Frostlines - by Neil Shea (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A Recommended Read from Yale Climate Connections

"[Frostlines weaves] together natural history, indigenous perspective, and environmental transformation in the Arctic. The book helps bring a human story to the science of climate change."--Parade

A sweeping exploration of the Arctic--and how it's being transformed by climate change--from National Geographic writer Neil Shea

As warming reshapes our planet, the Arctic--a region that once seemed unchangeable, beyond the reach of modern problems--is quickly coming undone. While the old cold world can still be glimpsed in the movements of caribou, the hidden lives of wolves, and the hunting skill of an Iñupiaq elder, look closer and you'll find a new Arctic appearing in its place.

In Frostlines, Neil Shea blends natural history, anthropology, and travel writing to explore how the beauty, chaos, and power of change in the far north are reflected in the lives of people and animals. He sojourns with a wolf pack on Canada's Ellesmere Island and travels with Indigenous hunters in Alaska, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. He tracks dwindling caribou herds across the top of North America, searches for vanished Vikings in Greenland, and visits the front line of the new Cold War rising between Russia and Europe. What Shea finds is not one Arctic but many--all still linked by shattering cold, seasons of darkness, and a pure, inimitable light.

Frostlines illuminates:

• How Greenland's history has led to Trump's interest in [or obsession with] the country today
• How Russia is using the Arctic as a testing ground for geopolitical confrontations
• Why oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will further threaten Indigenous people and animals
• Why increased ship traffic in the Northwest Passage has profound consequences for the Inuit and global politics

Written with masterful prose and a spark of adventure, Frostlines is an expansive yet intimate revelation of the Arctic during a time of transformation, and a journey along the threshold of a stunning and sometimes frightening world that's emerging right before our eyes.

Review Quotes

"[Frostlines weaves] together natural history, indigenous perspective, and environmental transformation in the Arctic. The book helps bring a human story to the science of climate change." - Parade

"A brilliant exploration of the Arctic...Neil Shea's debut book is something to treasure...Shea interweaves natural and human history, travelogue and climate reporting, without losing sight of how it feels to be in this landscape...His descriptions of the vast backdrop make the individual details all the more arresting...This dramatic camerawork - zooming form wide angle to detail - is what gives the book its momentum." - The Sunday Times (UK)

"A compelling corrective to the public perception of the Arctic...Through an engaging narrative and a profound appreciation of the landscape, [Shea] gives readers a textured and multi-dimensional view into the changing human and animal lives in the Arctic...His approach to animals is part of a welcome shift in nature writing and scholarship--a shift toward appreciation of animals as historical agents in their own right...Though the theme of climate change and its impacts, both large and small, runs through the book like a fracture through sea ice, Frostlines is grounded in hope and wisdom. Shea's Arctic is complex and diverse, full of stories of humans and animals whose lives are embedded in the landscape itself." - American Scientist

"A wistful look at a fast-changing region...Yet another reminder that our warming world is in a state of flux we have barely begun to understand, even as it shifts the very ground beneath our feet." - Financial Times

"A captivating exploration of the Arctic...Shea sketches moving scenes in lyrical prose that emphasizes the interconnectedness of living things...Readers will be transported." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Arresting...Shea recollects his most memorable encounters with Arctic people, animals, and nuna (an Indigenous word for land that carries many meanings), capturing the terror and beauty of a place that many people dismiss as 'big, cold, white, and far away.' What emerges is an elegiac portrait of a region in flux, a land whose ice is melting, whose animals are dwindling, whose elders are dying -- and whose fate is inextricably linked with ours...He lets the stories he gathered speak for themselves, creating reader investment by immersing us in the sublime beauty and singular cultures of this place... Shea's attention to detail and evocative prose do much to sweep the reader up in his experiences...Shea complicates and texturizes a place that many southerners mischaracterize or misunderstand." - Undark

"Neil Shea brings the Arctic to stunning, awe-inspiring life, offering readers a richly detailed, up-close look at the ways in which climate change is transforming the region and the people and animals who call it home...His writing is both poetic and practical, conveying the sweeping scale of his adventures and the deeply personal experiences of the people who invited him into their lives. Striking color photos round out the immer­sive experience that is Frostlines. It's an enlightening, inspiring read, with Shea as readers' heartfelt guide to the Arctic." - BookPage (starred review)

"National Geographic writer Shea has traveled throughout the far north and illuminates it with an emphasis on climate change. . . A fascinating, if grim, portrait of a region that's getting less cold." - Kirkus Reviews

"Shea's observations are striking and stirring. His book does triple duty as a travel narrative, natural history title, and tale of societal adaptation to a changing environment." - Library Journal

"Magnificent and moving. Shea writes with the magic of an aurora illuminating how life is rapidly changing across the cold expanses of the Arctic, one of the most fascinating but misunderstood expanses of the Earth. This stunning book--part travelogue, part history, part popular science--will give you a new appreciation for a place, and its people, and how they together are confronting the upheaval of the modern world." - Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh paleontologist and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

"Profound and moving. In prose that shines with insight and astute observation, the intersecting stories of people, animals, and the land come to vivid life in these pages. Shea's brilliant writing offers clear-eyed and respectful meditations on the meanings of community and belonging in times of upheaval, in the past, present, and future. In these stories, we see the life of the Arctic not only as central to the environment and geopolitics but, most important, for what it means to be in living, reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human world." - David George Haskell, biologist and two-time Pulitzer-finalist author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

"From wolves and whales to weaponized borders, Neil Shea cinches a singular storyline across the Arctic cap of our rapidly changing planet, bearing witness to loss and conflict while holding tight to wonder and awe." - Meera Subramanian, author of A River Runs Again

"With evocative and time-bending writing, Neil Shea honors the historic agency of animals and peoples too often idealized and 'managed.' As climate chaos warms his beloved Arctic faster than anywhere else on earth, Shea reminds us that we do not have to destroy the place where people still respect the rhythms of animals and their miraculous migrations." - Trish O'Kane, author of Birding to Change the World

"Frostlines transports readers to far-flung regions of the Arctic, where they encounter majestic wolves and elusive caribou. Neil Shea's captivating prose reveals the Arctic's extraordinary diversity and illuminates the ecological, social, and cultural consequences of a changing climate in one of the world's most important--and least understood--regions." - Amanda Bellows, author of The Explorers

"Lush and heartbreaking, Frostlines lays the Arctic bare to reveal a place of life, beauty, and ancient interdependencies. Neil Shea is both a careful observer and a gifted writer, weaving a narrative steeped in loss, wonder, and warning." - Jonathan C. Slaght, author of Tigers Between Empires and Owls of the Eastern Ice