The Inuit Way

A Journey across Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Edward Cooper

• Publisher: Journey Books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781784779702
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

The Inuit Way is a mesmerising take on polar travel by explorer and award-winning researcher Edward Cooper. It is a gripping account of the author's travels across northwest Greenland, where he spent several months living and hunting with the Inuit. From there, Cooper and teammate venture across the sea ice on to the Canadian Arctic islands. Here, Cooper's quest is to track down a note left by David Haig-Thomas, a British Arctic explorer, nearly a hundred years previously.

Suffering from snow blindness and frostbite, Fighting off hungry polar bears, surrounded by the white wolves of Ellesmere Island, Edward Cooper and teammate, who was suffering from snow blindness and frostbite, discover a land steeped in culture and history.

Part travelogue, part adventure and part history, this is a thrilling polar travel narrative that offers insights into the people that live in the Arctic year-round. Meet Mikael, a young Inuit hunter who sleeps in a small tent on the sea ice, and fishes for halibut during the winter months. Join Cooper in watching Inuit hunters coach crack teams of dogs across the ice in the year's first dog race. Get to know a former Danish drug smuggler turned hunter. Experience the realities of Arctic life - drinking water carved from icebergs by giant trucks, and the constraints imposed on sanitation by permafrost and freezing temperatures. And journey with Cooper on a life-endangering expedition, where he falls through a crack in the ice into icy waters while watching his teammate continue onwards, oblivious to danger.

Reflecting on his experience, Cooper appraises Haig-Thomas's legacy from his time in Greenland, and considers how life has evolved for Inuit families across the following century. Above all, Cooper sensitively discusses Greenland as a litmus test for a world that is evolving geopolitically and through climate change. The Inuit Way is a fascinating book that will be enjoyed by intrepid travellers, adventure junkies, polar enthusiasts, and armchair or real-life explorers as well as people interested in the environment, fishing or indigenous communities.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Author
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Lost
• chapter 2 Haig-Thomas and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago
• chapter 3 The Place of a Thousand Icebergs – Ilulissat
• chapter 4 The New Thule – Qaanaaq
• chapter 5 Star Stones – Qaanaaq
• chapter 6 Back to the Drawing Board – London
• chapter 7 Into the Cold – Qaanaaq
• chapter 8 The First Sunrise – Qaanaaq
• chapter 9 The Coldest Catch – Qaanaaq
• chapter 10 A New Arrival – Qaanaaq
• chapter 11 Freezing Cold in Qeqertarsuaq
• chapter 12 The Old Hunter
• chapter 13 Playing the Walrus
• chapter 14 A Final Challenge – Bowdoin Fjord
• chapter 15 Green for Go – Resolute Bay
• chapter 16 Eureka! – Ellesmere Island
• chapter 17 Cold – Eureka Sound
• chapter 18 Bears – Axel Heiberg
• chapter 19 Accept and Adapt – Axel Heiberg
• chapter 20 The Final Push – Haig-Thomas Island
• chapter 21 The Journey Back – London
• Back Cover