Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

I have just finished reading Barry Lopez's study of the Far North, Arctic Dreams and found it thoroughly enjoyable. Lopez is a stunning writer, who seems to bridge the gap between the physical world around and the emotions and feelings that it evokes within us.

It reminded me of Gerald Durrells The Overladed Ark in the attention and significance it places on the lives and patterns of the animals and native people of a foreign land.

Lopez links us to a place through the stories he tells, making us feel as much a part of the landscape as the ice and the snow.

When describing a flock of 250,000 lesser snow geese at Thule Lake Lopez writes "What absorbs me in these birds, beyond their beautiful whiteness, their astounding numbers, the great vigor of their lives, is how adroitly each bird joins the larger flock or departs from it. And how each bird while it is a part of the flock seems part of something larger than itself. Another animal. .......... Their movements are endlessly attractive to the eye because of the tension they create between the extended parabolic lines of their flight and their abrupt but adroit movements, all of it in three dimensions". - Page 154 - 155.

The next book I intent to read is Henry D. Thoreau's Walden, the written record of his experiment in simple living.