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On Thin Ice Jamie Bastedo Teen Fiction / People and Places / Polar Regions
Ashley Anowiak is in search of a murderous polar bear that may be real or mythical. The only thing for certain is that what she discovers will change her life - and her community's - forever. In spite of its name, no one in the tiny troubled hamlet of Nanurtalik "the place with polar bears" can remember seeing a polar bear in decades. But when a teenager's dismembered body is discovered on a nearby ice road, everyone fears polar bears have returned. The community is thrown into chaos as another suspected bear attack sparks a flury of bullets that whiz through the town during a blinding four-day blizzard. Was it a real or phantom bear? No one can say for sure. Ashley Anowiak is swept into this storm of confusion by her special link with polar bears expressed through the magic of her art and the terror of her dreams. She finds herself on the trail of Nanurluk, a giant bear that has haunted her people for thousands of years. Ashley's bear hunt leads from the frozen catacombs beneath Itkiqtuqjuaq to the jumbled ice fields covering the Arctic Ocean. As she closes in on the bear, Ashley's inner and outer worlds are torn apart, leaving her desperate for any stability she can find. This is the story of a gifted northern youth struggling to find her true home in a
fast-changing arctic, where culture, climate and landscape seem to be crumbling all around her.
Visit the website Jamie set up focused on polar bears in a climate of change
at www.onthinice.ca. "Logging on to any single page of this Web site will show how Canadians are so far ahead of most Americans in thinking - and acting - on the global threat."
Click here to find out more about Jamie. Reviews “This is a book to know about and to put on school and public library
shelves. Lives in the north need more representation in our fiction and this book represents an honourable
effort.” “Bastedo doesn't ignore social problems in the modern Arctic, but they're
peripheral to the main story - Ashley's father is a hard-working broadcaster but her friend Rosie's parents
are violent drunks. In the same way, global warming isn't a main character in the book but it is always present,
its effects always noticeable. This is being marketed as young adult fiction, but people of all ages can enjoy
this book, and learn something from it.” “I hope that people who read this book will begin to understand the impact
of climate change on Inuit culture. Everyone needs to be concerened, not only the Inuit and the polar bears, but
the entire global community. We must act soon before it is too late.” “While readers will be intrigued with the mystical elements of the story as
they are woven into the realistic daily life of a modern Arctic teen, there are also many undisguised messages
about global warming, chaos theory, and man's effect on weather patterns. Human encroachment into animal habitat
is illustrated by a few chapters told from the polar bear's viewpoint, as hunter and hunted.” “Bastedo’s passion for the north leaps off the page. A page-turner. . .
Shot-gunned with one nail-biting happening after another, from floods, to monster-storms, to bear attacks, even
a jumbo jet hurtling out of the sky. . . A fine piece of work from a northern writer.” “The jury chose an effort in which great ambition is rewarded with great
accomplishment. The recipient was well marketed and designed, successfully presenting a strong environmental
message in an exciting, action-packed story tailor-made for teen readers. The adjudicators commented that this
book 'speaks well of Alberta publishing and Canadian YA literature.” |
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