Arctic Autumn

June 13, 2011
Following on his Prairie Spring and Bayshore Summer, Dunne explores fall in the Arctic, which, he explains, begins on June 21, the summer solstice, "the day the sun begins its retreat, and the earth begins its six-month slide into the Inuit moon month of Tauvikjuaq, âthe Great Darkness.' " This intimate, opinionated, sometimes rambling, sometimes philosophical journal chronicles Dunne's observations during a series of guided wilderness adventures over this time span, including a canoe trip in the National Petroleum Reserve, where his party disturbed geese during their sensitive molting season and witnessed severe climate changeâinduced coastline erosion of the Beaufort Sea. There's also a polar bear watch from the upscale Tundra Buggy Lodge, a hotel on wheels in Churchill, Manitoba, where polar bears "gang up" in October and November, waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze so they can go hunting, and professional photographers line up for stock shots. Dunne focuses as much on his fellow travelers as the flora and fauna, as much on his internal landscape as the external: a trip to the Barren Lands becomes a cautionary tale of an incompetent tour guide; a caribou hunting trip shares space with Dunne's musings on life, death, and his hunting philosophy. Readers hoping for an unmediated narrative of the far north may be disappointed, but those considering an Arctic adventure will get a realistic taste of this last wilderness.

July 1, 2011

Naturalist Dunne (Bayshore Summer: Finding Eden in a Most Unlikely Place, 2010, etc.)—the vice president of the New Jersey Audubon Society and director of its Cape May Bird Observatory—explores the rigors of the high arctic, a place where life is pushed to its limits by nature and threatened by the incursions of man.

The author begins his chronicle of the emergence of fall in the far north on the Summer Solstice in June 2007—a day when the sun never sets, a harbinger of the cold weather to come. Dunne and his wife had traveled 2,400 miles to Canada's Bylot Island, a spot 25 miles north of Baffin Island, the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. To their west was a marshy plain with the world's largest breeding colony of greater snow geese—all of whom would have migrated to a warmer climate by September—and to the north, the Aktineaq Glacier area. They were there to observe the birds and to witness large caribou herds beginning their migratory journey south. Throughout, the author shares magical experiences, such as the moment when he makes eye contact with a polar bear standing on the ice. However, he writes that his major concern is the threat to the geese and caribou—and to nesting raptors such as peregrines and golden eagles—by the combined destruction of their natural habitat from the effects of global warming and "the colossal oil-extracting infrastructure" that he witnessed during a flight over the coastal plain west of Deadhorse, Alaska.

Readers will look forward to his next book, on winter, the last in a projected four-book series.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2011
More birds than people visit the Arctic regions of North America each summer. They arrive at first thaw, intent on breeding and quickly raising their young before the long winter returns. The Arctic's mammals, other than humans, are residents who have to fatten up during the brief period of abundance. The Inuit have learned to live on the tundra and along the ice-lined coast, but other people, including ornithologist and nature writer Dunne, find Alaska and the northern provinces of Canada challenging terrain. To see the beauty of the wildlife and landscapes, Dunne and his companions have to swat mosquitoes, slog through marshes, fly in rickety planes, and break ice to make coffee. Careful as he is, he finds he can not help but disrupt the delicate balance of life just by being there. In lightly philosophical and sometimes humorous essays, he recounts eight Arctic journeys. Most readers will understand the value of and threat to the Arctic environmentand stay at home in their armchairs, where they belong.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)