributed papers range widely in content, ap-proach to subject matter, theoretical perspective, the au-thors’ familiarity with visual documents, and the extent towhich the visual materials are the focus of the discussion.Zebedee Nungak and Stephen Hendrie’s piece on “Con-temporary Inuit Photography in Nunavik,” for example,addresses corporate photography with the founding ofMakivik Corporation in northern Quebec, but it is moreabout the corporation and the politics than the photo-graphs. The variation in the length of the papers is some-what perplexing, if only because the briefer papersshortchange the images. For example, Wamsley and Barr’s“Early Photographers of the Canadian Arctic and Green-land” and Burant’s “Using Photography to Assert Cana-dian Sovereignty in the Arctic” focus on the details of theexpeditions at the expense of the images that resulted fromthem.At the same time, there is plenty to feast upon in thisdiverse collection of essays. As an anthropologist, I wasparticularly drawn to papers like Willliam Fitzhugh’s“The Alaskan Photographs of Edward W. Nelson,” whichdeals with the photographic oeuvre of an early ethnogra-pher; Nelson Graburn’s “The Present as History: Photo-graphs and the Canadian Inuit,” which reflects on theauthor’s own ethnographic photography; and J.C.H. King’sanalysis of “The Photographic Album of C.M. Cato…,”which looks at a private, personal photo album in conjunc-tion with a journal covering the same events.Overall, I find that, as a volume whose focus is thehistorical photography of a major geographical region,Imaging the Arctic is disappointing. It is the potlucksupper with too many appetizers and desserts, not enoughentrees, and no one in charge to organize the meal effec-tively. The volume does little to help the reader interestedin the general topic of the history of Arctic photography.Who were the explorers who photographed different re-gions of the Arctic? How did the different church missionscapture the Arctic in photographs? What is the history ofNative picture taking throughout the Arctic? Where are themajor archival holdings of historical photographs from theArctic? What major research questions need to be ad-dressed, and what are some of the directions future re-search into Arctic photography might take? Granted, theeditors never intended these papers to be the definitivework on Arctic photography. But the unevenness of thecontributed papers, their loose organization, the lack of anoverall focus, and the tacked-on discussion session ex-cerpts make this well laid out, handsome volume look just462 • REVIEWSlike what it is—a heterogeneous collection of conferenceproceedings. This said, for those interested in pursuing thestudy of historical photography in the Arctic, Imaging theArctic lays some of the groundwork and invites furtherresearch.Margaret B. BlackmanDepartment of AnthropologySUNY CollegeBrockport, New York, U.S.A.14420ECHOING SILENCE: ESSAYS ON ARCTIC NARRA-TIVE. Edited by JOHN MOSS. Ottawa: University ofOttawa Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7766-0441-4. vii + 232 p.Softbound. Cdn$27.00.One of the great delights of northern scholarship is itsdiversity. Northern specialists actually speak to each otheracross disciplinary and cultural boundaries, in ways thatare unique to the region. Arctic is an excellent example ofthis pattern, in that it draws together work by naturalscientists and contributions from the humanities and socialsciences. This fascinating collection of essays assembledby John Moss similarly illustrates the complexity andrichness of northern research, for it draws together workby literary critics and writers, Inuit storytellers, and histo-rians. The book includes carefully footnoted scholarlycontributions, theory-laden analyses, reminiscences, andculturally eloquent stories.In 1995, a group of northern commentators rangingfrom Nellie Cournoyea to Rudy Wiebe, David Woodman,and Aritha van Herk assembled at the University of Ottawafor a Symposium on Arctic Narrative. John Moss hascollected a large number of the diverse presentations givenat the conference and, in so doing, has provided us withrich insights. As he notes in the preface: “There is muchgoing on in this text: different generations of writersrepresenting diverse aesthetics, different visions, sharingthe rhetorical stage; a mixing of academic and non-aca-demic voices; scholarly discourse in a context of enthusi-asm and actual experience; intellectual rigour reinforcingand sometimes contradicting expressions of personal con-viction; matters of difference addressed, matters of race,of cultural perspective, and especially of gender” (p. 3).The symposium, by all accounts a remarkable intellectual,social, and cultural event, is now available, in part, intextual form.The various contributions—22 papers in all, plus anengaging preface by the editor—offer unique “explora-tions” of the North. While several of the essays examineaspects of the physical exploration of the region by outsid-ers, others play with the philosophical and literary mean-ings of the Arctic. A number of the contributions examinespecific texts about the North (including writings by JohnSteffler, Harold Horwood, Rudy Wiebe, Aritha van Herk,and John Moss) while several others consider such themesas the role of gender in representations of the North. It isan eclectic mix. Alootook Ipellie remembers John Moss’scomment that it is hard to make love on the tundra andobserves: “Without pretending macho, I have had similarexperiences over the years. I am not saying that I am anexpert in such predicaments, but perhaps we can at leastcompare some notes and learn from one another” (p. 96).Contrast Ipellie’s good humour with Sherrill Grace’s schol-arly and complex analysis: “In Gender Trouble, JudithButler analyses the ways in which gender identity works/is used to instate an hegemony of normative, hierarchical,asymmetric binaries that validate and enforce aphallogocentric heterosexuality” (p. 166). Also includedis an edited transcript of a forum session in which FarleyMowat presented himself as his alter-ego, “Hardly-Knowit”(p. 108). The shifting styles and insights make the collec-tion uneven and quirky, but add to both the book’s charmand its accessibility.This book will elicit a variety of reactions. Thoselooking for contemporary literary analysis will find somevery good papers, interspersed among traditional narra-tives and indigenous stories. Those preferring Inuit narra-tives will find those, but will also encounter some heavy,jargon-laden essays. Some will be annoyed by the com-plexity and diversity of literary styles, while others willfind it captivating. The Preface provides a very goodoverview of the collection, hinting at its eclecticism and,appropriately, arguing that this is a strength, not a weak-ness, of the book. This volume would be very useful insenior undergraduate and graduate classes on northernimages and literature and is particularly valuable for thosereaders interested in the multifaceted and multiculturalways of understanding Arctic experiences. It is standard,when reviewing collections of essays, to observe that thereare inevitably stronger and weaker papers. Offering sucha judgement in this instance is made more difficult by thediverse approaches that have been taken. While it is truethat some papers are more original and insightful thanothers, the gap between the various contributions is notvery large. Moreover, the real value of the book lies in thefact that each of the papers is a very good illustration of aparticular approach to understanding Arctic narratives. Ido not wish to avoid the reviewer’s responsibility entirely.I was quite taken by the contributions by Carpenter,Parkinson, Senkpiel, and van Herk. There were no essaysthat I did not find engaging and useful, but I was perplexedby Wayne Grady’s comment under “Works Cited”: “WayneGrady would prefer not to supply notes. All referenceswithin his text may readily be discovered by the reader,should the reader wish to discover them” (p. 78).Echoing Silence endeavours, through a variety of story-telling and story-analyzing techniques, to explain howdifferent cultures understand and explain their northernexperiences. It is a book laden with insights, often found inunexpected places. It is virtually impossible for an editedcollection to capture the spirit and dialogue of a sympo-

Imaging the Arctic, edited by J.C.H. King and Henrietta Lidchi

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Imaging the Arctic, edited by J.C.H. King and Henrietta Lidchi

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