Review by Booklist Review
In his books, Mowat championed the Inuit against the encroachments of the kablunait, the whites, and as a result, Canadian officialdom was never his biggest fan. In 1966, it was promoting a development scheme for the Arctic advertised as the "Northern Vision" when the famous gadfly traveled by float plane to see the vision firsthand. Mowat laid in sufficient rum for himself and his flying companions, and this medicinal aid allayed taut nerves in many a harrowing flight, recounted here in gallows humor as the author describes mountains flashing by, weather closing in, or gas running out. Clearly life in the north, even with planes and tawdry prefab housing, is precarious, and Mowat's quest asked whether their introduction as part of the vision did the Inuit any favors. Answers depended upon whom he asked, and Mowat builds his narrative around responses from Hudson's Bay Company managers, Christian missionaries, and when the kablunait were out of earshot, the Inuit themselves. Though a 36-year-old event, Mowat's trip touches on continuing environmental and cultural themes. The same great readership he built from his passion for nature and the Inuit will also be thrilled by the new biography Farley by James King (see review on p.834). --Gilbert Taylor
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
After having written more than 35 books, most of them dealing in some fashion with the vastness of Canada's northern regions, it seems at first implausible that Mowat (Never Cry Wolf; The Farfarers; Walking on the Land; etc.) could have anything left to say on the subject. This splendid effort proves how wrong such an assumption would be. In 1966, Mowat's publisher, Jack McClelland, sent Mowat into northern Canada to research an illustrated volume on the region. This book is the tale of that journey. Hopscotching by creaky plane from one isolated settlement to another, Mowat witnesses the devastation being wrought on the native peoples by encroaching white men, lured by a mirage of the north's supposedly limitless minerals and the raw beauty of the land and its people. A cavalcade of vivid, fiction-worthy characters fills these pages: brusque missionaries, embittered native elders, soldiers drunk with cabin fever, and the tragic ghosts of the natives and early Viking explorers who once traversed these bracingly gorgeous lands. Voiced with a passionate sense of justice, this work is stirring reading from the bard of the Canadian north. (Mar. 1) Forecast: The near-simultaneous publication of Farley: The Life of Farley Mowat, by James King (Forecasts, Dec. 16, 2002), should help this book get some publicity. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In 1966, Mowat (The Farfarers; Never Cry Wolf) traveled extensively throughout north and Arctic Canada recording Eskimos', Inuits', and others' thoughts and feelings about Ottawa's "Northern Vision" campaign. This plan called for the extraction of valuable resources, the removal of natives from their traditional homelands, new city development, and, in the process, the eradication of the northern peoples' cultures. Interspersed among the interviews are details of Mowat's travels (both terrestrial and aerial), archaeological and anthropological information, and regional and federal political shenanigans. The book is unsettling, and some actions taken in the name of native "education" are appalling. Mowat published Canada North (updated in 1976 as The Great Betrayal: Arctic Canada Now) after his trip, but it contained no information about the journey itself. High Latitudes is classic Mowat: goading, engaging, and filled with natural descriptions of the Arctic's people and places. Would the publication of this book in the 1960s have altered Canada's history? Probably not, since greed outweighs and usually out-motivates altruistic drives. The book would benefit from an epilog detailing what has happened to the towns, people, and the "Northern Vision" campaign. With a foreword by Margaret Atwood, this is recommended for public libraries.-Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A 1966 journey across northern Canada, much of it above the Arctic Circle. Here's vintage Mowat (Aftermath, 1996, etc.), highly evocative and in full piss-and-vinegar mode, from the land he loves best. The Canadian government, in 1966, is in the midst of a "clearance scheme" to move Inuit populations to locations more convenient for controlling them. This, justly, raises Mowat's ire, especially as it's accompanied by moves to exploit any resources found in the area. The propaganda message sent out by the Canadian government was that the far north was a barren wasteland with few inhabitants, and it's Mowat's intent to disabuse Canadians of such malarkey and let the people who live in the area, both the Inuit and those of European origin, speak for themselves. Long passages are in the words of the inhabitants, from administrators who realize that, in a better world, the Inuits' "real jobs would be doing what they've always done, and really like doing" to an Inuit explaining how his people "mostly think and talk about the past. Never talking about the future more than a day or two away. . . . Life for them is right now; but looking back too." The notion is particularly poignant as the Inuits' cultural history is falling apart all around them as a result of the relocation program. Mowat deploys a two-pronged attack. Fully appreciating that some Canadians may not give a hoot about the Inuit, he sharply describes the vibrant, beautiful, living world of the Arctic north and its fabulous (albeit overhunted) wildlife. But never far away are instances of segregation, disease, missionary interference, wrongheaded-culturally genocidal-governmental actions. Mowat isn't one to let them pass unmentioned. A fine slice out of Mowat time, along with the sound of voices so remote that they take your breath away and rouse your instinct to wonder-just as Mowat wished.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
