Arctic Memories: Living with the Inuit

Charlene Porsild is a visiting Fulbright Scholar in the Department of
History, University of Colorado.

This work is a recollection in words and photographs of Fred
Bruemmer’s 30 years among Arctic people. From Greenland to Labrador,
from Resolute Bay to Alaska, Bruemmer introduces the reader to Inuit
hunting and fishing families and describes a fast-vanishing way of life.
His introduction is an excellent chronicle of the Inuit’s recent past
as he experienced it.

As gifted with the lens as he is with the pen, Bruemmer successfully
combines oral tradition, written sources, and personal experiences to
acquaint readers with the long history of the Inuit. He chronicles many
of the “old ways,” and obviously finds their passing lamentable,
although he does not reveal the opinions of his many Inuit friends and
acquaintances on the subject. Bruemmer ends his story with his last
visit to the Arctic, in 1990. He evaluates the effects of the
now-permanent Inuit villages in the North. The positive effects stemming
from the regulation of alcohol in these communities are in Bruemmer’s
view offset by the rise in such afflictions as cancer and heart disease.

Although the book is generally well-written, at times the author’s
autobiographical material overwhelms his subject (which is, after all,
the Inuit). The text would have been enhanced by the inclusion of a few
well-chosen maps. Overall, though, Arctic Memories stands as an informed
chronicle of the changes that have occurred in Inuit communities over
the last three decades.