One woman's Arctic,

by Sheila Burnford

book

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Sheila Philip Cochrane Burnford, née Every, (11 May 1918 – 20 April 1984) was an English novelist.

Born in Scotland but brought up in various parts of the United Kingdom, she attended St. George's School, Edinburgh and Harrogate Ladies College. In 1941 she married Doctor David Burnford, with whom she had three children. During World War II she worked as a volunteer ambulance driver. In 1951 she emigrated to Canada, settling in Port Arthur, Ontario.

Burnford is best remembered for The Incredible Journey, a story about three animals traveling in the wilderness (1961), the first of a number of books she wrote on Canadian topics. The book was a modest success in 1961 but became a bestseller after it formed the basis of a successful Disney film. Although The Incredible Journey is marketed as a children's book, and in fact won the 1961 Canadian Children's Book of the Year award, Mrs Burnford has stated that it was not intended as a children's book.

She also wrote One Woman's Arctic (1973) about her two summers in Pond Inlet, Nunavut on Baffin Island. She traveled by komatik, a traditional Inuit dog sled, assisted in archaeological excavation, having to thaw the land inch by inch, ate everything offered to her, and saw the migration of the narwhals. This is a world that has experienced unlimited change, but Burnford saw the best and worst of Pond Inlet at a time gone forever.

She died of cancer in the village of Bucklers Hard in Hampshire at the age of 65.

Reviews

[JimBee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very clear, poetic, and sympathetic portrait of a land in transition (1973) by the author of one of my favourite books as a child, The Incredible Journey.

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering this is written by a white British woman in the 70s, this book is refreshingly curious and not nearly as racist as it could be. Many of her thoughts and observations of the Inuit people, and white peoples ideas about them, were fairly progressive and ahead of her time. You can tell that Sheila genuinely loved and respected the Canadian arctic and the Inuit people. She was brave and had a fierce desire to learn over being judgmental and feeling superior. However, she experienced an established Inuit “settlement” by white standards, which was not the reality of many Inuit at the time.
It feels like a love letter to the Canadian arctic.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a nostalgia read, this was very enjoyable for me. I'm not sure this book would be widely appealing unless you're as fascinated by the Arctic and the history of polar exploration as I am. The book isn't about exploration per se, it's more of a "stranger encountering other culture" book. Enjoyable overall for me.

[Rebecka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is perhaps not the kind of book you can't put down, and it did actually take me half a year to read it, but in the end I did really like it. It is beautifully written and gives a very interesting introduction to Eskimo society, without any pretense at being exhaustive. It's full of details on arctic nature and life. I just wished she would have written more about the language!