The Arctic Sky: Inuit Astronomy, Star Lore, and Legend

Kerry Abel is a professor of history at Carleton University. She is the author of Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History, co-editor of Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada: Historical and Legal Aspects, and co-editor of Northern Visions: New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History.

There has been a good deal of discussion in scientific circles recently
about the need to recognize the “traditional” knowledge of
non-Western societies. Many scientists believe that such knowledge is at
worst superstition and at best unusable for scientific purposes; more
sympathetic scholars find it difficult to identify points of
intersection between Western and non-Western ideas about the universe.
This book is an intriguing attempt to translate Inuit ideas about the
cosmos into terms comprehensible to outsiders.

For a decade, the author and a group of elders at Igloolik in the
east-central Arctic explored their knowledge about the heavens. What
began simply as a project to record Inuit names for heavenly bodies
turned into a much larger undertaking that provides insight into a way
of life and a worldview—cosmology in its broadest meaning. We learn
about the origins of the sun and moon, the stories behind major
constellations, and how weather can be predicted or navigation perfected
with close observation of celestial phenomena. We also learn a good deal
about Inuit religion and values. Wonderful stories told by elders for
the purposes of the project are reproduced at length in both English and
Inuktitut, and are supplemented by stories from beyond Igloolik and
published elsewhere.

The Arctic Sky is beautifully produced with fine color illustrations,
intriguing drawings, and helpful charts. But this is no coffee-table
book. The text is deep and rich. The author manages to combine his
scholarly research and style with the voices of the elders in an
effective and sensitive way. There is a refreshing lack of claims to
absolute authority as the author notes carefully where there are
variations in naming, story, and explanation. The oral traditions are
allowed to stand on their own, but the author has also done some
excellent research in a range of non-Inuit documentary sources, and the
volume has a very useful bibliography.

In short, this is a fascinating book that deserves to be widely known
and appreciated for both its content and its form.