The Eskimos of the Coronation Gulf region, on the Arctic coast of Canada, saw their first white man with the arrival of the Stefansson expedition, of which Diamond Jenness was a member. The establishment of a scientific observation post in 1914 in this bleak land on the polar sea gave Mr. Jenness the opportunity to spend two years living and traveling with these primitive people at a time before their ways had been changed and they themselves nearly driven into extinction by our own civilization. As Fridtjof Nansen says in the preface, "one cannot read this charming narrative without getting a deep sympathy for these simple, unsophisticated children of the twilight... a charming people of happy children, not yet stung by the burden of our culture, not burdened by the intricate problems and the acid dissatisfaction of our society." Mr. Jenness movingly describes a way of life bound close to its environment in all its thoughts and deeds - a life of fishing and of seal and caribou hunting, of snow huts and long treks by dog sled, of marriage and dancing and myths and the natural warmth of human beings in a cold world - a way of life now gone.
Record details
ISBN:0226396533
ISBN:9780226396538
Physical Description:vii, 250 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm. print
Publisher:Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press, 1959.
Content descriptions
Formatted Contents Note:
I. The promised land -- II. An outpost of the polar sea -- III. The people of the twilight -- IV. Among the snow-huts -- V. Up the Coppermine River -- VI. Lengthening days -- VII. In the quest of Tormiat -- VIII. Bread from the waters -- IX. On the trail of the caribou -- X. Darkening days -- XI. The second winter -- XII. Through blizzards to spring -- XIII. The last days -- L'Envoi.
Summary: The Eskimos of the Coronation Gulf region, on the Arctic coast of Canada, saw their first white man with the arrival of the Stefansson expedition, of which Diamond Jenness was a member. The establishment of a scientific observation post in 1914 in this bleak land on the polar sea gave Mr. Jenness the opportunity to spend two years living and traveling with these primitive people at a time before their ways had been changed and they themselves nearly driven into extinction by our own civilization. As Fridtjof Nansen says in the preface, "one cannot read this charming narrative without getting a deep sympathy for these simple, unsophisticated children of the twilight... a charming people of happy children, not yet stung by the burden of our culture, not burdened by the intricate problems and the acid dissatisfaction of our society." Mr. Jenness movingly describes a way of life bound close to its environment in all its thoughts and deeds - a life of fishing and of seal and caribou hunting, of snow huts and long treks by dog sled, of marriage and dancing and myths and the natural warmth of human beings in a cold world - a way of life now gone.
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