Legat, Allice

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80 • REVIEWSunfamiliar to North American scholars. However, theauthor’s relative unfamiliarity with North American geog-raphy and literature and the fact that English is his secondlanguage give rise to some interesting glitches, for exam-ple, “Aleutes” (for Aleutian Islands?) on page 44, “he”referring to Sylvia Edlund on pages 45 and 47, and “NorthWest Territories” (p. 40 and 42). Some awkward andoccasionally obscure sentences have resulted from trans-lation into English, and the volume could have receivedmore careful attention from its editors.Despite these minor caveats, Dr. Seppälä has compiled aunique and important review that displays an impressivebreadth of scholarship. For those who can afford its high cost,this volume should be an excellent resource for classroom useand a valued addition to their personal libraries.Thomas D. HamiltonU.S. Geological Survey (Emeritus)4200 University DriveAnchorage, Alaska, U.S.A.99508thamilto@usgs.govUPSIDE DOWN: SEASONS AMONG THE NUNAMIUT.By MARGARET B. BLACKMAN. Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 2004. 206 p., map, b&w illus., endnotes.Hardbound. US$27.95.This book is an important work for those interested inethnographic research and indigenous peoples living inthe Arctic. Blackman successfully follows the “journeysof some villagers down the likes of the InformationSuperhighway” while following “others back to a timewhen technology was a rifle, a distant plane in the sky anda battery-powered radio that tuned in news of World WarII in a foreign language—English” (p. 3). Blackman in-forms the reader of consistency and change in the commu-nity of Anaktuvuk Pass, a small Nunamuit settlement inthe Brooks Range of Alaska 35 miles beyond the tree line.She writes about the Nunamuit while reflecting on her ownexperiences as an anthropologist and her relationshipswith her husband and daughter.The tone of the book is set in the introduction, whereBlackman tells how she, with her husband Ed Hall, firstcame to Anaktuvuk Pass. She tells of her special relation-ship with the community that keeps her returning in spiteof her discomfort, verging on fear, of small plane airtravel—a necessity, given that there are no roads betweenFairbanks and Anaktuvuk Pass. She openly speaks of herdifficult marriage, made more difficult by her husband’sprogressing disease. Blackman notes—and exemplifies—how her way of living, both in the south and in the north,affects her research, her relationships, and her interpreta-tion of all that she experiences.Each of the 27 essays in the book tells an engaging storyof how the Nunamuit, who until 50 years ago werenomadic caribou hunters, deal with settled life in theircommunity. Her stories usually start by telling of an eventor a situation and often end with a question. Blackman isable to weave an anthropological picture whether discuss-ing the history of being settled and experiencing the newwater and sewage system in Anaktuvuk Pass, as she doesin the essay entitled “Fifty Years in one Place,” or in theessay “Town,” where she tells of seeing and visiting withher friends from Anaktuvuk Pass in a completely differentsetting during her sabbatical in Fairbanks.Blackman’s use of photographs is meaningful: they arewell placed at the beginning of each essay and enhance thetext. Both essays and photos encourage the reader’s inter-est in the members of the community and in Blackmanherself. At times the combination of text and photo isgentle, and at other times the combination hits hard andfast, not allowing the reader to avoid reality. Such is thecombination of Willie Hugo photographed on his father’slap in 1963 and the essay entitled “The ‘New’ Eskimo.”The essay talks of Willie Hugo as the “new Eskimo” whoseems to bridge the life of successful hunter and successfulwage earner as manager of the Anaktuvuk Pass powerplant. Blackman continues the story of this well-respectedindividual, who one day bought a number of items for hiswife and family and then shot himself.Both photos and text reflect change; both tell the story ofpast and present, as well as portraying individuals of all agesin a variety of situations. Take for example, the photos‘Returning from caribou hunting, 1959,’ in which a hunterand dogs are carrying packs, and the contemporary scene of‘Coming home from camping,’ in which individuals and dogsare standing around three six-wheel Argos.I particularly enjoyed how Blackman took me from theimportance of the CB radio to the community members’use of e-mail; from the introduction of a Christmas maskto an economic industry of making caribou-skin masksthat are sought after by museums and collectors; from herown field notes and journals to her excitement of havingaccess to the journals of two hunters—Homer Mekianaand Simon Paneak— whose writings span more than 20years; from her joy in doing field work with her daughterat her side, to the breakup of her marriage and her teenagedaughter’s wanting to stay home rather than return to asmall community, to a time when her grown daughterwished to return to Anaktuvuk Pass; her experience in thecommunity with Ethel and Justus Mekiana and RachelRiley and their experience with her in Brunswick, Maine.All of these experiences are associated with having realrelationships with real people who became friends whileshe worked as an anthropologist. She does not pretend todisengage from the individuals she knows and who knowher—she treats people as people and writes about people,including herself, as people. Her interactions span thefamiliarity of home and the strangeness of being awayfrom home and the merging of the two.Upside Down: Seasons among the Nunamuit is an ex-tremely important book. Not since Jean Briggs’ Never inREVIEWS • 81Anger have I felt so strongly about sharing a book withstudents—whether in the social sciences, biological sci-ences or earth sciences—and with