Ice Walker

From the top of the world, Hudson Bay looks like an enormous paw print on the torso of the continent, and through a vast network of lakes and rivers, this bay connects to oceans across the globe. Here, at the heart of everything, walks Nanurjuk, or Nanu, one polar bear among the six thousand that traverse the 1.23 million square kilometers of ice and snow covering the bay.

For millennia, Nanu's ancestors have roamed this great expanse, living, evolving, and surviving alongside human beings in one of the most challenging and unforgiving habitats on earth. But that world is changing. In the Arctic's lands and waters, oil has been extractedand spilled. As global temperatures have risen, the sea ice that Nanu and her young need to hunt seal and fish has melted, forcing them to wait on land where the delicate balance between them and their two-legged neighbors has now shifted.

This is the icescape that author and geographer James Raffan invites us to inhabit inIce Walker. In precise and provocative prose, he brings readers inside Nanu's world as she treks uncertainly around the heart of Hudson Bay, searching for nourishment for the children that grow inside her. She stops at nothing to protect her cubs from the dangers she can seeother bears, wolves, whales, human beingsand those she cannot.

By focusing his lens on this bear family, Raffan closes the gap between humans and bears, showing us how, like the water of the Hudson Bay, our existenceand our futureis tied to Nanu's. He asks us to consider what might be done about this fragile world before it is gone for good. Masterful, vivid, and haunting,Ice Walkeris an utterly unique piece of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting call to action. (From Simon & Schuster)

JamesRaffan is a writer, teacher, geographer and adventurer. He has written more than 20 books,Circling the Midnight Sun,Emperor of the NorthandSummer North of Sixty.His work has appeared in several Canadian media outlets, including the Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic and CBC. In 2020, Canadian Geographicnamed him one of the "90 most influential explorers in the nation's recorded history."

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Interviews with James Raffan

The Next Chapter12:27James Raffan on Ice Walker: A Polar Bear's Journey Through the Fragile Arctic

James Raffan talks to Shelagh Rogers about his book, Ice Walker: A Polar Bear's Journey Through the Fragile Arctic.

Quirks and Quarks14:43Ice Walker a mother polar bear's precarious existence in the changing Arctic

A naturalist channels a mother polar bear to tell the story of environmental change

James Raffan on climate, culture in Arctic

10 years ago

Duration 11:23

The author talks about his new book called Circling the Midnight Sun.

The Next Chapter26:18TNC Special - James Raffan

Shelagh's extended conversation with James Raffan, author of "Circling the Midnight Sun".

Other books by James Raffan