Ice walker : a polar bear's journey through the fragile Arctic

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Raffan, James

Physical Description:

xxi, 161 p. : ill., map ; 20 cm.

General Note:

Includes topics and questions for discussion.

Subject Term:

Polar bear -- Effect of global warming on -- Hudson Bay.

Polar bear -- Climatic factors -- Hudson Bay.

Global warming -- Hudson Bay.

Climatic changes -- Hudson Bay.

Global temperature changes -- Environmental aspects -- Hudson Bay.

Publication Information:

Toronto, Ontario : Simon & Schuster Canada, 2020.

Subject:

Polar bear -- Effect of global warming on -- Hudson Bay.

Polar bear -- Climatic factors -- Hudson Bay.

Global warming -- Hudson Bay.

Climatic changes -- Hudson Bay.

Global temperature changes -- Environmental aspects -- Hudson Bay.

Thalarctos maritimus

Thalassarctos maritimus

Ursus eogroenlandicus

Ursus groenlandicus

Ursus jenaensis

Ursus labradorensis

Ursus marinus

Ursus maritimus

Ursus polaris

Ursus spitzbergensis

Ursus ungavensis

Global warming -- Environmental aspects

Warming, Global

Changes, Climatic

Changes in climate

Climate change

Climate change science

Climate changes

Climate variations

Climatic change

Climatic changes -- Environmental aspects

Climatic fluctuations

Climatic variations

Global climate changes

Global climatic changes

Temperature changes, Global

World temperature changes

SAILS ISBN:

9781501155369

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... New Bedford Francis J. Lawler Branch	599.786 RAF 2020	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library	599.786 RAF 2020	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Wareham Free Library	599.786 RAF 2020	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West Bridgewater PL	599.786 RAF	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westport Free Public Library	599.786 RAF 2020	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown

From bestselling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear's precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant's The Golden Spruce .

Nanurjuk, "the bear-spirited one," is hunting for seals on Hudson Bay, where ice never lasts more than one season. For her and her young, everything is in flux.

From the top of the world, Hudson Bay looks like an enormous paw print on the torso of the continent, and through a vast network of lakes and rivers, this bay connects to oceans across the globe. Here, at the heart of everything, walks Nanurjuk, or Nanu, one polar bear among the six thousand that traverse the 1.23 million square kilometers of ice and snow covering the bay.

For millennia, Nanu's ancestors have roamed this great expanse, living, evolving, and surviving alongside human beings in one of the most challenging and unforgiving habitats on earth. But that world is changing. In the Arctic's lands and waters, oil has been extracted--and spilled. As global temperatures have risen, the sea ice that Nanu and her young need to hunt seal and fish has melted, forcing them to wait on land where the delicate balance between them and their two-legged neighbors has now shifted.

This is the icescape that author and geographer James Raffan invites us to inhabit in Ice Walker . In precise and provocative prose, he brings readers inside Nanu's world as she treks uncertainly around the heart of Hudson Bay, searching for nourishment for the children that grow inside her. She stops at nothing to protect her cubs from the dangers she can see--other bears, wolves, whales, human beings--and those she cannot.

By focusing his lens on this bear family, Raffan closes the gap between humans and bears, showing us how, like the water of the Hudson Bay, our existence--and our future--is tied to Nanu's. He asks us to consider what might be done about this fragile world before it is gone for good. Masterful, vivid, and haunting, Ice Walker is an utterly unique piece of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting call to action.

Reviews (3)

Kirkus Review

A bear's-eye view of a changing Arctic. Canadian writer and adventurer Raffan, whose haunts include the far north of his country, tells the story of climate change in the Arctic through the lens of the great polar bear, an apex predator that is a textbook example of evolution suited to the demands of the environment. The white bear descended from brown ones, white being favorable in "a vast landscape of ice and snow," and developed a metabolism that allowed it to flourish on a diet that is more fat than protein. "Our bear, then, is perfectly adapted to a life on the ice," writes the author, which poses a problem for the perhaps 25,000 polar bears now alive when the ice is so rapidly melting. His case study is a female named Nanu, who travels a wide ambit, finding male suitors at strategic times of the year. Though he has taken pains not to anthropomorphize unduly, Raffan writes that "giving the bears names, physical characteristics and personality traits…was my means of inviting you to engage with the story and to enter the Ice Walker world long enough to ponder what we are doing to the earth." What we are doing, by driving cars and flying in airplanes and other human pursuits, is making a world in which "bearness" may prove an ontological category that has little purpose. When polar bears disappear, some human cultures will, too. The native Arctic peoples of countries such as Russia, the U.S., and Norway are already forbidden to hunt them, as they traditionally have, while those of Canada must coordinate hunts with game officials. Readers will emerge with a solid understanding of the biology and ecology of bears, but also of how they intersect with human cultures--those that honor them and those that scarcely pay them any mind at all. A welcome, if saddening, look at a disappearing world and a keystone species that may disappear with it. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

In a manner reminiscent of Joy Adamson's classic Born Free (1960), Raffan introduces the life of a female polar bear as she battles her way through climate change. In this cautionary tale, seven-year-old Nanuruk, or Nanu, lives in southwestern Hudson Bay amidst global warming that brings her ever closer to the Indigenous people that share her arctic wonderland. Without anthropomorphizing Nanu, Raffan educates and fascinates readers, lending an intimacy as we journey along with her. While Nanu hunts and gives birth to cubs, Raffan ties her story to that of Hudson Bay itself, emphasizing how humans' existence and future are interconnected with Nanu's. Raffan describes scenes in a beautiful, captivating, and, at times, heartbreaking fashion, pondering how human life affects the bears and, by extension, all of existence. Of the approximately 25,000 polar bears currently living, 6,000 reside in Hudson Bay. As the ice melts, they are forced to hunt and live closer to cities and villages, and the difficulty in bringing live cubs into the world becomes even more of a hardship. Readers will also gain a detailed understanding of polar bear behavior, diet, hunting, mating, and evolution. Fans of John Vaillant's The Golden Spruce (2005) will be equally enthralled by this.

Library Journal Review

Canadian adventurer Raffan (Circling the Midnight Sun) portrays the lives of a family of Hudson Bay polar bears by following the family, Nanu and her two cubs Siu and King, over a two-year period, from the cubs' birth to their independence. Raffan skillfully weaves information about polar bear biology, their adaptations to their harsh, unforgiving world; mating, birthing, and hunting behaviors; and details of the cubs' development into a fascinating narrative as readers follow the family from their birthing den to the sea ice while they find food and avoid danger as the cubs grow and learn how to survive. With their distinct personalities, the bears and their relationships come alive. The author vividly describes the arctic setting and also illuminates the dangers to the bears from pollution and global warming and shows how polar bears are interconnected with the animals and people of the north. Maps of the median ice edge help put the Arctic Circle in context, and show the threat of disappearing ice and the climate warms. An annotated bibliography and a glossary round out the work. VERDICT Narrative nonfiction that offers a compelling, interesting, informative look at polar bears and their lives.--Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove, IL

Excerpts

Chapter One: Circling one Circling Excerpted from Ice Walker: A Polar Bear's Journey Through the Fragile Arctic by James Raffan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Reviews (3)

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

Excerpts

Excerpts