As climate change transforms the landscape of the ice sheet in Greenland and future industries prepare to extract precious metals and petroleum, Jean Malaurie addresses a younger generation of Inuit, caught between assimilation into Western societies and heritage of thinking with the earth and the environment. With his sweeping personal narrative as explorer, scientist, and goodwill ambassador for indigenous knowledge, Malaurie calls on these inhabitants of a young nation to preserve their cultural knowledge and develop a healthful relation between future and past forms of sustainable living.
It is urgent to recognize the prescience of indigenous populations and their obstinate will to respect the land on which they live—not as latecomers to our current times but as precursors to our future.
Jean Malaurie, cultural anthropologist and geographer, was the first Frenchman to reach the geomagnetic North Pole by dogsled on May 29, 1951.
Drew S. Burk is a cultural theorist, editor, and translator of contemporary French philosophy.
