Stay cool this summer with these arctic book recs  

Between days with nice breezes, cold drinks and plenty of air conditioning to spare, the stifling cloudless days of deep summer can be a struggle to get through. But what better route of escape is there than through literature? With these four books, you’ll be able to step out of the sunburn and mosquitoes for a moment of glacial peace. 

Book #1: “A Dream in Polar Fog” by Yuri Rytkheu  

Unlike the vast majority of arctic survival novels out there, Yuri Rytkheu’s “A Dream in Polar Fog” stands out for centering the life and culture of Indigenous Siberians. Set in the early 1900s, the book follows John MacLennan, a Canadian sailor who is abandoned by his crewmates in the Tundra when a freak accident with dynamite causes him to lose both of his hands. Cut off from his old world, John must build a new life with the Chukchi, an indigenous tribe in the easternmost reaches of Siberia. As John finds his new family and adopts Chukchi culture, the encroaching colonialism of the United States, Canada and Russia pose new threats to the indigenous way of life.  

Rytkheu is a member of the Chukchi himself and is widely considered to be the father of Chukchi literature, and in this novel his love for his culture shines. For anyone interested in learning about the language, beliefs and daily habits of indigenous Siberians while enjoying a story of survival against the odds, this novel is a must-read.  

Book #2: “The Sun, My Father” by Nils-Aslak Valkeapää 

This poetry book is an homage to nature, the north and Sami culture, and an important landmark in Sami literature. Although many may not associate Europe with oppressed indigenous cultures, the Sami people, native to the northernmost reaches of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Western Russia, are a marginalized culture that have faced oppression and land dispossession for decades. In spite of these challenges, figures like Valkeapää continue to honor their roots through literature. 

The poems themselves air more on the avant-garde side, they make for beautiful reflections on life, culture, music and the under-appreciated natural landscapes of the far North. My personal favorite poems in the collection are poems 38, 61 and 219. I highly recommend this book for anyone with a penchant for the abstract. 

Book #3: “Last Night in Nuuk” by Niviaq Korneliussen  

This is a 2010’s novel that heavily features internet references, so one will have to forgive the many millenial-isms prevalent throughout the text. “Last Night in Nuuk” is an edgy, yet heartfelt and incredibly vulnerable novel about queer life in Greenland. Written as a collection of hazy night-afters and lengthy text messages, the story follows Fia, a young Greenlander coming to terms with being a lesbian, her brother Inuk who flees Greenland for Denmark following a political scandal, Arnaq, a bisexual woman struggling with substance abuse, and Ivik and Sara, a formerly-lesbian couple whose relationship is rocked as Ivik comes out as a trans man.  

Indigenous cultures are not museum pieces, but dynamic, living things, and Korneliussen’s writing is a beautiful and emotional raw example of Greenlandic youth navigating their identities as Greenlanders in the modern world. Out of the few Greenlandic novels that have been translated to English, I recommend this one the most.  

Book #4: “A Woman in the Polar Night” by Christiane Ritter 

This 1930s work is one of my favorite travel memoirs set in the Arctic. It tells the story of the Austrian woman Christiane Ritter as she abandons her cushy, middle-class life to live on Svalbard, an archipelago north of Europe and home to the northernmost human settlements on the planet.  

Ritter’s expectations of a cozy, cabin environment are disturbed however, when she realizes that her new home is a tiny, isolated cabin far away from any human settlement. And yet, as she’s forced to survive through some of the most extreme trials that nature can throw at a person, she finds a sense of peace and admiration for the harsh, eternal Arctic night. This is a touching — and almost philosophical — story about isolation, survival and what it means to find fulfillment in the absence of societal expectations.