CIRCLING THE MIDNIGHT SUN: Voices and Visions of a Changing Circumpolar World

In the tradition of Barry Lopez, Bruce Chatwin and Farley Mowat, Circling the Midnight Sun is both an adventure story and a deeply affecting book that will transform the way we think about northerners and the north.

With 13% of the world's untapped oil and 30% of its undiscovered natural gas located in the Arctic, and melting sea ice expected to open up new trade routes across the pole, the north will be highly visible in our media, our policies and our consciousness in the years ahead. Readers will be looking for knowledgeable guides, and James Raffan is uniquely qualified to fill the role. For Raffan, more than 35 years of expeditions in the north led to the journey of a lifetime: circumnavigating the globe at 66.6ºN, the Arctic Circle. Travelling by canoe, kayak, reindeer sled, dog team, snowmobile, icebreaker and on foot, over the course of three years Raffan moved toward the rising sun. He started in Iceland, then went through Scandinavia, Russia's vast 160 degrees of longitude, across Alaska and Arctic Canada and around Greenland before crossing the Denmark Strait and finishing back in Iceland. Armed with his passion for the region, a keen mind, an anthropologist's eye, and an unquenchable sense of adventure, Raffan set out to put a human face on the north and give diverse and inaccessible regions a voice. What he discovered was shocking, frustrating, entertaining, and enlightening, with the realization that the loss of culture, driven by the same appetites that are causing climate change, is far more threatening than the short term consequences of global warming. Through the framework of the journey, Raffan shares compelling and surprising stories and presents an inspiring way of thinking about people and place. He meets children, adults, elders and engaged teens of more than a dozen different Arctic ethnicities; Chiefs, Presidents, and everyday folk; Sami in Scandinavia, Shamen from Siberia, Santa in many haunts, and residents of the Russian Far East and Shismaref, Alaska, whose communities are in danger of disappearing into the sea. He attends two weddings and a funeral, explores the magic of ravens and sees how the last of the nomadic reindeer herders in Siberia have selectively taken up technology to help them maintain their traditional ways. And at every stop through 24 time zones, Raffan finds beauty, dignity, and hope, even as northern peoples bury their youth as well as their elders, losing both the promise of the future and the deep knowledge of land and language. JAMES RAFFAN is an authority on the north whose articles have appeared in National Geographic, Canadian Geographic, The Globe and Mail, Explore and Up Here. The most recent of his dozen books is the bestseller Emperor of the North, which was a finalist for the J.W. Dafoe Book Prize. Raffan is a Fellow of the Explorer's Club, a Fellow, former Governor and medalist of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, has served as chair of the Arctic Institute of North America, and is a recipient of the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals. He's an incredibly informed and engaging speaker, and funded much of the travel for this book that way. On the international stage, he's been sponsored by schools, universities, professional associations and organizations like Round Square International and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He has done speaking tours in the UK (four times), and Australia (three times). While gathering research for the book, James did a multi-city Russian speaking tour travelling to Moscow, Khanty-Mansiysk, Lovozero, Murmansk, Yakutsk, Anadyr, Seliyarovo, Kushik, Salekhard, and he's also spoken in Ushuaia, Argentina and did a lecture tour in Cuba sponsored by the Evergreen Foundation and the Foundation of Nature and Culture. In the US he's led workshops at St. Lawrence University and the State University of New York, spoken at the Hulbert Outdoor Centre in Vermont, and given presentations over the past decade in Chicago, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Grayling Michigan and Lake Tahoe. He's been invited to do a series of talks next year hosted by the Center for Circumpolar Studies in St. Johnsbury, VT. His recent presentation on "The North: The World in Seven Years" was recorded for CBC radio's program "Ideas," which will air across North America this fall.