Rating: 
Summary: This Cold Heaven
Review: I loved this book! I had to make myself put it down in order to eat/sleep, ect. As a dog lover, I was especially touched by the author's description of the REAL relationship between the Inuit hunters and their dogs- mutual respect, patience and genuine love in many cases. Yes, it's a hard life and the dogs aren't pets, they work hard and sometimes get hurt or killed in the harsh climate, but the only people in the book who were described as intentionally abusing dogs were a party of European tourists. The Inuit hunters who came upon this disgusting scene winced and looked disgusted saying "you train them with your voice, not by beating them" or words to that effect.
I was impressed with the patience, honesty, bravery and efficency of these isolated people, who treated Ms. Ehrlich with kindness and eventually a grudging respect even though they were clearly not always happy to have her along and in the way.The Inuit may not be sentimental about things, but they are Real, and Real means a lot in this artificial world.
Rating: 
Summary: Sloppy writing mars a very worth project
Review: It's a shame that the author couldn't attempt to be both more genuinely "poetic" (instead of vague and clumsy) and more journalistically committed to the people and landscape of Greenland. For those of us fascinated by the place, this book is worth a browse at least; a better one remains to be written.
Rating:
Summary: Tough Guys Eat Seal Meat
Review: My fellow Wyo resident Gretel Ehrlich has never been a personal favorite of mine - I have found her writing a bit bloodless and strident. This Cold Heaven is no exception. Fortunately in this case, bloodless not only works, it is preferable. The native residents of Greenland are a hardcore bunch of seal-eating, dog whipping, communal living Last Best Men and their stories rival any on the planet for sheer toughness. Ehrlich packs her book with tales of ice explorers like Peter Freuschen and Knud Rasmussen, who make the cowboys, Marines and murderous I have known seem as simpering as Boy George and Anne Heche off their Wellbutrin. The author weaves their tales cleverly among her own personal accounts of more modest contemporary adventures, although we never really get to see what drives Ehrlich to this place. Maybe that doesn't matter. Ignore the Luddite whining that stains books like these and you're in for a treat.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant book
Review: Ten years ago, I thought taking a ferry up the west coast of Greenland would be a great vacation. I'll never get there, but Gretel Ehrlich's book about her several trips to the northwest Greenland towns of Uummannaq, Illorsuit, and Qaanaaq has more than satisfied my curiosity. The book is an astounding look at as remote a spot as still exists on earth today -- an area so isolated by ice and weather that the way of life seems primitive beyond belief -- and the people who live there. Qaanaaq is so far north that the sun never rises from late October until February, and never sets for four months in the spring and summer. Most of the people in these towns are subsistence hunters, relying on the seals, walrus, narwhals, polar bears, caribou, hares, foxes, and birds they can catch to feed and clothe them (there are basically no edible plants there except berries). Until recently their houses were built of stone and peat, and even today most belongings and equipment are made of stone or animal body parts. Ehrlich presents the brutal difficulty of the hardscrabble life in detail, yet still conveys the Greenlandic love of this way of life so well that you are saddened to learn that the encroaching reach of consumer society and global climate change may bring it to an end. Ehrlich's descriptions of her travels and the people she meets (for example, the dogsled maker "who knew all about trees but had never seen one growing") are fascinating and incisive. There are also several interesting chapters recounting the explorations of Knud Rasmussen, a Greenlandic national hero who traveled northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic documenting the Inuit culture. Ehrlich's obsession with Rockwell Kent, an artist who spent time in Illorsuit, is less interesting. The weakest part of the book is Ehrlich's tendency to jump from crystalline narration into amorphous, abstract reveries ("Darkness reconciles all time and disparity. It is a kind of rapture in which life is no longer lived brokenly."); thankfully, these moments become fewer as the book goes on. People who are morally opposed to hunting are hereby warned that several long chapters cover Ehrlich accompanying locals on hunting trips by dogsled. (1=poor 2=mediocre 3=pretty good 4=very good 5=phenomenal)
Rating:
Summary: Ehrlich's amazing travelogue of northern Greenland
Review: Ten years ago, I thought taking a ferry up the west coast of Greenland would be a great vacation. I'll never get there, but Gretel Ehrlich's book about her several trips to the northwest Greenland towns of Uummannaq, Illorsuit, and Qaanaaq has more than satisfied my curiosity. The book is an astounding look at as remote a spot as still exists on earth today -- an area so isolated by ice and weather that the way of life seems primitive beyond belief -- and the people who live there. Qaanaaq is so far north that the sun never rises from late October until February, and never sets for four months in the spring and summer. Most of the people in these towns are subsistence hunters, relying on the seals, walrus, narwhals, polar bears, caribou, hares, foxes, and birds they can catch to feed and clothe them (there are basically no edible plants there except berries). Until recently their houses were built of stone and peat, and even today most belongings and equipment are made of stone or animal body parts. Ehrlich presents the brutal difficulty of the hardscrabble life in detail, yet still conveys the Greenlandic love of this way of life so well that you are saddened to learn that the encroaching reach of consumer society and global climate change may bring it to an end. Ehrlich's descriptions of her travels and the people she meets (for example, the dogsled maker "who knew all about trees but had never seen one growing") are fascinating and incisive. There are also several interesting chapters recounting the explorations of Knud Rasmussen, a Greenlandic national hero who traveled northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic documenting the Inuit culture. Ehrlich's obsession with Rockwell Kent, an artist who spent time in Illorsuit, is less interesting. The weakest part of the book is Ehrlich's tendency to jump from crystalline narration into amorphous, abstract reveries ("Darkness reconciles all time and disparity. It is a kind of rapture in which life is no longer lived brokenly."); thankfully, these moments become fewer as the book goes on. People who are morally opposed to hunting are hereby warned that several long chapters cover Ehrlich accompanying locals on hunting trips by dogsled. (1=poor 2=mediocre 3=pretty good 4=very good 5=phenomenal)
Rating:
Summary: The Poetry of Life on Ice
Review: There are books and then there are "fulcrum" books. "This Cold
Heaven" is one of those that tips the reader into a place and
people that changes the light with which the world is seen.
