Ice Blinks and Northern Environmental History

Later this season Ice Blinks: Navigating Northern Environmental History will be published by the University of Calgary Press.  I co-edited this book with Brad Martin of Capilano University, and it features an amazing array of authors.  In the weeks to come I'll be presenting in this space some of the themes from the book.

Today, I just wanted to mention the title itself, and where it came from.  "Ice Blink" is an atmospheric phenomenon, but it also expresses the relations between perceptions and experience in the environment, and how both take distinctive forms in the north.  As we explained in the Introduction:

Ice blinks�white glare under clouds, indicating light-reflecting ice beyond the horizon�are a distinctive feature of the northern environment. Long used by travellers for navigation, they are one way in which people have known the north and made their way within it. As natural features that gain their meaning through their use by humans living and travelling in the north, they also exemplify the links between people and nature in this place.

And a little later in this chapter:

This volume presents novel perspectives on this century of transformation. It is the product of a new generation of northern scholars collaborating on the study of the environmental history of northern Canada. Mainly based outside the region�in southern Canada and the United States�they, like northern travellers perceiving an ice blink, are seeking an understanding of conditions at a distance.  The stories they tell concern the evolving relations between people and the northern environment: how this environment has changed over time, how human activities have affected this environment while being themselves shaped by it, and how culture, knowledge, and interests have been tied to these relations. As we will see, these stories, while akin to those of environmental historians elsewhere, take distinctive forms in the north.

For the idea itself of Ice Blink as the title we must thank Tina Loo of UBC -- it was quite inspired, I think.  And we hope it captures one of the central themes of the book: the historical relations between perceptions and experience in northern Canada!