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Download Arctic Wild Lois Crisler 9781447424031 Books

"terrific book and arrived on time and in good shape. recommend it to anyone wanting info and stories about Alaska."

Product details Paperback 348 pages Publisher Ramage Press (August 11, 2011) Language English ISBN-10 1447424034

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Arctic Wild Lois Crisler 9781447424031 Books Reviews :

Arctic Wild Lois Crisler 9781447424031 Books Reviews

• Arctic Wild Lois Crisler
  
  This review is of the 1958 hardcover edition of the 1956 copyrighted Arctic Wild. The book was in excellent condition with a still very serviceable dust jacket. The story is about Lois and Herb (Chris) Crisler’s 18 month assignment by Disney to film wildlife, caribou in particular, north of the Arctic Circle in the Brooks Range. Save for a winter’s stay in Point Barrow, the Crisler’s live in tents and a small cracker box “shack” they erected on a shoestring budget with comparatively speaking primitive gear for general purposes and survival.
  
  The book is metaphorically beautiful without the author over doing the flowery approach too often embraced by others. Crisler’s writing style is perfect for explaining the colors and moods of colors, shadows, mountains and the animals of their arctic home. At the same time her style seems a bit awkward, not as an insult, but at times one feels like they’re reading from the Yoda of Star Wars fame school of writing. Some of the vocabulary, at least for the modern reader is rather archaic, with inclusions of words such as dunnage. The only shortcoming the book may have is not including a map of where they were living and filming. And as an aside, I’ve read in the past that the mosquitoes of the tundra can make life most unbearable, but Crisler barely mentions them.
  
  During the course of their survival and work in the Arctic Wild, they raise two wolf pups, and later five more, plus an Eskimo sled/pack dog. The first half of the book focuses upon daily life, primitive to say the least, and locating the migrating caribou in order to film them during their spring and autumn migrations. The second half of the book, though still focusing on caribou and the land, becomes more philosophical and brings the wolves into the forefront.
  
  One must search far and wide to find a book, any book in popular literature, prior to perhaps Barry Lopez of Wolves and Men, that puts wolves in a positive perspective, pushing aside the myths of the past of blood thirsty killers and Little Red Riding Hood. The Crisler’s actually lived with the wolves in their world, and came to understand the ways of the wolf, which lead to a unique inter species relationship.
  
  The Crisler’s also experienced “a happiness all but unknown any longer, to be accepted fearlessly by wild creatures,” when they found their camp in the middle of a colony of nesting Alaska-Lapland longspurs. Then Crisler philosophically mourns that if one stays in wilderness long enough, “you get the feeling like a pariah every living thing shuns you. The shadow of human cruelty covers Earth. Unnoticed, it darkens the spirits of humans themselves.” A calmness and natural curiosity inhabits many creatures great and small, and the Crislers were able to live among these creatures. The author captures fleeting moments of this age of primitive acceptance and understanding of the natural world, all but vacant among humanity.
  
  The Crisler’s were also one of the first to truly understand the impact of the White Man on Caribou, a “story of destruction.” It was estimated that one or two million caribou roamed the lands of Alaska prior to the coming of the White Man. “The white men and eskimos armed with the white man’s weapons... “ fires set by trappers and miners over the course of fifty years burned over 80% of the white spruce forest, and with it the lichen on which the caribou depended on their winter range. Lastly the influx of whalers who killed anything they could find, and the import of reindeer which “ate out old lichen ranges turned certain areas into literal deserts.
  
  As so much of Arctic Wild involves the seven adopted wolves with which the Crisler’s lived, we find a seminal philosophy emerging that challenged the status quo and the scape goating of wolves. The question arises “why then do people hate wolves and seek to exterminate them? Probably for the same reasons as they do people.” “The ambivalent ape likes to be irascible but righteous. And professional wolf haters-Olaf’s Murie’s phrase” capitalize on the weakness of men, men who like war, a weakness which is a constant menace to peaceful behavior, and transpose it upon wolves. Crisler writes, “wolves are not a menace to the wilds but the orgies of wolf hate are. Wolves themselves are a balance wheel of nature.” This is perhaps the first time in popular literature that an author writes about the positive effect of wolves in their environment.
  
  As this reviewer gets older, his bark also becomes thinner. Living on the edge of wilderness with a couple of dogs, one discovers the fine line between domestic and wild, which helps one perceive the intricacies of wolves, their behavior and their prey, as submitted by Lois Crisler. There are a couple three moments in Crisler’s Arctic Wild that brought tears to my eyes, with Crisler’s spare but poignant prose. Lois Crisler’s Arctic Wild is an all but forgotten gem, a journey by a husband and wife to the northern wilds of Alaska to document Caribou, and becomes perhaps the first book in popular literature to present wolves in a positive light. One of those books, where one finds a certain sadness after completion of reading. Arctic Wild is well worth the effort to find, and read.
• This is a wonderful story by the wildlife photographers filming the Arctic Caribou for the Walt Disney film documentary about the Arctic in far north Alaska.
• This book gives you a great look at not just wolves but the artic as well. I found myself actually taking my time reading it because of how well it was written. It's a bit discriptive, and there are a few animals you might have to look up to get an idea of what they look like, but it's a good book. Be warned there are sad parts.
• I HAVE BOTH OF LOIS'S BOOK ON THE SUBJECT. THEY ONLY GET BETTER AND BETTER.
  
  HAVE HAD A LOVE AFFAIR WITH "THE GRAY BROTHERHOOD" FOR ALMOST THIRTY YEARS.
  
  INCLUDING TWO RESCUES. THE BEST INSIGHTS INTO WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT LIVING WITH A
  
  WOLF. ANY MEASURE OF SUCESS I MAY HAVE HAD I OWE TO LOIS AND HER SHARED EXPERIENCES.
• terrific book and arrived on time and in good shape. recommend it to anyone wanting info and stories about Alaska.
• I just completed a re-read after a 50 year gap. The book is all i remembered and more. I recommend this book to everyone!
• Excellent copy w/ good photo repros! This softcover is the same quality as my hardback copy. Great info for anyone who believes that wolves in the wild are extremely dangerous to humans. A true experience and repudiation of this misconception!
• Awesome !!!!