The Big Thaw: Travels in the Melting North

The Big Thaw: Travels in the Melting North

by Ed Struzik
The Big Thaw: Travels in the Melting North

The Big Thaw: Travels in the Melting North

by Ed Struzik

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Overview

The effects of climate change are reshaping the Arctic profoundly. Landscapes are being radically transformed, animal habitats are disappearing, and natural resources are being revealed to an energy-starved world. Veteran Arctic journalist Ed Struzik took eleven trips throughout the north to document this rapidly changing land, gaining unprecedented access to scientific expeditions, native communities and security and sovereignty experts. The product of those trips, The Big Thaw is the only book that looks at global warming's wide-ranging impact on the Arctic. Struzik melds the vivid stories of his experiences with fascinating explorations of the Arctic's past—from the alligators and giant tortoises that inhabited the north 55 million years ago, to the 19th century explorers who died searching for the Open Polar Sea—and its possible future as the center of international struggle, underground smuggling and ecological disaster.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781443429634
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Publication date: 01/28/2014
Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
Format: eBook
Pages: 288
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Ed Struzik (Edmonton, Alberta) has been called one of Canada's "pre-eminent modern-day explorers" by Canadian Geographic. His travels by foot, ski, dog team, canoe, kayak, icebreaker and helicopter have taken him to the remotest corners of the polar world. Struzik is the author of two previous books and the recipient of more than 30 awards for his writing. In 2008 Struzik was awarded a ‘Special Merit’ Grantham Prize for Environmental Journalism, and was the recipient of the 18th annual Atkinson Fellowship, which allowed him to travel through the north for a year, researching the changes that are taking place.

Table of Contents

Foreword.

Introduction.

Chapter 1: Nanuq: In the Tracks of the Great Wanderer (Southern Beaufort Sea).

Chapter 2: The Lost World (Brintnell Glacier, Northwest Territories).

Chapter 3: Changing Landscapes (Kluane National Park, Yukon).

Chapter 4: In Northern Mists (Aboard the Louis St. Laurent).

Chapter 5: Arctic Outbreak (Repulse Bay, Nunavut).

Chapter 6: Waking the Dead (Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories).

Chapter 7: IQ (Off the Coast of Northwestern Hudson Bay).

Chapter 8: Caribou Crash (Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island).

Chapter 9: Rich Squirrel, Poor Squirrel (Mile 1004 Alaska Highway, Yukon).

Chapter 10: The Coldest War (Canadian Forces Maritime Warfare Centre, Halifax.

Epilogue.

Acknowledgments.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"An irresistible mix of lyrical writing, adventurous feet-on-the-ground travel, solid reporting and acute observation of the dire things that are happening in the Arctic. We should lock every politician and corporate executive into a room and keep them there until they have read and understood the message Struzik is bringing us. It is that important."
— Marq De Villiers, author of The End: Natural Disasters, Manmade Catastrophes, and the Future of Human Survival

"Traveling in time and space across the Arctic, in The Big Thaw Ed Struzik describes at first hand the most alarming environmental crisis of our times. It's a land that Struzik is passionate about, and he writes of its frozen beauty with an elegance of prose not seen since Barry Lopez' Arctic Dreams."
— Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers

"The top of the world is profoundly different than ever before in human history. Climate change is already influencing the lives of the locals, from Inuit to polar bears. But it's poised to make life hard for the rest of us, too. Ed Struzik gives a canny and compelling tour of a world in dangerous and rapid flux."
— Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet and Deep Economy

"All-embracing, luminous and provocative, The Big Thaw is a fascinating chronicle of an infinite, threatened Canadian Arctic. Struzik expertly melds past and present into a thought-provoking story about what the current global warming means to Canada and the world. He combines the human and scientific narratives into a wonderful synthesis amplified by his own extensive travels through the North. Everyone interested in the implications of a warming planet should read this remarkable book."
— Brian Fagan, archeologist, historian and author of The Great Warming and The Little Ice Age

"Ed Struzik, one of those rare journalists who can paddle a canoe and enjoy a meal of whale blubber, has written an important and shocking book that reads like some new genre of adventure and horror story. As the Arctic melts and unravels faster than the global banking system, The Big Thaw raises some stark questions: Just what will Canada be without ice and snow? And what is a nation without its dreams?"
— Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent

"An important book. Urgent, timely, heartfelt."
— Will Ferguson, author of Beauty Tips Moose Jaw: Travels in Search of Canada

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