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Ice Bear
The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon
Michael Engelhard
"Iconic is the marketing cliché of our times, applied as unthinkingly to wildlife as it is to biscuits. But here, Michael Engelhard digs deeper, tracing how the polar bear came to occupy its place in contemporary culture and, in the process, suggesting what the mechanics of iconography say about us." - Mike Unwin, BBC Wildlife Magazine
"The product of Engelhards exhaustive research is an eclectic, comprehensive, compelling, and very readable cultural iconography elevated to a level of art form by the inclusion of well-chosen and often stunning illustrations on almost every page. Ice Bear is a visual National Geographic with real verbal punch!" - Marilyn Gates, New York Journal of Books
"Engelhard, a Fairbanks resident, is trained as a cultural anthropologist and works as a wilderness guide in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The combination makes him uniquely qualified to have authored this fascinating and extensively illustrated exploration of humanity's deeply complicated relationship with an animal he is well acquainted with." - David A. James, Alaska Dispatch News
"[A] beautifully illustrated, hugely engaging book. . . . For all its nightmare-haunting power, however, the aspect of the polar bear that really makes it an icon of the age is its vulnerability . . . . Another merit of the book is the author's willingness to track these themes to their origins."- Mark Cocker, The Spectator
"Engelhard has an apt and unusual background for a book such as this… He knows not only the European and North American histories of confronting the animal, but also the many ways in which the Inuit in Canada, the Inupiat in Alaska, the Chukchi and Yakut in Siberia, and other Arctic-dwelling peoples have survived and continue to survive in close proximity to polar bears. Among the strengths of Ice Bear is its grasp of the rituals by which humans have always aspired to draw the strength of the polar bear into themselves, using claws and teeth and bones as amulets, transforming the creature into a guardian spirit. " - Mark Abley, Times Literary Supplement
Prime Arctic predator and nomad of the sea ice and tundra, the polar bear endures as a source of wonder, terror, and fascination. Humans have seen it as spirit guide and fanged enemy, as trade good and moral metaphor, as food source and symbol of ecological crisis. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. In the White Bear, we acknowledge the magic of wildness: it is both genuinely itself and a screen for our imagination. Ice Bear traces and illuminates this intertwined history. From Inuit shamans to Jean Harlow lounging on a bearskin rug, from the cubs trained to pull sleds toward the North Pole to cuddly superstar Knut, it all comes to life in these pages. With meticulous research and more than 160 illustrations, the author brings into focus this powerful and elusive animal. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about Natureand about ourselveshoping for a future in which such tales still matter.
Michael Engelhard works as a wilderness guide in Arctic Alaska and holds an MA in cultural anthropology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His books include Where the Rain Children Sleep: A Sacred Geography of the Colorado Plateau, the anthology Wild Moments: Adventures with Animals of the North, and a recent essay collection, American Wild: Explorations from the Grand Canyon to the Arctic Ocean. His writing has also appeared in Sierra, Outside, Audubon, National Wildlife, National Parks, High Country News, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
University of Washington Press
October 2016 304pp 170 illus., 145 in color, 1 map 9780295999227 PB £25.99 now only £20.79* when you quote CSL117IBLS when you order
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