The importance of naming places and having their historic significance resonate through time is brought home by one of the particularly thoughtful activist-scholars of this volume, the late art historian and folklorist of the Inupiaq Susan Fair. She reminds us how powerful the words "Ground Zero" have become. Similar, she argues, are many places of legendary and living meaning that have power for Northern indigenous peoples. Through meticulous respect for their toponymns, working closely with indigenous elders and scholars, we can begin to understand and protect meaningful landscapes as well as indigenous worldviews and history. At its best, the authors of this large and diverse volume shift the reader's consciousness into indigenous ways of knowing about 'cultural' and 'ethnographic' landscapes as they relate to humans and animals. In several cases, the authors are themselves indigenous scholars. Multiple 'emic' (insider) views are discussed, as are 'etic' (outsider) regimes of thought that have justified extensive despoiling of Northern landscapes. Several authors point out that what is 'wilderness' to some (whether to be preserved for pseudo-pristine wonderment, or exploited for minerals and oil) is comfortable home turf and terra cognita for others.
The able editors of this well-illustrated reference volume have organized selections from authors actively engaged in indigenous land claims and historic preservation projects across the North. Their three main sections are: state policies; close-to-the-ground accounts of 'protection' (or its failure); and regional approaches. A fourth section is a fascinating comparative chapter by Claire Smith and Heather Burke on Australian aborigine legal experiences that are to some extent precedent-setting, followed by a brief epilogue from the Canadian archeologist Ellen Lee, in lieu of a synthetic conclusion.
Probably the most successful section is "Protecting the 'Invisible': Stories from the Arctic Zone." Covering Siberia, Alaska, Iceland and Norway, the chapters together make the point that 'what is invisible' – not obviously seen through human habitation or architectural monuments – can be just as important to indigenous keepers of local traditions and lands as what is visible. This has enormous legal implications. For the Khanty of the Yugan River in West Siberia, described by Olga Balalaeva and Andrew Wiget, painstaking documentation of sacred places of ancestral worship is crucial for protecting those places from the rapidly encroaching energy industry. Keeping the 'zones' secret only makes them vulnerable to prospectors' ability to claim 'ignorance' of their locations or meanings. In the current wild-east, development-oriented Russia, the secrecy of the sacred becomes a luxury for Nenets as well, according to Galina Kharyuchi, although her own restrictions as a Nenets woman at certain worship shrines is eloquently described. Secrecy, or at least various degrees of information gate-keeping, becomes more possible in contexts where indigenous people have relatively more control over their lands and data banks, for example in the Sami case (described in Ingegerd Holand's chapter on state policies in Norway in part one and Torvald Falch and Marianne Skandfer's chapter in part three) and in the dramatic Nunavut (Inuit) case (described in Susan Buggey's overview of Canada, and briefly mentioned Thomas Andrew's chapter on Northwest Territories).
Several interwoven themes deserve to be highlighted. One is the difficulty of defining the 'sacred' when different 'local' peoples place overlapping claims and emphases on the same lands. Another is the importance of sensitivity to differences in historical interpretations. For example, specialists, including locals, may disagree on ethnic attributions for certain sites; or one group's 'resistance' may be another's 'rebellion,' a point discussed well by Donald Callaway. A third theme is that several legal regimes, models and levels must be considered for each case of land protection, claim or recovery. A fourth is the increasingly necessary potential for productive multicultural partnerships. This is possible particularly when indigenous leaders support bicultural educational systems so that their youth can become "strong like 2 people," as the Dogrib elder Elizabeth Mackenzie advocates (related by Thomas Andrews). Many of the featured chapters, including that by Igor Krupnik on St. Lawrence Island, describe collaborative work with elders and youths for historical documentation and protection of 'landscapes' that become more than a string of isolated and bounded 'sites' managed by distant federal authorities.
The major theme that holds this volume together is the concept of "ethnographic landscape," encouraging a systemic, contextual and network-oriented view of land and seascapes that have multiple historical and current meanings for indigenous peoples, broadly defined. Norwegian fishermen, Icelandic saga-spouting tour guides, Sami parliamentarians, Siberian reindeer breeders and Native American corporate leaders are all included as 'indigenous,' if not 'Aboriginal.' Such a liberal approach is recognized as controversial by some of the authors, most of whom are sensitive to issues of identity complexity. But without such breadth, this volume would not have the potential to become a reference work for understanding peoples of the 'Circumpolar North' and their legal statuses, in their full interaction with each other.
A few notes should be sounded concerning how this volume can be read most productively. Given its scope and its sometimes repetitious points about landscape (p. 4, 20, 75), it is unlikely to be perused straight through as a monograph. Rather, readers may well select several non-consecutive chapters for insights into particular featured regions or groups and their current political rights regarding the land and sea. Readers interested in the Sami (earlier called Lapps) will find material on Norway, but not Finland and Sweden. Siberia is represented by the Khanty (Ostiak), and Nenets, but not others. Occasionally, stilted or unexpected translations occur, including gender-specific ("man") rather than neutral language (p. 347). The linguistic terms 'etic' and 'emic' are transposed in one chapter (p. 149). While some leaders in scholarship and advocacy concerning the North (eg. A. Pika, M.-F. Guedon, G. Fondahl, P. Vitebsky, G. Osherenko) are missing from references and discussion, the editors were not striving for national or disciplinary balance. More positively, several authors come from archeology educational backgrounds and have become administrators of parks and cultural preservation programs. They bring interest in preserving archeological legacies into a focus that is at once pragmatic and integrated into other, more multidisciplinary concerns. In sum, this volume is a tour de force by a group of committed scholars who bring new meaning to the term "engaged anthropology."