This Cold Heaven

In a tribute to the far latitudes, Gretel Ehrlich travels across Greenland, the largest island on earth. All but five per cent of the island is covered by a vast ice sheet, an enduring remnant of the last ice age. Despite a uniquely hostile environment, it has been inhabited continuously for thousands of years. Greenlanders retain many of their traditional practices: some still hunt on sleds made from whale and caribou with packs of dogs; others fashion harpoons from Narwhal tusks; and entranced shamans make soul fights under the ice. Ehrlich mixes stories of European anthropologists who have recorded the ways of the Inuit, with artists who have lived briefly on Greenland's fringe in order to try to capture its extraordinary pure light. She travels across this unearthly landscape in the company of men and women who have a deep bond with it, and with them she discovers the realm of the Great Dark, ice pavilions, polar bears and Eskimo nomads.