Synopses & Reviews
WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH is the director of the Arctic Studies Center and curator in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Fitzhugh has conducted archaeology from Maine to Greenland and is currently excavating Basque and Inuit sites in Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. WILFRED E. RICHARD is a geographer with a concentration in environmental studies, photographer, and Registered Maine Guide. Richard is a research collaborator with the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center, a research fellow at the Uummannaq Polar Institute in Greenland, and serves on the board of the Maine chapter of the International Appalachian Trail.
Synopsis
Maine to Greenland is a testament to one of the world's great geographic regions: the Maritime Far Northeast. For more than three decades, William W. Fitzhugh and Wilfred E. Richard have explored the Northeast's Atlantic corridor and its fascinating history, habitat, and culture. The authors' powerful personal essays and Richard's stunning photography transport readers to this vibrant region, joining Smithsonian archaeological expeditions and trekking in vast and amazing terrain. Following Fitzhugh and Richard's travels north--from Maine to the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland and northern Quebec, then to Labrador, Baffin and Ellesmere islands, and Greenland--we view incredible landscapes, uncover human history, and meet luminous personalities along the way.
Fully illustrated with 350 full-color photographs, Maine to Greenland is the first in-depth treatment of the Northeast Atlantic corridor and essential for armchair travelers, locals, tourists, or anyone who has journeyed there. Today green technology, climate change, and the opening of the Arctic Ocean have transformed the Maritime Far Northeast from an icy frontier into a global resource zone and an increasingly integrated international crossroads. In our rapidly converging world, we have much to learn from the Maritime Far Northeast and how its variety of cultures have adapted to rather than changed their environments during the past ten thousand years. Maine to Greenland is not only a complete account of the region's unique culture and environment, but also a timely reminder that amidst the very real consequences of climate change, the inhabitants of the Maritime Far Northeast can show us grounded and sustainable ways of living.
About the Author
Maine to Greenland is a testament to one of the world's great - and little acknowledged - geographic regions: the Maritime Far Northeast. The authors' essays and Wilfred Richard's photography documenting their research and personal odysseys of more than three decades provide a dramatic explication of the power of the far northeast concept. We learn about the history, environments, and cultures of the region, and the idea of how small-scale societies have adapted to rather than changed their environments, as people further south tended to do.
The book has a strong message about the impacts of climate change in the north and the need for appropriate technology and adaptation. It promotes understanding about a part of the world--the northwest Atlantic coastal region--that once was well-known to Europeans and Americans, but which sank into obscurity at the close of the great schooner fisheries and WWII, and which now is re-emerging as a result of climate change, the political emergence of Native people, and the opening of the Arctic Ocean.