The Greenland that Gretel Ehrlich describes will never
be experienced by the vast number of us
(thankfully so, for its own sake), but no reader will ever
doubt the impact of the beauty and harshness of the
Arctic environment on those who live there. To convey
to us a sense of that remote place and its animals and
the Inuit people is Ehrlich's passion and her genius.
Unlike some writers who spend a few months in research
and then write with mock authority, her voice has been
Greenland-seasoned seven times since 1993. Her view is
subtle and encompassing, yet leavened with the humility
of one who comes from the outside looking in. Ehrlich's writing style is richly poetic, strong in metaphor
and allusion. By interrupting her own lyric voice
with the deliberate descriptions of early Arctic
explorers, she creates a blend of the fanciful and the
matter-of-fact that broadly reflects the Inuit
view of life, past and present. In the end, however,
and inspite of her admiration for the subsitence hunter,
she squarely questions the viability of the traditional lifestyle
in the face of modern consumerism. The answer, Ehrlich suggests,
is the one we've come to expect and, tragically, to accept. Lest the reader fancies that traveling to Greenland to sample
a subsistence life is a good idea, hold on to this: you
don't belong there. Let this book be your window and your
mirror. Use it to visit a wisdom that, with any luck, may
affect you at your very core.
Rating:
Summary: The Poetry of Life on Ice
Review: There are books and then there are "fulcrum" books. "This Cold
Heaven" is one of those that tips the reader into a place and
people that changes the light with which the world is seen.
The Greenland that Gretel Ehrlich describes will never
be experienced by the vast number of us
(thankfully so, for its own sake), but no reader will ever
doubt the impact of the beauty and harshness of the
Arctic environment on those who live there. To convey
to us a sense of that remote place and its animals and
the Inuit people is Ehrlich's passion and her genius.
Unlike some writers who spend a few months in research
and then write with mock authority, her voice has been
Greenland-seasoned seven times since 1993. Her view is
subtle and encompassing, yet leavened with the humility
of one who comes from the outside looking in. Ehrlich's writing style is richly poetic, strong in metaphor
and allusion. By interrupting her own lyric voice
with the deliberate descriptions of early Arctic
explorers, she creates a blend of the fanciful and the
matter-of-fact that broadly reflects the Inuit
view of life, past and present. In the end, however,
and inspite of her admiration for the subsitence hunter,
she squarely questions the viability of the traditional lifestyle
in the face of modern consumerism. The answer, Ehrlich suggests,
is the one we've come to expect and, tragically, to accept. Lest the reader fancies that traveling to Greenland to sample
a subsistence life is a good idea, hold on to this: you
don't belong there. Let this book be your window and your
mirror. Use it to visit a wisdom that, with any luck, may
affect you at your very core.
Rating:
Summary: This Cold Heaven
Review: This book was a treasure that fell, I don't remember whether one morning or night, from Book TV. Being of Norwegian ancestry, and having ancient voyagers in my direct line, I became fascinated with the author's story. Hoping to find some tales of native legends and myths of the kind that Sigrid Undset's historical novels had first drawn to my attention, I bought the book. I was not disappointed. Ehrlich weaves her words by alternating the fabric of her seven seasons with allied chapters of other Northern wanderers and explorers. This organization, I feel, makes the book somewhat hard to read in two or three sittings. Yet every page is worth the effort. Having flown over both Greenland and Iceland, I can verify that Greenland is white and Iceland is green. But snow and ice is not just white, and a sled is not just a sled. Erhlich's language is richly nuanced and lyrical. She has the gift of writing prose like a poet. Having lived her stories, she knows her subject, and you easily feel yourself in her shoes as she relates her experiences. Little gems keep falling from her pages, like the story about the artist, Rockwell Kent, who had lived in Greenland. This immediately explains the stark beauty of his block prints. Treat yourself to this book and read it on some dark and stormy night -- or to cool off on a hot summer afternoon. Either way, you will be refreshed by the experience.
Rating:
Summary: A Warm Book for a cold winter night . . . really!
Review: This woman truly loves the high north, with all its paradox and ambivalence . . . Erlich paints the beauty and complexity of northern Greenland (before reading this book it never occurred to me to think of Greenland as HAVING a "north" and "south"!) and the struggle a tiny minority are having to maintain their ancient -- and sustainable -- ways of life. I'd classify this first of all as a love story between woman and land, but it is a love story in which the sentient observer is aware of the problems with the beloved, and yet still remains committed.
This is not a "been there, seen that, got the T-shirt" travel book -- Erlich is drawn to Greenland no fewer than seven times, in various seasons, and she lives with the people in traditional housing (including tents on the ice). She encounters the brutality of bureaucracy as well as the incredible hospitality of the Inuit -- and at the same time she does not shrink from the pervasive alcoholism and domestic violence that are a sad feature of northern life, nor does she neglect to mention the impact even in Greenland of the growing pollution in "the south" (i.e. North America). Her thesis is essentially Romantic in a philosophic sense . . . subsistence living was/is hard but authentic. The coming of modernity, with its internet connection, TV, store-bought goods, etc., has removed both the means and the incentive for a life of integrity. She leaves it to the reader to see the Greenlandic experience as paradigmatic of the wider world.
Read this book - it will lift your heart and trouble your mind, and leave you wanting more.
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