Friday, August 29, 2014

The Meaning of Ice wins Mills Prize

The Meaning of Ice Wins 2014 William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books
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August 25, 2014 - The Polar Libraries Colloquy is pleased to announce the winner of the 2014 William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books is The Meaning of Ice: People and Sea Ice in Three Arctic Communities, published by International Polar Institute Press. 

The prize winner was announced at an awards ceremony on July 3, 2014 in Cambridge, UK, at the Polar Library Colloquy's biennial conference. The Polar Libraries Colloquy is an international organization of librarians and others interested in the collection, preservation and dissemination of polar information. 

The William Mills Book Prize is awarded every two years and honours the best Arctic or Antarctic non-fiction books published throughout the world. The prize includes a $300 US award and was first presented in 2006. It is named in honour of William Mills, a polar librarian and author, and a core member of the Polar Libraries Colloquy during its formative years.

The 2014 William Mills Prize winner was selected by a group of Polar Libraries Colloquy members from the United States and Canada. Seventeen nominations qualified for consideration this year, the most ever since the inception of the prize.


As the publisher’s description explains, "The Meaning of Ice celebrates Arctic sea ice as it is seen and experienced by the Inuit of Canada, the IƱupiat of Alaska, and the Inughuit of Greenland, who for generations have lived with it and thrived on what it offers. The Meaning of Ice is an important contribution to understanding the Arctic and its people at a time when the region is undergoing profound change, not least in terms of sea ice.”

Saturday, March 1, 2014














Eden of the North
Signe Rink
Translated by L.S. Johanson
September 2014
4.25 x 7.5", 192 pages, $19.95


First english translation of this 19th century novel tracing relationship between traditional Greenlandic life and the culture of their Danish colonizers.

These first hand accounts of Greenlanders have rarely been recorded. Written in 1887, with exquisite poetic detail, the dynamics driving ritual, domestic affairs and women’s place in society are described as never before. 

Signe Miller (nee Rink,1836-1909) was born and raised in Greenland. At 14 she was sent to Denmark to be educated. While there she met and married Johannes Rink, the geologist. Through her husband, they returned to Greenland and began many initiatives, including the first newspaper (Atuagagdliutit, 1861- still extant) and in depth studies of the Greenlandic culture (The Eskimo tribes: their distributions and characteristics, especially in regard to language, with a comparative vocabulary and a sketch-map)

This novel was written after Signe returned to Denmark in 1883, as well as two others in 1886 and 1902 (Eden of the North, 1887). She remains the first female interpreter of Greenlandic culture and maintains a poetic style only achieved by the deepest of empathies developed after many years of living and working among Inuit as a woman and a scientist.