individuals who decideto live in any northern community. My reasons, however,are different. Jean Briggs prepared those of us wanting todo anthropology for isolation from our colleagues andworking in difficult surroundings, without running wateror electricity. Blackman helps us to give up that attitude,and as she says, “Perhaps it’s the romantic ethnographer inme that wants Anaktuvuk Pass to be the isolated, self-contained, unchanging village that it never was. If there’sone constant about culture, it’s change… But sometimes Iforget how much my own life has turned upside down overthe fourteen years I’ve been coming here” (p. 201).Blackman demonstrates that to go to small northern com-munities is to engage with community people, to be opento how they accept or reject change, and to accept that theyhave ideas about how you will conduct your research – thatyou too will change.In her eloquence, Blackman also prepares us for thetimes that every ethnographer faces: forgetting to turn onthe tape recorder—even with electricity—and losing thatgreat interview; using old batteries when on the landbecause we are used to electricity in the communities; thenever-ending struggle with whether or not to write fieldnotes if an individual does not want you to; leaving the taperecorder at home and remembering the experience becauseyou are among friends and engaged with what is going on.She remembers the community and the warmth and friend-ship she experienced while on the land, as she recalls Noahtelling her (p. 159), “You never get lonely when you go outcamping, Margaret.”Allice LegatAnthropology DepartmentUniversity of AberdeenAberdeen, ScotlandAB24 3QYWRITING GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATION: JAMESAND THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 1631–33. ByWAYNE K. DAVIES. Calgary: University of Calgary Pressand the Arctic Institute of North America, 2004. 318 p.,maps, b&w illus., bib., index. Hardbound. Cdn$49.95.In May 1631, Welsh explorer Thomas James and his crewof 22 sailed out of Bristol, crossed the North Atlantic,entered Hudson Strait and Bay, and sailed as far south asthe bay that bears his name. They survived the apparentlyfierce winter of 1631 – 32 on Charlton Island (now inNunavut), the latitude of which, 52˚03', puts it no farthernorth than Innisfail, Alberta; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan;and Bella Bella and Williams Lake, British Columbia.Although James bestowed new names on the map ofnorthern North America, his discoveries amounted to noth-ing significant; Henry Hudson had preceded him by twodecades into James Bay (never to exit from it), and bothHudson’s expedition and that of the Danish-sponsoredJens Munk to Churchill River a decade later had winteredon this inland body of salt water. Luke Foxe voyaged in1631, as well, but Foxe returned to England and reportedthe discovery of Foxe Basin and Foxe Channel to hisLondon merchant sponsors before the year was out. Need-less to say, neither James nor Foxe, who both sailed underthe sponsorship of King Charles I, discovered a northwestpassage. James and his men had no contact with Nativepeople. Nothing about these details, then, distinguishesJames as an explorer or mariner. And yet, The Strange andDangerous Voyage of Captaine Thomas James (1633) isnot only an apt title for James’s book but also a unique titlein the annals of Arctic exploration, the publications ofwhich have featured drearily predictable and unimagina-tive names, for fear of sounding imaginary rather thanempirical. The Strange and Dangerous Voyage passed outof print two years ago, but it has enjoyed a much-deservedlongevity. Although in Hakluytus Posthumus, compilerSamuel Purchas (1625) included William Baffin’s accountof his first expedition (1615), James’s was the first of whatwould become a long series of books published for anEnglish monarch by the leader of an Arctic expedition toterritory now claimed by Canada.So, even though James has not attracted much attentionfrom Canadian scholars, the appearance of an entire bookdevoted to him should not itself seem strange. WayneDavies has endeavoured to introduce James to his fellowhistorical geographers and, somewhat ponderously, toboost all readers’ awareness of the seminal role played byWelshmen in the exploration of what is now Canada. Hishandsomely designed, well-produced book makes for anengaging read.Chiefly, however, Davies has another concern: he aimsto alert historical geography to the limitations of its tradi-tional orientation to narratives of exploration, an orienta-tion that he sees as an unthinking equation of explorers’personal experiences with their apparently realist narra-tives of them. In announcing this alert, he discusses howmodern theories about narrative, advanced in the past fourdecades, could be brought to bear on the way in whichhistorical geographers esteem and make use of books ofexploration. Davies stresses that these theories are in-formed by cognitive psychology (ways of seeing, recog-nizing, selecting, representing, and remembering). Inaddition, adapting James Clifford’s paradigm of influ-ences on anthropological writing, he provides a usefuldistinction between constructing and writing a narrative ofexploration, and proceeds to anatomize the complexitiesof a process that is anything but straightforward, mainlybecause publishers insisted on “readying” most explorers’accounts for the press. Davies’ catholic breadth of interestis welcome and supports his timely thesis: that the explo-ration narrative generally, and James’s book particularly,“needs to be read from several different perspectives if itsvalue is to be fully appreciated” (p. xiv). Although this call

Upside Down: Seasons among the Nunamiut, by Margaret B. Blackman

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Upside Down: Seasons among the Nunamiut, by Margaret B. Blackman

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