Explorations in the Arctic

“Arctic Eden” is photographer and adventurer Jerry Kobalenko’s ode to the High Arctic, defined as the region north of 74 degrees.

VALERIE BERENYI
Postmedia News

Those who love the Arctic love it a lot, show three books, written by two Albertans and one German.

With gorgeous photographs, all three books serve as a reminder that the Arctic environment is threatened by climate change.

Arctic Eden: Journeys Through the Changing High Arctic, by Jerry Kobalenko (Greystone Books, 2010, hardcover, $45)

When he’s not travelling, skiing, hiking or kayaking in the Arctic — having logged more than 10,000 kilometres doing so — writer, photographer and adventurer Jerry Kobalenko is a resident of Canmore. Really, though, he’s happiest in the North, where he typically spends three months of the year living in a tent.

Arctic Eden is Kobalenko’s ode to the High Arctic, defined as the region north of 74 degrees.

He writes about its history, its geography, its animals — like the astonishingly large Arctic hare — and its people. The accompanying photographs are stunning.

Kobalenko delights in busting myths: in some places, grass grows like a lush lawn; save for hungry polar bears, the Arctic isn’t nearly as hostile as some might think; and adventuring there can be a lazy affair, especially with the 24-hour sunshine.

He was a slow convert to the idea of global warming, but says an evening hike — shirtless, with a hot wind blowing off a nearby glacier — convinced him otherwise. Still, he ends the book on a positive note, writing: “If the High Arctic continues to warm and becomes the subarctic, well, the subarctic is an impressive place, too. I’ll still love it, just as I’d still love it if it ever became colder. The North has never been static.”

Planet Arctic: Life at the Top of the World, by Wayne Lynch (Firefly Books Ltd., 2010, hardcover, $40)

Dr. Wayne Lynch trained as a physician, but left medicine more than 30 years ago to become a professional science writer and wildlife photographer. Much of his time has been spent exploring and photographing the Arctic.

In the introduction to his beautiful book, the Calgarian confesses that he is “addicted” to the North.

His intimate shots of a bull musk oxen’s frosted muzzle, a puffin with a beak full of tiny fish and three Arctic grizzly cubs nursing as their mother lies patiently on her back are worth the price of admission alone.

But his camera also captures the majestic landscape and the tremulous beauty of Arctic plants like purple saxifrage and moss campion.

In words and pictures Lynch makes clear that the top of the world is an amazing place that pulses with life.

The World of the Polar Bear: Third Edition, Revised and Updated, by Norbert Rosing (Firefly Books, 2010, hardcover, $29.95)

The mother bear emerges from her den, filthy after a long winter that included giving birth to cubs. She rolls in the snow to clean her fur as one of her cubs watches from the mouth of den.

It is spring in the Arctic and the beginning of a book that follows the lives and the habitat of the polar bear through the four seasons.

Wildlife photographer Norbert Rosing is from Germany, but he fell hard for the Arctic and polar bears when he first visited the Hudson Bay area near Churchill, Man., in 1983. Since then, he’s returned up to three times a year to study and photograph the Arctic predators.

His work shows how surprisingly playful and tender the bears can be, especially the mothers with their cubs: they’re shown balancing cubs on their backs, snuggling them in the snow and defending them against dangers such as predatory male bears.

To protect further deterioration of the Arctic habitat, he urges people to support the reduction of greenhouse gases and scientific research into the effects of climate change on the animals.