Refraction - by Bruce Rettig (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Refraction recounts the experience of working in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a remote Arctic outpost and home to the largest oilfield in North America. It's the story of one person's journey, told in a series of reflections on a time spent living in a frozen wasteland. Justifying the endeavor as a modern-day gold rush or a romantic odyssey could otherwise be viewed as another distorted image hovering above the horizon-another refraction.

Review Quotes

Bruce Rettig's Refraction brings to mind Christopher Buckley's Steaming to Bamboola, or Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams. Part adventure and part environmental awakening, Refraction carries you off like a cold and quirky carnival ride. Forty years after Rettig's first season in the Arctic, his journey is more relevant than ever.

-David Masiel, author of 2182 Kilohertz, and The Western Limit of the World

Bruce Rettig has written a fascinating memoir of his summers working for a tugboat and barge company on Alaska's North Slope in the mid-1980s. Rettig's photographic descriptions vivify the harsh realities of 12-hour workdays spent chopping ice and snow from tugboats and heavy equipment, stark beauty of the arctic landscape, personalities of the laborers he worked alongside, and budding friendships he forged with local native people. A wonderful coming-of-age adventure that brings up important issues of human impact on the natural world.

-Andrea Ross, author of Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness

It's an honest rendition of one man's experience on the construction of the Alaska Pipeline and how it looks to him now. It's a real look at how our perception of our own experience can change over time. It's not just the story of a pipeline. It's the story of a life, filled with nuances of self-criticism. It will stand on my shelf with McKibbon and Shackleton.

-Michael O'Laughlin, author of Omens in a Dry Season

A captivating and much-needed diversion from the literary tradition that declares as heroes those who venture to the Earth's poles. In Refraction, Bruce Rettig vividly captures the harsh environment north of the Arctic Circle and the people who earn their living there. Refraction honors those workers, illuminating the grueling manual labor that goes into getting oil out of the ground and into our gas tanks, while confronting the massive corporations who profit from that labor, and who have yet to be held accountable for the massive role they've played in creating the climate crisis.

-Tanja Hester, author of Wallet Activism