This book was not at all what I expected, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. It is not so much an exploration of climate change or even how climate change is affecting animals, but how those effects on animals have changed the lives of the humans who rely on them. The book states early on that "this heat is ours, this book assumes you agree, and to this end I won't spend much time diving deeply into the science of climate warming." (I am quite appreciative lately of scientists in books saying things along these lines)

Instead, the book delves (quite deeply for under 150 pages) on how climate warming has affected the lives of various Indigenous peoples in the Arctic. Much of the book is spent in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, another chapter in Greenland, and the author makes an effort to always mention a place by its Indigenous name. He travels most frequently with Indigenous people, learns their names for various animals or behaviors, and seems to genuinely take great care and respect for the responsibility of reporting their stories.

The last chapter seemed a bit disconnected as it took place along the Norway/Russia border. And though the author mentions in his acknowledgements time spent with the Sami people, the chapter itself only contains (white) Norwegians and is primarily concerned with the looming threat of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. It also noticeably lacks Indigenous names or perspectives on anything. I would assume, since this book is the culmination of 20 years' worth of trips to various parts of the Arctic, that this trip to Norway was taken shortly after the invasion and so that was the immediate thought, but after so much time carefully spent in the North American Arctic, I would have loved to see a chapter with the Sami or on the Svalbard islands (which are numbered on the map) instead. The penultimate chapter in Greenland is a bit similar, but had fascinating bits of Norse history that made me forgive it a bit, and still dealt with how Inuit Greenlanders viewed the Norse and their excavations.

As the author points out, by the time he started visiting the Eurasian parts of the Arctic, politics with Russia made it impossible to travel there. Which is a shame because there are so few books about Siberians and it would have been lovely if Shea could have completed his goal of circumnavigating the Arctic with the people who make it their home.

A couple notes:

• I started with the physical book and ended up tandem reading with the audiobook, which I highly recommend. The audio is read by the author, but each version takes a bit of creative license over the other, with small phrases rearranged or added here and left out there. Most noticeably, Shea declines to speak many of the longer or more complicated Indigenous words and place names, though he does what seems like a great job at the greater majority of them, and he says Greenland's colonial history reaches back to the early 1800s while the text says 1700s. I can only imagine that the audio was made before the print version was finalized. I still recommend listening and reading!
• Sadly, this is one of those books where the pictures of people and places mentioned are all stuffed into one section in the middle of the book, and had I not curiously flipped through them at one point, I would have missed out on seeing them while I was reading about them.
• The map of the Arctic at the beginning is fascinating. We so rarely make maps based around bodies of water or things that aren't seats of colonial power, and apparently, things like Google Maps don't even show you the Arctic, at least not on my phone. It cuts off a significant portion of the far north. So it was fascinating to see a map of the top of our globe laid out like that, totally throwing manmade ideas of borders and East vs West out the window. Sadly, the PDF download for the audiobook makes the map quite small compared to the two page spread in the print version.
• Finally, this book is essentially written as a series of interconnecting vignettes, each chapter focused around a specific place. It made it incredibly easy to pick up and put down as each smaller section was only 1-4 pages long, so I would definitely recommend it as a beginner nonfiction! It was as if the author was recounting their experiences to you while finding photographs from their journeys, one story after another.

I think the first 4-5 chapters are 5 stars, but the last chapter takes a star away for me. I really respect how the author seems to have made deep connections with and held respect for Indigenous peoples, communities, and traditions. He seemed very careful about not just taking stories and knowledge for this book, which he mentions people were cautious of after an influx of "ologists" in past decades. As another reviewer mentioned, he also seemed to really connect with and care for the landscape and all it holds - a sort of reverence comes across the pages clearly in those first three chapters. This work is clearly important to him and I hope he continues to write about it.

Gorgeous art, adorable characters especially the dog! It felt like watching a Ghibli film with fhe fragments of ASMR-like sequences, which I enjoyed.

In terms of story though, I felt there wasn't enough reason as to why the MC, Ash, would make the decisions they did. Ash is negotiating misunderstandings, wanting to exist authentically with their values and in their true gender identity — these parts were set up well — but running away when actually their family and wider community were safe and supportive just felt disproportionately extreme. Maybe I just can't relate (didn't have safety or a childhood and despite all my research, I still wouldn't know what kids who have safety would do 🤷🏽) and couldn't connect in, which was sad because I was excited for the trans MC. Not for me and my inner child, then, and not sure if I'd gift this to a younger person without a whole bucket of caveats on the side. There were details in the story that continued to not work for me, even for the sake of art and curiosity.

This might be silly, but I'm really annoyed there were no page numbers when there was so much space for them.

Overall, an okay book to flip-through for the art and a quick read.

TW: deadnaming (hidden), misgendering, dysphoria, anxiety, injury detail, animal death (hunting), fire, animal injury